The United States and World Fascism: Human Rights from the Spanish Civil War to Nuremberg and Beyond is the title of ALBA’s professional-development program for high school teachers in Social Studies, Spanish, Art, and Language Arts. Join us this Tuesday, November 6 at NYU’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center (53 Washington Square South, New...
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Remember This, William P. Smith, Jr., Lincoln Battalion The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 1, No. 9, August 9, 1937 REMEMBER THIS I’ve heard you sobbing in the night And know your fears are not for fright But for the dead. Those Comrades lost...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, V2, No. 25, July 19, 1938 This anniversary wouldn’t seem complete to me without some mention of the “Vancouver Stiffs” who are fighting side by side with the rest of the International against fascism. It isn’t strange when...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, V.2, No. 30, August 26, 1938 The special Brigade machine gun company came up to reinforce the 58th Battalion on July 28th. Saully Wellman its commissar had already been forced out of action by a shrapnel wound; and when on his very first day with the Lincolns the commander Capt....
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Information about the Iraqi volunteers was brought to light in the memoir of Flint water crisis whistleblower Mona Hanna-Attisha in her new book What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City (Random House 2018). She devotes a number of pages to the Iraqi volunteers, especially to her...
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At the age of 70, I gathered my courage and learned how to use the Internet. The first thing I wanted to do was find out anything I could about my father, Earl Frederick Vail. I began with Ancestry.com. Setting out on a journey that would take me I knew not where. I was...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 2, No. 3, January 29, 1938 SNOWMAN IN MADRID Franco, Franco, Generalissimo, The little kids are making you Of effigies in snow. Of you, Franco, Generalissimo! They’re making you and...
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Issue number 48 (2-2018) of ¡No Pasarán!, the magazine published by the International Brigades Memorial Trust (IBMT), magazine is now online and viewable in full color, here. The issue features interviews with Geoffrey Servante, almost certainly the last British International Brigade veteran, and eminent Spanish Civil War historian Paul Preston. The next issue of the magazine...
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On Beards –A Reply, By M. H. The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 2, No. 2, January 13, 1938 In a recent issue of “The Volunteer for Liberty” we find a scholarly article deriding the many beard wearers in the International Brigades. A very astute and interesting article –to the beardless. But to the man...
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What’s In A Beard? Unattributed The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 1, No. 28, December 27, 1937 Beards were introduced by Sampson an ingenious Easterner who put over the slogan “Hair for Strength” and made big money. Like other speculators he wrecked his career on a woman and ended his life in an orgy of...
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The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) is an educational non-profit dedicated to promoting social activism and the defense of human rights. ALBA’s work is inspired by the American volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Learn more at our website or
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New information about the New Zealand-born Spanish Civil War surgeon Doug Jolly (1904-1983) has emerged following the recent publication of his biography, Frontline Surgeon.
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On September 24, 1945, Dr. Barsky delivered this speech during the Spanish Refugee Appeal rally at Madison Square Garden.
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In 1944, Barsky wrote A Surgeon Goes to War, an 18-chapter memoir of his time in Spain, which was never published but can be consulted at NYU’s Tamiment Library. This is the first chapter.
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Self-effacing and shy though he was, Dr. Edward Barsky’s experience in Spain made him an outspoken activist, tireless organizer, innovative frontline surgeon, and political prisoner. “Eddie is a saint,” Hemingway wrote. “That’s where we put our saints in this country—in jail.”
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The Volunteer is thrilled to honor Dr. Barsky on the fiftieth anniversary of his death.
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For Edward Barsky, political and humanitarian activism were two sides of the same coin. Those who persecuted him begged to differ.
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The time she spent in civil-war Spain loomed large in the life of Martha Gellhorn, the St. Louis-born war journalist. “The truth is that Martha could not stop thinking, feeling, and writing about her Spanish experiences.” “Objectivity bullshit.” That’s what Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998) called the journalism of her day. Her letters to personalities like...
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Among the thousands of Jewish volunteers who joined the International Brigades were many descendants of the Sephardim. What was it like for them to “return” to Spain? Three case studies: Lini de Vries, César Covo, and Samuel Nahman, aka Manny Harriman.
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How the 22-year-old Jewish American dancer Janet Riesenfeld performed flamenco to help raise money for the Second Republic under fascist attack.
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Why did Jawaharlal Nehru, future prime minister of India, visit civil-war Spain in 1938? As it turned out, the triangular relationship between Britain, Spain, and India had deep cultural and geopolitical implications.
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ALBA's project to provide a complete list of the more than 2,800 individuals who left from U.S. territory to fight with the Spanish Republic
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