A brief article in the March 24, 1939 student paper, The Cornell Daily Sun, with the title “ASU Spring Dance Will Be Tonight” mentioned that the dance was “in honor of Cornell men who fought in the war in Spain.” The American Student Union noted that volunteers Victor Tiship and John Shulman from the...
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Notes from the Biographical Dictionary Project. Saul Freidberg provided several short biographical sketches on fellow veterans. The sketches provide insight into Friedberg as well. Murra is mentioned several time in Rolfe’s book The Lincoln Battalion and I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the references. I would however like to supplement what...
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Those who read Ed Lending’s Los Rompedores or Jim Persoff’s The Noblest Fruit of Them All may be interested in viewing Gustav Marten’s album of Spanish Civil War photographs. Martens served in the 14th Battery “Dimitrov” DECA (anti-aircraft) along with Lending and Persoff. There are several photographs of Persoff and thumbnail sketches of the...
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Notes from the Biographical Dictionary Project. Saul Freidberg provided several short biographical sketches on fellow veterans. The sketches provide insight into Friedberg as well. While over the years I have always felt that my relations with Bill Titus were very important to me, my memories of him lack any real specificity, so that...
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The January 2, 1937 issue of the Socialist Call announced the formation of a 500-man volunteer military formation: The Eugene V. Debs Column (hereafter Debs). The Debs would serve with the Republican armed forces in Spain. The American Socialist party initiated an...
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Henry J. Foner, the popular emcee at the reunions of the Veterans of Abraham Lincoln Brigade in New York City for many years, died on January 11 at age 97.
Mr. Foner who lost his academic job along with his three older brothers in the 1940s because of Communist ties, became a labor leader of...
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Notes from the Biographical Dictionary Project. Saul Freidberg provided several short biographical sketches on fellow veterans. The sketches provide insight into Friedberg as well. by Saul Friedberg, April 23, 1996 Joe Gibbons Although Gibbons was a very close and dear friend, I don’t remember very much about him beyond that I knew him in...
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Blast from the Past is an ongoing series of posts reprinting articles from historical issues of The Volunteer. Cultural Life in a Concentration Camp By Morgan Havard, London Chairman of the International Brigade Association The Volunteer for Liberty, Volume 5, No. 1, January 1944 I cannot imagine feeling any more impotent and helpless than I...
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From the Spanish Civil War to Nuremberg and Beyond PDPs: 22.5 Graduate Credits: 1 Offered by: Professional Development›History and Social Studies Description What is fascism? Where did it come from? How does it impact human rights? How did ideology shape the Spanish Civil War and WWII? What legacies did they pass on in the...
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The global union federation ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) has released an illustrated booklet recounting the organization’s fight to support the lawful Republic during the Spanish Civil War, and how the lessons it learnt there allowed it to work with Allied intelligence to fight Nazism in World War Two. It tells the inspiring story...
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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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I. In the Beginning Second child, Bernard, born March 1, 1915 Older brother, my father, Jacob (Jack), born June 3, 1912 Younger sister, Roslyn, born (June 1, 1922) disabled, hospitalized, died February 10, 1942 Their father, Abraham, died March 21,1930 Their mother, Nettie, died April 29, 1953 Bernie Brilliant student, graduated High...
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The title of this new occasional feature of The Volunteer is the Esperanto word for “archive.” In it, we will present, translate, and contextualize iconic non-English language documents related to the anti-fascist struggle in Spain.
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In recent years, citizen groups in Leipzig and Madrid have fought to preserve the buildings that were backdrops in two of Robert Capa’s best-known photographs. Their steadfast dedication has created two sites of historical memory whose significance extends far beyond Capa’s original images.
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On November 8, 1937, Salaria Kea, a 26-year-old African American nurse from Ohio, had been in Spain for seven months and one day. The country was in disarray. Half its territory was controlled by fascist rebels. Cities were being bombed, and civilians were killed by the thousands. Thousands more were forcibly displaced. But Kea...
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The graphic novelist Paco Roca was honored this summer with an exhibit at the Instituto Cervantes. His latest book tells the true story of a woman who goes in search of the remains of her father who was executed by the Franco regime and buried in a mass grave.
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The Jewish Museum in New York City is presenting the first U.S. retrospective in nearly half a century dedicated to social realist artist and activist Ben Shahn (1898-1969). Curator Laura Katzman reflects on Shahn’s social justice work as it relates to the antifascist struggles of his day.
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The African American veterans of the Lincoln Brigade who joined the US armed forces during World War II were demoralized and embittered by the gross inequalities and color lines they experienced daily. The purported stakes of World War II—crushing fascism and saving democracy—intensified their outrage, which turned into militancy.
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In the spring of 2024, while cleaning up an old family home, Kate Fogarty came across the typescript of a play about the Lincoln Brigade written by her grandfather, Charlie Nusser, who served in Spain from February to October 1937 and fought in the US Army during the Second World War. Ten months after...
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In this new occasional feature of The Volunteer, whose title is the Esperanto word for “archive,” we will present, translate and contextualize iconic foreign language documents related to the anti-fascist struggle in Spain. If you have a favorite document in a language other than English, let us know!
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A dossier on the lies and deceptions surrounding the Spanish Civil War could fill a library, and it’s become commonplace to underscore the mendacity of the journalists reporting on events in Spain. Still, a careful analysis of the way that major international news agencies covered the war tells a more complicated story.
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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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