The President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, officially opened the Annual General Meeting of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, held in Liberty Hall, Dublin, on October 15. Seated, left to right, are IBMT Ireland Secretary Manus O’Riordan, President Higgins, Sabina Higgins and IBMT Chairperson Richard Baxell. Standing, left to right, are IBMT North West...
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An official inauguration of a monument to the International Brigades was held in front of the Austerlitz train station in Paris on October 22. This was the place where the International Brigaders rode trains to Spain 80 years ago. Among crowded participants (French, Swedish, Danish, Russian, German, Dutch, Italian, Canadian, Polish, USA, UK, Puerto Rico, Romanian, etc.), there was Vicente Almudever (98...
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The Foreign Language Department’s Spanish program at El Camino Community College (Torrance, California) is commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War with a series of activities and lectures from November 8 to 12. The five-day program includes talks on mass graves, pictorial art, military fortifications, news coverage in the US of the conflict,...
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Blast from the Past is an ongoing series of posts reprinting articles from historical issues of The Volunteer. Albin C. Ragner: Mostest First-Line Infantryman by Benjamin Goldring The Volunteer, Volume 5, Number 2, June 1983. Albin C. Ragner, Lincoln Battalion Veteran, does not appear to have made it into any books or any print on...
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First to Fight: American Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) Explore this pivotal event in Spanish–and world–history and culture! Parallels to today include Syria, Ukraine, & the rise of rightwing populism. Oct. 29 – Northampton – Breakouts in Spanish and in English. $25. Lunch and materials provided. Led by Kelley Brown, Easthampton HS....
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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. Eugene David Bronstein By Saul Freidberg, April 22, 1996 Bronstein was born in NYC about 1915. He went to CCNY, from which he was graduated in 1934, where he...
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Blast from the Past is an ongoing series of posts reprinting articles from historical issues of The Volunteer. A Shout of Triumph By Lloyd L. Brown The Volunteer, December 1975, p. 7 Like millions of people around the world, my fellow-Soldiers at a U. S. Army base were overjoyed to hear that Hitler’s forces...
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Blast from the Past is an ongoing series of posts reprinting articles from historical issues of The Volunteer. “My Grandfather, Sam Gonshak,” by Amber Glassberg Originally appeared in The Volunteer, V.9, No. 3, November 1987. An essay submitted for an Honors English Class for which Amber received and A++ by her teacher Mrs....
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Late this May 2016 I attended the 6th annual “Anti-Fascist Harbor Event” in the port of Germany’s second largest city Hamburg, on the occasion of the 80th Anniversary of the formation of the Inter-national Brigades. It was organized by the German KFSR: Kämpfer und Freunde der Spanischen Republik ’36-’39, the Fighters and Friends of...
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Blast from the Past is an ongoing series of posts reprinting articles from historical issues of The Volunteer. “What Wonderful People” by Leo Rosenberg Originally published in The Volunteer, Volume 10, Number 3, December 1988. One of my sons, who lives in Cleveland, sent me a human interest item the other day. I had...
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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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Although this text by Ivens is little known—and has never been translated before—it offers an eye-opening reflection on the power of his filmmaking.
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Antifascism has long been synonymous with American values. In 1934, student activists at New York’s City College arguably understood this better than many do today.
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After the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, the Seegers family did not hesitate to join the resistance. They had experience fighting fascism: their son Piet had fought for the Spanish Republic. When Tom King started digging into his family history seventy years later, he fell from one surprise into the other.
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Tina Modotti’s short life took her from Italy to North Beach and from there to Mexico, Berlin, Moscow, and civil-war Spain. Rightly known as a pathbreaking modernist photographer, she was also a radical activist. “Modotti spent the second part of her working life fighting for revolution.”
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Kirsten Weld has spent years studying Latin American dictatorships and the citizens who fight to hold them accountable. That experience has proven valuable in her current role as president of the AAUP chapter at Harvard, which, in March, sued the federal government for targeting students and faculty—and won.
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Targeted by the far right, Rutgers historian Mark Bray and his family went into exile in October. Speaking with The Volunteer from Madrid, he reflects on the current political situation. “Fascism shamelessly takes over institutions that, under liberal norms, are supposed to remain neutral.”
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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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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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