The Volunteer, Volume 1, No. 1, 1978. I cried when I heard you died, Larry. The tears flowed while rage racked my insides How could you die Larry not you not yet we are almost there! ...
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Originally published in The Volunteer, Volume1, No. 1, 1978. In view of the importance of the ‘Yates Project’ – refer to letter, national mailing of March ’78 – we called James Yates with some last minute questions. He very kindly sent us some last minute answers. Without a doubt his is a ‘work’ that...
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A long-time ALBA supporter contacted the office to inquire about a possible volunteer Herbert Rathman. In the mid-1960s, Rathman was the Science Chairman at Rhodes Preparatory School, a private school located at 11 West 54th Street in Manhattan. Rathman had told his students that he was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War and served...
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ALBA wholeheartedly rejects white supremacy and racial inequality. We condemn the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and the systemic police brutality in black communities throughout the United States.
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We write in mourning for the loss of our dear friend, Perry Rosenstein, Founder and President of the Puffin Foundation, Ltd., who passed away in Teaneck, NJ on April 3 after a brief struggle with the COVID-19 virus.
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The Volunteer, Volume 5, No. 3. We were surrounded. We were assembled on a hill. It seemed hopeless – except that the Estado Mayor was with us. “They’ve gotten us out of tough spots before.” That was the general comment. I was particularly aware of Dave Doran (i) who seemed so calm and unperturbed...
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The Volunteer, V. 5, N. 3 Editor’s note: Here are more excerpts from the log which Sid Kaufman kept in the last days of the war. You will remember, from the transcript of his tape which we printed in our last issue, that Sid got out of Spain much later than most of us....
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The Albuquerque Museum hosted ALBA’s Shouts from the Wall: Posters and Photographs Brought Back from the Spanish Civil War from September 8, 1996 to October 27, 1996. Four biographical sketches were prepared to highlight volunteers from New Mexico. Mildred Rackley (1906-1992) and the Spanish Civil...
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The Albuquerque Museum hosted ALBA’s Shouts from the Wall: Posters and Photographs Brought Back from the Spanish Civil War from September 8, 1996 to October 27, 1996. Four biographical sketches were prepared to highlight volunteers from New Mexico. Henry George Rauert Passport address: 139 Candelaria, Santa...
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The Albuquerque Museum hosted ALBA’s Shouts from the Wall: Posters and Photographs Brought Back from the Spanish Civil War from September 8, 1996 to October 27, 1996. Four biographical sketches were prepared to highlight volunteers from New Mexico. Ralph Lawrence Neafus Passport address: 110...
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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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Kurzke's memoir The Good Comrade was published this past May by the Clapton Press, after having been tucked away for years, known only to a small number of specialist historians. In this new introduction to the book, Richard Baxell explains why it's so valuable.
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Thirty years ago, I traveled around the United States equipped with a cheap tape recorder I spoke to 39 Jewish-American veterans of the Spanish Civil War. When they went to Spain in 1937, very few of the people I spoke to would have invoked their Jewishness for putting their lives on the line.
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When people think about mass graves in Spain, most relate them to the war years. Yet an estimated 50,000 victims were executed after the war. This summer, I visited a cemetery where the ARMH are exhuming the remains of some of these victims.
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When a friend first pointed me to Tina Paterson’s colorized portraits of International Brigade volunteers, I was skeptical. Yet the images are disturbing and strangely powerful. Throwing time out of joint, they undermine the idea that the Civil War is a remote historical occurrence.
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A found manuscript in the Basque Country leads to a surprising correspondence.
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In July last year a small group gathered—socially distanced—at the memorial to the International Brigades in London. As Jeremy Corbyn spoke of the “incredible sense of solidarity with people around the world” to a camera in a near-deserted Jubilee Gardens, I uploaded a short video as a personal act of remembrance on the International...
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Salaria Kea, the only woman among the close to 100 African American volunteers who left for Spain from the United States, married an Irish ambulance driver. Who was John O’Reilly?
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Born in Leeds, England, Syd Harris ended up in a Chicago orphanage when he was five. Fifteen years later, he volunteered for the Lincoln Battalion. After the war, as a well-known labor photographer and journalist, he was targeted by the FBI. A former boxer, he also acted as Paul Robeson’s personal bodyguard when the...
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Colleen Darby never met her uncle, who died in Spain five years before she was born. A reconstruction of his life and the circumstances of his death.
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Richard Sennett was in his late twenties when he found out his father had served in the International Brigades defending the Spanish Republic. So, it turned out, had his uncle.
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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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