I am searching for information about Morton ‘Vic’ Vicker. I have reason to believe he was in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. I did not meet Vic until November of 1969 in Aguacate, Cuba, on the first Venceremos Brigade.* We bunked together, cut cane together, and spent a lot of time talking. I was...
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A preview of a Q&A with Robin D.G. Kelley that will appear in the December issue of The Volunteer.
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Guardian Newspapers has published two reviews of the new book by Giles Tremlett, ‘The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War’. On Saturday 3 October, The Guardian’s review by Dan Hancox gave the following misleading impression: ‘The brigades drew an astonishing array of international literary figures – Orwell, Hemingway, Spender, Auden’. None of...
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The University of Washington’s Stroum Center for Jewish Studies added part of Dr. Joseph Butwin’s oral history project to its Digital Jewish Studies online collection in 2018. Butwin noted that “initiative” for the project came the “Vets themselves.” The web pages discuss the project’s history and offers individual pages on five veterans: George Watt,...
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Originally published in The Volunteer, V. 1, No. 1 1978. September 21, 1938, Hill 281, Sierra de Caballs. “The men of the Botwin and Shevchenko companies distinguished themselves in particular by their heroic defense of every inch of ground. They resisted to the last grenade when the enemy broke into their trenches. Nearly all...
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Edward Muscala’s hastily scrawled graffiti on the wall of the Hermitage of San Gregoria de Aguaviva during the battle of Teruel was preserved by the town. Ann Marti first reported on the inscription in her article In the Footsteps of the Lincoln-Battalion. This relic of the war was recently spray painted by vandals. Town...
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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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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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While the cellist Pablo Casals became an international symbol for Catalan culture and anti-Franco resistance, the reputation of his pupil Gaspar Cassadó is limited to the music world, and his national roots are often overlooked. Cassadó’s reputation never fully recovered from a public fallout with his maestro.
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Framing its protagonist’s journey to defend Spanish freedom as an extension of Palestinian Arab resistance at home, Hussein Yassin’s novel sheds light on the turbulent history and the political and social contexts of pre-1948 Mandatory Palestine.
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When Cora Cuenca, an ALBA workshop alumna, teaches journalism to undergraduates in Seville, she invites them to consider the Spanish Civil War in personal terms. The legacies of the war, she writes, continue to weigh on Spain: “Education is political. There are no gray areas when dealing with fascism.”
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Twenty-seven years after the Dayton Peace Accords ended the bloody war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, ethnic tensions in the region have been etched into law. The Center of Peacebuilding builds bridges through interethnic dialogue.
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Spanish conservatives who have rejected any accounting for Francoist crimes are nevertheless willing to make amends with the descendants of the Sephardic Jews who were expelled five centuries ago. The contradiction is only apparent.
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Here is the keynote address that Jeff Chang gave at ALBA's 2022 Bay Area Gala. Click here to see the videorecording.
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When 93-year-old Rosa Ruivenkamp died in 2019, in her nightstand her son found a blue notebook that had belonged to her brother Evert, who had been active in the resistance and was murdered by the Nazis in 1943. The notebook—which, fortunately was not thrown out—turned out to contain the diary notes Evert had written...
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Around the turn of the millennium, the association of British veterans of the Spanish Civil War merged with the Friends of the International Brigades to form the International Brigade Memorial Trust (IBMT), ALBA’s sister organization in the UK. Like ALBA, the IBMT is dedicated to keeping alive the memory of the antifascist volunteers who...
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For more than 80 years, historians have ignored the important role played by thousands of women soldiers in the People’s Army of the Spanish Republic. A new dissertation takes a crucial first step to correct the record.
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Eighty-six years after the last soldiers in the Lincoln Brigade left Spain, their legacy continues. As veterans shared their stories with friends and family, they shaped the lives of their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. The family of Lincoln veteran Oiva Halonen, a Finnish-American volunteer, is one example.
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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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