From our friends at the IBMT: One of Spain’s leading campaigners for justice for the tens of thousands of victims of Franco’s dictatorship will address the annual commemoration this Saturday (5 July 2014) for the British volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War as part of the legendary International Brigades. Emilio Silva will...
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Franco’s Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory since 1936. By Jeremy Treglown. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.)
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Our friends at the International Brigade Memorial Trust are getting ready for their annual gathering at the IB monument in Jubilee Gardens, London: Saturday July 5,2014 IB Memorial, Jubilee Gardens, South Bank, London SE1 Assemble 12:30, program runs to 2pm Music from Maddy Carty and Na-mara Speakers include Emilio Silva of Spain’s Association for...
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The actress and activist Ruby Dee, a long-time friend of the veterans of the Lincoln Brigade, passed away this week at age 91. From her obituary in the New York Times: Ms. Dee went from being a disciple of Paul Robeson to starring with Mr. Poitier on Broadway. She was a featured player in the...
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Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, has been elected a member of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his accomplishments with the EJI, NYU reports: The American Academy of Arts and Sciences elected 204 new members this year, including Nobel Prize winner in chemistry Dan Shechtman; Pulitzer Prize...
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This coming May 20-23, the Fundación Internacional Baltasar Garzón is sponsoring an international conference on the challenges facing the principle of Universal Jurisdiction, whose application was recently curbed by the Spanish government (see Adam Hochschild's piece in the New York Times). Participants include Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch, Wolfgang Kaleck, general...
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“In most countries, there is no statute of limitations for murder. Should there be one for torture?” Adam Hochschild asks in a New York Times op-ed today; In Spain, neither charge can be brought against anyone who worked for the harsh, long-lasting regime of Francisco Franco, because of an amnesty law that eased the country’s...
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Anna Martí, who has been following in the Lincolns' footsteps for The Volunteer, sends this video (with English subtitles) of her recent journey re-tracing the night time retreat between Batea and Corbera over the 1st and 2nd of April 1938.
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Marshall Mateer has produced a video report (running for just under 10 minutes) of the IBMT’s conference, Taking Sides: Artists and Writers on the Spanish Civil War, which was held in Manchester on March 1st. Separate videos of all four lectures will be posted on the IBMTnews YouTube site in due course.
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On February 1, 2014 I had the honor of bringing fraternal greetings from ALBA to the International Brigades Commemoration Committee, where an overflow crowd met to honor these men from Belfast who joined common cause in the earliest battlefields in the war against fascism in Spain. The International Brigades Commemoration Committee exists to...
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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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