On November 6, the Spanish delegation to the United Nations said that it would not review the 1977 law which gave amnesty for political crimes committed during the civil war and General Francisco Franco's dictatorship. According to Baltasar Garzon, at least 152,000 civilians living in territory controlled by Franco's Nationalist forces disappeared between...
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This weekend! Impugning Impunity: A Human Rights Documentary Film Series with eight powerful and inspiring films exploring issues of governmental abuse, historical memory, civil rights an racial inequality.
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On Nov. 14, 2013, McNally Amphitheatre at Fordham Law School was jam packed with people. The title of the event was “They’re watching us: So what? Assessing the dangers of the new surveillance powers” featuring a distinguished panel: Glenn Greenwald (Journalist), James Bamford (Author and NSA expert), Ariel Dorfman (Novelist, Playwright and Human Rights...
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Our friend Manus O’Riordan sends along the following: PHILOMENA, SEAN ROSS ABBEY and ANNETTE v HILDEGARDE Michael A. Hess had been Deputy Chief Counsel of the US Republican National Committee under President Reagan and had risen to Chief Counsel under President Bush Senior by the time of his death in 1995. So, what...
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Our compañeros at the Association of Friends of the International Brigades (AABI) write with an announcement: On Saturday November 9 AABI will perform the annual celebration in honor of the International Brigades to mark the 77th anniversary of his arrival in Madrid to assist in its defense. The main event will be the unveiling of a plaque to...
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The Asian Review of Books just published a review article by Juan José Morales on the book Los Brigadistas Chinos en la Guerra Civil: La Llamada de España (1936-1939).
“Glimpses into the lives of some of these volunteers give us insights as to who they were. Chen Wenrao, from Taishan, Guangdong, known...
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Earlier this month, Pope Francis 'beatified' over 500 Spanish Clerics 'martyred' in the Spanish Civil War, despite opposition asserting that the Catholic Church has not yet apologized for its role in the war and Francisco Franco's dictatorship. In spite of the UN's recent efforts to open a full public investigation of Franco's crimes,...
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Today, October 22, marks 100 years since Robert Capa's birth in Budapest, Hungary. One of the most famed photojournalists of the 20th century, Capa's reputation has been challenged in recent years by claims that the "Falling Soldier," arguably his most famous photo, was staged. Earlier today, the International Center of Photography released one...
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The family of John Dos Passos, the American novelist and public intellectual who began visiting Spain in the 1920s and was deeply involved in the Spanish Civil War, has announced the launch of a new website dedicated to the author's legacy: www.johndospassos.com. A press release about the launch is here.
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Len Crome lecture: Taking Sides: Artists and Writers and the Spanish Civil War Date/Time: Saturday, 1st March, 2014 11 am – 5 pm (optional Spanish evening meal 6pm – 9pm) Speakers: Republican Education and the Arts: Carl-Henrik Bjerstrom The Representation of the International Brigades in Spanish Cinema: Carmen Herrero Gerda Taro and Robert Capa: Photographing War: Jane...
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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
sign up to receive email updates from ALBA. Support ALBA through a tax-deductible gift! To inquire about a donation, please contact the ALBA office at info@alba-valb.org or 212-674-5398.
Camp Kinderland was first established 102 years ago by Jewish working-class immigrants who wanted to take their children out of the city’s hot summer streets and, through the camp program and its related Yiddish shul, familiarize them with their progressive Jewish traditions and heritage. Through the years, Camp Kinderland has upheld the principles that...
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Lincoln vet Bill Gresham’s Nightmare Alley cemented his fame as a noir novelist. Yet most of his Spanish Civil War poetry was never published—until now. William Lindsay Gresham (1909-1962), the Lincoln Brigade veteran whose bestselling crime novel Nightmare Alley (1946) inspired two films, was never the same after the Spanish Civil War. He rarely...
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“The past isn’t dead,” William Faulker famously wrote; “it isn’t even past.” The quote came to mind me while attending a remarkable gathering last September in the ancient Spanish town of Azuara, a small community of roughly 500 inhabitants, 40 miles south of Zaragoza (Aragón). Azuara was transformed by the Spanish Civil War. Over...
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The first American to die in the Spanish Civil War was a 47-year-old mining engineer from New York who had married a Spaniard, moved to Madrid in 1933, and covered the 1934 revolution for the US media. As soon as he heard about the 1936 coup, he joined the Republican army. Leo Edwin Fleischman...
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The way we think about George Orwell today was profoundly shaped by the Cold War—and by the groundbreaking work of Peter Stansky, who started writing about him shortly after his death. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in the summer of 1936, Peter Stansky was four years old—and although he lived in Brooklyn,...
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From March 1 to August 3, 2025, The Tampa Bay History Center will host an exhibition titled “Invisible Immigrants: Spaniards in the US, 1868-1945.” Co-curated by Luis Argeo and James D. Fernández, this show uses materials—photographs, documents, letters, keepsakes—digitized or on loan from the family archives of the descendants of those immigrants, as well...
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Teesside, an industrial region in Northeast England that in the nineteenth century grew to be a center of shipbuilding and iron and steel production, spawned no fewer than thirty International Brigade volunteers. Of the nine who were born in the borough of Stockton-on-Tees, moreover, six played leading roles in Spain: five rose to the rank of Lieutenant...
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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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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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