Spain's cooperative newspaper La Marea, which just launched its new website, has published an op-ed column about last year's verdict by the Spanish Supreme Court that closed the judicial avenue as a way to seek reparation and justice for the victims of Francoism (while acquitting Baltasar Garzón after having disbarred him in another case). Reading the...
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Last month, an Argentinian judge named María Romilda Servini de Cubría, called for Antonio González Pacheco's extradition. One of the Franco's most notorious torturers, Antonio González Pacheco, was reportedly spotted running in a Madrid half-marathon.
On Sunday, El Mundo newspaper published a photograph of González Pacheco that shocked many of his alleged...
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While Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon was giving a speech on proposed abortion reforms three pro-abortion activists, associated with the feminist group Femen, staged a protest in the public gallery of Madrid’s parliament. The three women who had written “abortion is sacred” on their chests while chanting the phrase were taken into police custody. Lara...
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In his new book, Franco’s Crypt, British biographer Jeremy Treglown challenges the idea that during the years of the Franco regime Spain was a intellectual and cultural wasteland. Mr. Treglown writes about subversive elements in the arts. Many paintings, books, and other works of arts in Spain, he argues, used symbolism, hyper realism, and...
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Raphael Minder, writing for the New York Times, highlights the recent indictments of former Francoist officials by the Argentine judge who, invoking universal jurisdiction, has taken up the case brought by victims of the Franco regime:
When the Argentine judge in the case, María Romilda Servini de Cubría, issued arrest...
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The United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances closed its visit to Spain yesterday with a poorly attended press conference at which the two UN representatives presented the Spanish government with a long list of urgent tasks: “The State must assume a leadership role and engage more actively to respond to the demands...
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The exhibit “Chile Vive” featuring historical posters from Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity Government in Chile (1970-73) is on show at El Taller Latino (2710 Broadway, NYC) until November 2. (See here for a review in the Indypendent.) Curators are Andrea Arroyo and Carol Smith, who sends along the following: I had the great privilege...
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Juan Arana writes (for a version in Spanish, see below): Today, September 29, 2013, a group of friends and sympathizers of the International Brigades, brought together by Luis Granell, a writer and journalist from Zaragoza, gathered in La Puebla de Híjar, Teruel (Spain) to pay tribute to Sam Levinger and all the other members...
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In 2011, a Chilean judge requested the extradition of Former American Navy Captain Ray E. Davis in connection with the murders of Americans Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi after Pinochet's 1973 coup. However, it appears that Davis had been living in a Santiago nursing home for the last year, before dying of a "multisystemic...
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The New Yorker's David Denby has followed up his negative review of Ben Urwand's new book, The Collaboration: Hollywood's Pact with Hitler--which claims that major Hollywood studies actively collaborated with Nazi Germany--with a detailed blog post pointing out additional errors and omissions:
Urwand leaves the impression, despite some perfunctory nods to the Hollywood Anti-Nazi...
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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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