Harold Smith Hoff was born in Kansas in 1906 and moved with dust-bowl refugees to El Centro California with his father, a Church of the Brethren Elder. In 1920, the family gave up farming and moved to Glendora CA. Harold attended Citrus Union High School and had one year of college at LaVerne College...
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In the summer of 2012, I set out on the trip of my lifetime: To discover the father I never knew. I had to go to Spain to see many of the places and events he described in the journal he wrote as an ambulance driver in Spanish Civil War from 1937-1938.
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Jules Paivio, the last Canadian veteran of the Spanish Civil War, died last week at the age of 97. He volunteered to fight for the Spanish Republic at the age of 17. His family had taught him to "believe in justice, liberty and fair play for all." Yet, when asked why he volunteered...
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Today marks the 40th anniversary of Augusto Pinochet's CIA-backed coup, overthrowing the democratically elected presidency of Salvador Allende. In the weeks that followed, thousands of leftists were arrested, beaten, and murdered, including the famous folk singer Víctor Jara. After tracking down Jara's murderer to the United States, Jara's widow Joan filed a lawsuit against...
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The last stand of the British Battalion in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 will be remembered on Tuesday 24 September 2013 with the unveiling of a memorial in the village close to where the final day’s action took place exactly 75 years ago. The ceremony will be held at 12 noon in Corbera d’Ebre in...
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In the first days of Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 coup, Chilean Army officer Pedro Pablo Barrientos tortured and killed popular folk singer Víctor Jara. Jara, a respected artist who had joined the Communist Party, was arrested the day after the coup with hundreds of other students and professors at Santiago Technical University. Although Jara’s widow and...
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As reporters draw parallels between the Spanish Civil War and the Syrian Civil War, two recent events in Spain serve as a reminder that the war has yet to be fully resolved. A Russian tourist recently found an unexploded howitzer shell dating from the Spanish Civil War off the coast of Mallorca....
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Eugenio Moreno's recent statue of Francisco Franco, meant to draw attention to Franco's continuing legacy in Spain decades after his death has drawn criticism from the Spanish far right, which claims that the 37-year-old Madrid artist 'insulted Franco's honor.'
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On August 24, a sea of people packed around the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his historic “I Have a Dream” speech.
The “Dream” has not been realized, but not been forgotten. More than 200,000 people came...
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A 25-minute video by Marshall Mateer of the IBMT Annual Commemoration at the International Brigade memorial in Jubilee Gardens, London, on 6 July is now on the IBMTnews channel on YouTube. This year is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Ebro, which was fought mainly in Catalonia, and a strong Catalan theme runs...
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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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