On July 8, a delegation organized by Friends and Family of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade met with Juan Ramón Martínez Salazar, the Consul General of Spain and Íñigo Ramírez de Haro Valdés, Attaché for Cultural Affairs, to follow up on the letter to the Ambassador protesting the removal of the IB monument in Madrid,...
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The annual commemoration in honor of the International Brigades was held in London on July 6. See a slideshow here, courtesy of photographer Guy Smallman and the IBMT. More pictures, courtesy of Almudena Cros of the Asociación de los Amigos de las Brigadas Internacionales (AABI), on Facebook here.
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(Versión en castellano.) On July 3 the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) became the first organization from the United States to join the Plataforma por la Comisión de la Verdad sobre los Crímenes del Franquismo (Platform for a Truth Commission on the Crimes of Francoism). As ALBA is entrusted to sustain and preserve the legacy...
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Dublin IBMT member Luke O’Riordan has posted a 1971 Irish TV programme (watch here) on his late grandfather, Irish International Brigader Michael O’Riordan (12 November 1917- 18 May 2006), a veteran of the 1938 Battle of the Ebro, whose 75th anniversary is being marked this year. Luke has also posted a recording of his recently...
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Supporters of the legendary International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War will gather in Jubilee Gardens in London’s South Bank from 12.30pm on Saturday 6 July. Next to the park’s International Brigade memorial they will commemorate the 2,500 volunteers from the British Isles who defended the Spanish Republic against Franco, Hitler and Mussolini between...
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Chela Scott Weber, associate head of the Tamiment Library, which houses the ALBA collection, writes in the NYU Libraries newsletter on a new donation, The Joseph North and Helen Oken North Papers: The North Papers span the 1910s through the 1960s, most of them from 1930 to 1960. Joseph North was a journalist who covered...
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Amy Goodman at Democracy Now! gets the latest news on Edward Snowden from Michael Ratner, an attorney to Wikileaks and Julian Assange, member of ALBA's Honorary Board, and president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional RightsRead more »
Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980) was an American poet who happened to be in Spain in July 1936, covered the Civil War as a journalist, and would revisit it time and again in her later work. Her previously unpublished Spanish Civil War novel Savage Coast has just been released, edited by Rowena Kennedy-Epstein (see here for a sneak peek...
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Our friends at the International Brigade Memorial Trust have announced their annual commemoration in London (poster here)
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Ralph Fasanella’s first gallery retrospective celebrates New York City’s bridges, skylines, and tenements; your neighbors, my neighbors, our memories and our aspirations. These pictures draw you in to conversations. You cannot help but stop to comment on them to your friends, the stranger next to you at the gallery, who will soon bond with...
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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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