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 Her previously unpublished Spanish Civil War novel Savage Coast has just been released, edited by Rowena Kennedy-Epstein (see here for a sneak peek...
Read more »
Our friends at the International Brigade Memorial Trust have announced their annual commemoration in London (poster here)
Read more »
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...
Read more »
At his Jaily News blog, Nacho García reports on the attempt to remove the monument to the International Brigades in Madrid, the monument to the Lincoln Brigades in New Hampshire which is now threatened with being auctioned, and the status of the monument to the Brigades in Burgos. The Jaily News is inspired by and named...
Read more »
The Spanish authorities are not investigating crimes under international law committed during the Civil War and Franco period, sending the message that impunity for human rights abuses is allowed, Amnesty International said in a new report that was released yesterday. The report, titled Time Passes, Impunity Remains, examines how the Spanish authorities have refused to investigate...
Read more »
Around 200 people gathered on Saturday at the monument to the International Brigades on the campus of the Complutense University to protest the removal of the monument ordered by Madrid’s highest court. Among the speakers was University President José Carrillo, who said his office still has not received the court’s decision, and who vowed...
Read more »
As veterans, family, and friends of the International Brigades protest the Supreme Court of Madrid's decision to remove the IB Memorial at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), The Guardian's David Mathieson reports on the dangers of rewriting history.
Read more »
The Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Madrid (TSJM) has ordered the removal of la Cuidad Universitaria's monument to the International Brigades. A private attorney, Miguel Garcia Jimenez, had filed an appeal to the Administrative Court attempting to block the monument two days before it was unveiled on 22 October 2011 for the...
Read more »
Carles Geli, writing for El País, highlights some compelling stories from the newly translated Los brigadistas chinos en la Guerra Civil: La llamada de España (1936-1939), by Hwei-Ru Tsou and Len Tsou
Read more »
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.
Although this text by Ivens is little known—and has never been translated before—it offers an eye-opening reflection on the power of his filmmaking.
Read more »
Antifascism has long been synonymous with American values. In 1934, student activists at New York’s City College arguably understood this better than many do today.
Read more »
After the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, the Seegers family did not hesitate to join the resistance. They had experience fighting fascism: their son Piet had fought for the Spanish Republic. When Tom King started digging into his family history seventy years later, he fell from one surprise into the other.
Read more »
Tina Modotti’s short life took her from Italy to North Beach and from there to Mexico, Berlin, Moscow, and civil-war Spain. Rightly known as a pathbreaking modernist photographer, she was also a radical activist. “Modotti spent the second part of her working life fighting for revolution.”
Read more »
Kirsten Weld has spent years studying Latin American dictatorships and the citizens who fight to hold them accountable. That experience has proven valuable in her current role as president of the AAUP chapter at Harvard, which, in March, sued the federal government for targeting students and faculty—and won.
Read more »
Targeted by the far right, Rutgers historian Mark Bray and his family went into exile in October. Speaking with The Volunteer from Madrid, he reflects on the current political situation. “Fascism shamelessly takes over institutions that, under liberal norms, are supposed to remain neutral.”
Read more »
I. In the Beginning Second child, Bernard, born March 1, 1915 Older brother, my father, Jacob (Jack), born June 3, 1912 Younger sister, Roslyn, born (June 1, 1922) disabled, hospitalized, died February 10, 1942 Their father, Abraham, died March 21,1930 Their mother, Nettie, died April 29, 1953 Bernie Brilliant student, graduated High...
Read more »
The title of this new occasional feature of The Volunteer is the Esperanto word for “archive.” In it, we will present, translate, and contextualize iconic non-English language documents related to the anti-fascist struggle in Spain.
Read more »
In recent years, citizen groups in Leipzig and Madrid have fought to preserve the buildings that were backdrops in two of Robert Capa’s best-known photographs. Their steadfast dedication has created two sites of historical memory whose significance extends far beyond Capa’s original images.
Read more »
On November 8, 1937, Salaria Kea, a 26-year-old African American nurse from Ohio, had been in Spain for seven months and one day. The country was in disarray. Half its territory was controlled by fascist rebels. Cities were being bombed, and civilians were killed by the thousands. Thousands more were forcibly displaced. But Kea...
Read more »
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
Search the Database