This is the story of my service in the Spanish Civil War during the years 1937 and 1938 as a soldier in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade of the 15th Brigade of the International Brigades.
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Aaron Shulman, who moved to Spain a couple of years ago, compares his happy personal life with the stunningly desolate social and economic landscape around him:
To say that unemployment is bad in Spain is like saying that the sea is watery. The situation is that oceanically obvious. Since the Read more »
Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards took to the streets in 16 Spanish cities on Saturday Feb. 23 to protest against austerity and demand true democracy. They were chanting “You got envelopes, we got cuts!”
Check out El Pais coverage and photos here.
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Alan Warren writes announcing two 75th Anniversary events concerning the XV Brigade and the Great Retreats, to be held on March 30-31. Saturday 30th March 2013: The 75th anniversary March to remember the Retreat of the Lincoln Washington battalion between March 31st and April 2nd 1938 and the death of, among many others, Robert Merriman,...
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In a long interview with ElDiario.es, Baltasar Garzón, winner of the 2011 ALBA/Puffin Award, talks about the many commitments he has taken on since his disbarment two years ago, while denouncing the policies of Spain's current government and the persecution of WikiLeaks' Julian Assange, whom he represents. Read the whole interview
Dictator Augusto Pinochet, who was ousted through a referendum in 1988, contemplated what would in effect have been a second coup, the AP reports based on documents published by the National Security Archive, whose senior analyst Kate Doyle received the ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism last year:
The formerly...
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“George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia 75 years on”: Len Crome Memorial Lecture, organized by the International Brigade Memorial Trust. Saturday 2 March 2013 at the Manchester Conference Centre, Sackville Street, Manchester M1 3BB, 11am-5pm. To mark this year’s 75th anniversary of the publication of George Orwell’s ‘Homage to Catalonia’, the International Brigade Memorial Trust (IBMT)...
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On Sunday, Feb. 17, despite chilly and windy weather, 50,000 people converged to Washington, DC demanding that President Obama block the Keystone XL pipeline and take action against climate change.
You can view photos here.
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Ralph S. Abascal (1934-1997), attorney and defender of farmworkers’ rights, argued the case that resulted in the ban on the use of DDT and other deadly pesticides in California’s fields and orchards. His father, who had wound up in California after emigrating from Cantabria, Spain, lost three brothers to the Republican cause in the...
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Our friends in the UK at the International Brigade Memorial Trust have just sent us their latest newsletter: 28 pages with articles Lou Kenton and David Lomon, a new permanent IB display in Liverpool, anti-Francoist guerrillas in Andalusia, IBer AC Williams, and much more. Read it in pdf here.
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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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