This coming fall, the life of one of the Spanish Civil War's 4,000 “lost children” will be adapted for the big screen. María Luisa Toole, the film’s inspiration and central focus, fled her home in San Sebastian, Spain at the age of 11 in 1937 and did not see her mother for 15 years...
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Last week, Maria Sans, who inspired Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, died in Mataro, Spain at the age of 91. Set during the Spanish Civil War, For Whom the Bell Tolls tells the story of Robert Jordan, an American in the International Brigades, and his relationship with a volunteer nurse named...
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Despite an economic bailout, the future may still not be bright for Spain's economy. Financial experts say that while the country's banks have lost substantial amounts of money in the real estate crash, "Spain's job woes are due largely to labor laws that protect older workers at the expense of younger ones," writes...
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Next Sunday, the right-wing Chilean group La Corporación 11 de Septiembre will hold an event in honor of Augusto Pinochet, one of the most violent dictators of all time. The event will take place in Santiago's Caupolicán Theater, and according to the Unión de Oficiales en Retiro de la Defensa Nacional, 1,500 out of...
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Known mostly for his cosmic surrealist and modernist paintings, a new side of Spanish artist Joan Miró is currently on display at Los Angeles' National Art Gallery. The show, entitled "Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape" will be on display until August 12, and showcases Miró's political works. As sacbee.com reports, "People often...
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Joining forces with ProPublica, Ira Glass's This American Life recently featured Fredy Peccerelli and Kate Doyle, winners of the 2012 ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism, in an extensive and gripping piece of reportage focusing on the case of Dos Erres. Dos Erres is a remote farming town in rural Guatemala were more...
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"How do you bring tolerance and democracy to a country in which a murderous military, which over the years killed some two hundred thousand of its own citizens, is effectively still in power?," the New Yorker's Peter Canby asks in a piece about Fredy Peccerelli and Kate Doyle, winners of the 2012 ALBA/Puffin...
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Ten men were arrested by Spanish police officers on the suspicion of illegally possessing war weapons, in addition to an array of vintage firearms from the Spanish Civil War and World War II.
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An article last month about the fate of veterans who fought with the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion by Canadian author Terrence Rundle West has spurred new discussion over whether the Mac-Paps should be honored in Remembrance Day celebrations or if their cause is unworthy of remembrance as they traveled to Spain against the direct wishes...
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The Abraham Lincoln Brigades Archives celebrated the Brigade's 76th anniversary last Sunday in Berkeley, California by honoring Lincoln Brigader Delmer Berg, and activists Kate Doyle and Fredy Peccerelli.
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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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