In this 1983 interview with Martha Gellhorn, the renowned journalist, novelist, and war correspondent discusses in great length her views regarding the Great Depression, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the Vietnam War, among other human rights-threatening historical events. Throughout the nearly half-hour long conversation, Gellhorn staunchly lambasts the idiocy of...
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Canción Gitana, an international flamenco dance company, will present a distinctive take on the life of legendary Spanish poet, Federico García Lorca, reports sussexexpress.co.uk. The dance-biography will feature myriad narrators, guitarists, and dancers and will cover the entire scope of Lorca's life, from birth to his tragic assassination by the Phalangists, all in...
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Is the violent dictatorial conflict in Syria comparable to that of Spain in the 1930s? Over the past week a number of opinions regarding this subject matter have been published on the Internet, including that of international affairs expert Barry Rubin. Stated Rubin in a recent blog post:
In several respects, the Syrian civil...
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Yvonne Scholten, biographer of the Dutch miliciana Fanny Schoonheyt, are interested in obtaining information on the Dutch Lincoln Brigade volunteer Bart van der Schelling. He was admired as a baritone–he recorded Songs of the Spanish Civil War, a number of them with Pete Seeger. In later life he acquired a reputation as a primitive painter. He and...
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John Hanc tells the moving story of a nephew discovering the story of his uncle, Louis Stoloff, who left his home on the Lower East Side to die fighting fascism in Spain:
When Stoloff left New York City, he was 27, the median age of the 2,800 Americans who went to fight....
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On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses Spain’s economic crisis, and the legacy of Franco. In the last decade Spain has begun to unearth some of the mass graves of the hundreds of thousands of people who were killed in the 1930s by both sides in the civil war. Paul Preston discusses what he...
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Richard Bermack and Jeannette Ferrary have shared their photographs of the 2012 ALBA celebration in the San Francisco Bay Area. See a slideshow here.
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David Schwittek has just put up the 15-minute video summary of the ALBA's 2012 New York City celebration, held on May 13, including the ceremony for the 2012 ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism, given to Kate Doyle and Fredy Peccerelli. Watch the video here:
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The 75th Anniversary of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion spurs discussion over the fate of Canadian Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. More found here.
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BBC Mundo released a short video interviewing three of the Basque children who were sent to England 75 years ago.
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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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