Judge Baltasar Garzón, recipient of the first ALBA/Puffin Human Rights Award earlier this year, will stand trial on January 17 and 24 for two of the three cases pending against him at Spain's Supreme Court. In both, the principal charge is prevarication, that is, knowingly overstepping judicial boundaries. The January 24 stems from...
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Several months ago, President Zapatero appointed a committee of experts to put together a report with recommendations on the future of the Valle de los Caídos, the pharaonic monument and burial place of José Antonio Primo de Rivera (founder of Spain’s fascist party, Falange) and the Generalísimo himself, Francisco Franco. The committee issued its...
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The plaintiffs in the case against Franco's repression that is being handled by the Argentine courts (see previous Volunteer coverage here) have requested that the judge, María Servini de Cubría, travel to Spain to interview victims of Franco's repression, allowing them to testify. The plaintiffs have also presented a response to the report issued...
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This coming Wednesday November 30th, at 6pm ALBA is co-sponsoring a symposium on the Spanish Civil War Photographs of Agustí Centelles at the King Juan Carlos I Center in New York City (53 Washington Sq S), where the exhibit Centelles in_edit_oh! is up for another couple of weeks. With the participation of...
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The Spanish daily Público reports: Spain’s Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts has uploaded to the Ministry of Culture’s youtube channel a selection of 93 film documents from its historical archive and from the Spanish Civil War holdings of Spain’s Filmoteca. Many of the Civil War documentaries were included on a wonderful DVD collection...
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A day after the landslide conservative victory in Spain’s general elections on Sunday, the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (ARMH) has announced the discovery of the remains of Nicomedes Fernández, miner from the town of Nerva (Huelva) who was killed in February 1938 at age 34. The new government of Mariano Rajoy,...
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I had come to Burgos from New York City in order to lend my presence in representing the families of the former prisoners at San Pedro de Cardeña. My father, Lincoln Brigade Veteran Hy Wallach, had been incarcerated there during 1938-1939. The ensuing events of the weekend would repeatedly bring to mind the...
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Nancy Wallach, daughter of Lincoln vet Hy Wallach, spoke recently at a gathering in the former concentration campo of San Pedro de Cardeña, where the Francoists held her father, along with Sidney Rosenblatt, Max Parker, Carl Geiser and many other IB prisoners of war (see the Jaily News blog). This is the...
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It was in 2006 that I first saw this phrase, on a button worn by a young man on the uptown 6 train. I was on the subway heading up to the Museum of the City of New York for a meeting related to the exhibition “Facing Fascism: New York and the Spanish Civil...
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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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