"The Last Hero of the Battle of the Ebro," reads the headline in El País reporting the discovery of the remains of a Republican soldier last week, during an excavation of trenches that made up the last line of defense in the last moments of the famous Spanish Civil War battle. Given...
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David Granville reviews Michael Quinn's new biography of Michael O'Riordan, former IRA member, International Brigader and Irish Communist Party leader for over four decades, for the Morning Star:
Quinn's book, covering the years 1938-1947, spans O'Riordan's return from Spain - where he had continued the fight against fascism begun in...
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José Sanchís Sinisterra 1987 blockbuster Spanish Civil War play ¡Ay Carmela!, very successfully adapted to the screen by Carlos Saura in 1990, has just opened in a new production at the GALA Hispanic Theater under the direction of José Luis Arellano García. The show is "stirring" and "eloquent", Celia Wren wrote...
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James Salter reviews Hemingway's Boat, Paul Hendrickson's new biography of the writer of For Whom the Bell Tolls, in the latest NYRB:
Hemingway’s Boat, which covers the last twenty-seven years of Hemingway’s life, from 1934 to 1961, is not, as is made clear at the beginning, a conventional biography....
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ALBA condemns the execution on September 21 of Troy Davis. In remembrance of Troy Davis and Mark MacPhail.
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Amy Goodman's Democracy Now features an interview with anthropologist David Graeber, son of Lincoln vet Kenneth Graeber, about the "Occupy Wall Street" campaign. "Occupy Wall Street," finds it inspiration, among other things, in the recent mobilization of Spanish indignados:
As President Obama prepares to outline a deficit-reduction plan that includes tax increases,...
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In today's Times, Kathryn Sikkink, a Minnesota political scientist, makes the case for the kinds of human rights persecutions that Baltasar Garzón helped institute:
My research shows that transitional countries — those moving from authoritarian governments to democracy or from civil war to peace — where human rights prosecutions have taken place...
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Mike Hall writes for the AFL/CIO blog about a new online exhibit on the activism of Paul Robeson, who famously traveled to Spain in support of the Spanish Republic and the volunteers of the Lincoln Brigade:
Paul Robeson, once the premier African American artist of the 20th century, is well known...
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Manus O'Riordan, Ireland Secretary of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, alerts us to the resuscitation of charges in relation to Irish IBer Fran Ryan that have already been refuted. On 11 September 2011, the Irish edition of News International’s Sunday Times carried the following report by Lorraine Wemyss:
The campus of Queen's University Belfast was festooned with Nazi...
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Jim Jump sends us the latest newsletter from the International Brigade Memorial Trust, ALBA's British sister organization. Among the many items of interest: news on the sundry 75th anniversary celebrations in the UK and Spain; a report on the celebration at Jubilee Garden; an obituary for Nathan Clark; a portrait of John Harnor,...
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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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