Writing for the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, Raphael Minder explains the continuing controversies in Spain over Franco and his legacy:
the war and its victor,Francisco Franco, still generate plenty of heated debate in Spain. One of the unexpected and...
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The Association of Friends of the International Brigades (AABI) has just announced the Fifth Brunete Memorial March, to be held in Spain on July 2. See for more information the flyer (pdf).
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In response to the Guardian´s request for father's day letters, Julie Norton writes to her father, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War who died in 1958:
I was too young and self-absorbed to appreciate that actually you were a hero, a veteran of the Spanish civil war. You didn't see much...
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Guy Hedgecoe covers the continuing controversy over the Valle de los Caídos for the Deutsche Welle:
Three decades after the transition to democracy that followed Franco's death, the Socialist government intends now to turn the monument into a symbol of reconciliation between the two sides in the Civil War, which started...
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The AP reports:
Spanish prosecutors are investigating 849 cases of newborn children stolen from their mothers and sold to other families for profit, the country's attorney general said Friday. Candido Conde-Pumpido said 162 cases had already been referred for trial and only 38 have been dropped for a lack of evidence. It is well...
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Bernard-Henry Lévy pays tribute to Jorge Semprún, the Spanish novelist and public intellectual who died earlier this month:
He had the eyes of a warrior, but his gaze became veiled and a bit haunted when he spoke of "his" dead -- glorious elders of the Spanish Civil War, companions of the maquis...
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Our friend Manus O'Riordan writes:
On June 6, 2011, Athol Books of Belfast, Northern Ireland, published a new web booklet on its site entitled The Vindication of Brigadista and Union Man Jack James Larkin Jones: in refutation of the British intelligence campaign of character assassination. This booklet brings together a series of five articles written...
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In the first piece of positive judicial news for Judge Baltasar Garzón in a long time, the Supreme Court has announced the recusal of five of the seven Supreme Court justices initially assigned to the tribunal in charge of judging Garzón for alleged abuse of power when opening an investigation into crimes committed by...
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The death earlier this week of the Spanish-French novelist Jorge Semprún Maura at age 87 has spurred dozens of reflections on the importance of his life and work--both intimately tied up with the major events and movements of the twentieth century. Semprún, who wrote most of his books in French, was the son of...
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PBS's History Detectives airing on June 28, 2011, includes a moving episode on the friendship between Lincoln Brigaders Sol Fellman and Doug Roach, featuring interviews with Matti Mattson and ALBA's Jim Fernández. View the whole 18-minute segment here. Be sure to check the listings of your local PBS station for more details. 
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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