Get to know two members of the ALBA community.
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Founded by the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Get to know two members of the ALBA community.
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On July 25, 1937, the New York Times’ John T. McManus interviewed Joris Ivens, a young Dutch movie director who had just arrived in the United States. What sparked the interview was the premiere of The Spanish Earth, a documentary about the Spanish Civil War financed by a handful of American intellectuals that included...
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As Congress returns from its summer vacation, for the first time in a generation it will confront the meaningful prospect of enacting immigration reform legislation. That reform is even a possibility is due in large part to the courage, militancy, and strategic vision of undocumented immigrant youth across the country, whose risk-taking campaign...
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The wandering Dutchman Bart van der Schelling painted with Willem de Kooning, sang with Woody Gunthrie and Pete Seeger, fought fascists in the Lincoln Battalion, and is credited with the lyrics to "Viva la Quince Brigada"--yet much of his life remains shrouded in mystery. Yvonne Scholten investigates.
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As a child growing up in Madrid, I frequently used to ask my mom, María Luisa Jerez Marín, about her parents, whom I had never met. My grandmother, Modesta Marín, died of cancer at the early age of 42. And my grandfather, Arturo Martín, I was told ‘died in the war’, like so many...
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“This is the most photogenic war anyone ever has seen.”* Estas palabras transcritas por Claud Cockburn carecían, en plena guerra civil, de perspectiva, mas no de perspicacia. Cierta magia hubo en esta contienda que la convirtió en epifanía de un nuevo tipo de conflicto bélico: violento y despiadado para una población civil que fotógrafos,...
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Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain until 1975, was obsessed with the notion of a powerful international conspiracy—led by Jews, Masons, Communists, and other “reds”— against the “new” Spain that emerged from his victory in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. He referred to this plot in the very last speech he gave on October...
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Among many other Spanish Civil War commemorations this year, it may be interesting to note that July 2013 marks the 75th anniversary of one of the conflict’s most bizarre episodes. In December 2005, Professor Sandie Holguín of the University of Oklahoma published a piece of research in the American Historical Review, was based on...
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Several hundred undocumented migrants die each year of heatstroke or at the hands of organized crime as they attempt to cross the deserts of Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. Law enforcement officials struggle to identify the bodies, while families in Mexico and Central America wait anxiously, not knowing what happened to their relatives.
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President Barack Obama has escalated the Bush administration’s use of targeted killing with drones and other methods. Drones, which avoid U.S. casualties, are more palatable to the American people than ground invasions such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of the 366 U.S. drone attacks that have killed more 3581 people in Pakistan...
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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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Teesside, an industrial region in Northeast England that in the nineteenth century grew to be a center of shipbuilding and iron and steel production, spawned no fewer than thirty International Brigade volunteers. Of the nine who were born in the borough of Stockton-on-Tees, moreover, six played leading roles in Spain: five rose to the rank of Lieutenant...
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The first thirty-six Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for Phase IV were submitted December 30, 2024. Phase IV is intended to focus on volunteers on whom we have minimal information. At some point in the future, I plan to resubmit some volunteers who were returned as not found or on whom no information...
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My grandfather (Nana), Suresh, moved to the United States in 1959 as a young man on a student visa pursuing his master’s degree. His parents, my great grandparents, sought value in being ‘foreign educated’ and bringing his education home – to Mumbai, India to run their family business. 2 years after my Nana moved...
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Peter N. Carroll, a respected and prolific writer, poet, and US historian, died after a short illness on September 16, surrounded by his family. He was 80. Born in New York City in 1943 to a secular Jewish family, Peter grew up in the Bronx and Queens, where his father worked as a composer,...
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LA RÉPUBLIQUE -QUOTIDINEN DE COMBAT RADICAL ET SOCIALISTE, February 5, 1938 Foreign Volunteer Arrested On March 27 last, 29 North Americans were arrested on board the boat Sans-Pareil while they were attempting to reach the Spanish Coast. They were sentenced to a prison term for violating the decree of February 18, 1937 on the...
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The “Spanija” series translates selected autobiographical accounts by Yugoslavian and Montenegrin volunteers of their actions in the Spanish Civil War. Dr. Ray Hoff used Google translate from Croatian to English and he edited the selections. As this is a machine translation, the idiomatic features of Croatian or Serbian and the translation of names and...
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The Spanija series translates select autobiographical accounts by Yugoslavian and Montenegrin volunteers of their actions in the Spanish Civil War. Dr. Ray Hoff used Google Translate from Croatian to English and he edited the selections. As this is a machine translation, the idiomatic features of Croatioan or Serbian and the translation of names and...
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Peter Verburgh’s translation from the French Newpaper Le Journal about a group of 29 Americans arrested in France. “29 American Volunteers Arrested in Muret” Le Journal, 5 April 1937 Toulouse, 4 April- The Control services of the Non-Intervention Committee do not remain inactive, especially with the help of the French Police and Gendarmerie. Thus...
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ALBA Board Member Steve Birnbaum made the trek on Memorial Day to the Home of Eternity Cemetary in Oakland, California to pay tribute to ALB veteran Hans Joachim. Joachim was born in Berlin, Germany in 1906 and moved to the US in 1924. He served in Spain with the George Washington Battalion and later...
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Please find attached photos of my visits to the graves of Lester Rowlson and Tersil Obriot last weekend. I left a brigade flag and a fresh white rose at each. ,,, I was also proud to include aspects of my Clapton CFC scarf; you might have heard of this small football club in London that...
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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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