Features

Premature Antifascism and The Power of Self-Identification

February 25, 2024
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Premature Antifascism and The Power of Self-Identification

“Oh, you were a premature antifascist,” the chair of the Yale Classics department replied to Bernard Knox when, during a job interview in 1946, Knox told him about his stint with the International Brigades preceding his US army service during World War II. “I was taken aback,” Knox wrote later. “If you were not...
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How Contemporary Spanish Photo Books Redefine the Memory of the War

February 25, 2024
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How Contemporary Spanish Photo Books Redefine the Memory of the War

Contemporary Spanish photographers are finding new ways to return to the memory of the Civil War, departing from the sober documentary approach that was dominant until recently.
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Ben Shahn Returns to Spain, or the Intangible and Untimely Heritage of Anti-Fascism

February 24, 2024
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Ben Shahn Returns to Spain, or the Intangible and Untimely Heritage of Anti-Fascism

We talk about the “return” of Picasso’s Guernica to Spain, even though that massive painting had never been here before its “repatriation” in 1981. The magnificent show “Ben Shahn: On Non-Conformity” curated by Laura Katzman and on display until February 26 at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, elicits a similar sense:...
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Finding Ruby: A Memoir

February 17, 2024
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Finding Ruby: A Memoir

Richard Rothman is Special Pro Bono Counsel to Weil Law Firm, where he previously served as co-head of Complex Commercial Litigation. In 2023, Rich was honored with the New York Law Journal’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. In his forthcoming memoir Finding Ruby, Rothman explores the lives of two grandfathers of his who fought with...
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Spanish Connections: A Memoir

February 17, 2024
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Spanish Connections: A Memoir

Mark L. Asquino (born in 1949) is a Foreign Service officer who retired in 2015 after a long career with postings including in Latin America, Europe, Central Asia, and Africa. Asquino’s memoir, Spanish Connections (2023), narrates a diplomatic journey that ended in Equatorial Guinea, Spain’s only former colony in sub-Saharan Africa, where he served...
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From Spain to East Berlin and Arizona: A Signed Fan and a Photograph Tell Their Story

November 18, 2023
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From Spain to East Berlin and Arizona: A Signed Fan and a Photograph Tell Their Story

When IB vet Hans Maslowski visited his family in East Berlin in 1969, he gave them a Spanish fan signed in 1938 by 31 fellow antifascists. More than 50 years later, his great-nephew finds out who they were.
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Marianne Angermann and Franz Bielschowsky: Two German Antifascists in Republican Madrid

November 18, 2023
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Marianne Angermann and Franz Bielschowsky: Two German Antifascists in Republican Madrid

Marianne Angermann, a young German biochemist, joined a Madrid lab in late 1935 to work with her compatriot Franz Bielschowsky, a Jewish refugee who’d been there since 1933. When the war broke out the following year, both decided stay in Spain and serve the Republican war effort as medical personnel. Marianne’s letters to her...
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Karen Nussbaum: “Good Organizing Means That You Don’t Tell People They’re Wrong.”

November 18, 2023
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Karen Nussbaum: “Good Organizing Means That You Don’t Tell People They’re Wrong.”

Earlier this year, we received an unexpected email from Karen Nussbaum, the legendary labor activist, asking to be put on the mailing list for the Volunteer. She explained that she’d read the magazine during a visit to her father, the actor Mike Nussbaum, a longtime ALBA supporter. One thing led to the other, and...
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When Did World War II Start? And When Will It End? Reflections inspired by Guernica [part 2]

November 18, 2023
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When Did World War II Start? And When Will It End? Reflections inspired by <em>Guernica</em> [part 2]

When a visit to Picasso’s Guernica in Madrid was canceled because of Covid, James Fernández instead delivered this lecture. This is the last of two installments.
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Connecting the Dots, Creating a Tapestry: A Multigenerational History of Trauma

August 30, 2023
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Connecting the Dots, Creating a Tapestry: A Multigenerational History of Trauma

All families have secrets, and I discovered mine at a young age, in a box or paper bag, I don’t remember which, in the closet. I knew even then it was a secret, an important secret because no one in my family wanted to talk about my prescient treasure: letters and photographs. I was...
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