Features

Faces of ALBA: “Students Are Drawn to Antifascism”–Michael Koncewicz

May 17, 2023
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<em>Faces of ALBA:</em> “Students Are Drawn to Antifascism”–Michael Koncewicz

For close to ten years, the historian Michael Koncewicz, the Michael Nash Research Scholar at Tamiment Library, worked with the ALBA collection on a daily basis. In April, he left the library to become Associate Director at NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge. The author of They Said No To Nixon: Republicans Who Stood Up...
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Musical Legacies of the Spanish War: The Strange Case of Gaspar Cassadó

February 17, 2023
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Musical Legacies of the Spanish War: The Strange Case of Gaspar Cassadó

While the cellist Pablo Casals became an international symbol for Catalan culture and anti-Franco resistance, the reputation of his pupil Gaspar Cassadó is limited to the music world, and his national roots are often overlooked. Cassadó’s reputation never fully recovered from a public fallout with his maestro.
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Liberating Palestine in Spain: Novel on Palestinian Arab Volunteers in the IB

February 17, 2023
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Liberating Palestine in Spain: Novel on Palestinian Arab Volunteers in the IB

Framing its protagonist’s journey to defend Spanish freedom as an extension of Palestinian Arab resistance at home, Hussein Yassin’s novel sheds light on the turbulent history and the political and social contexts of pre-1948 Mandatory Palestine.
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Legacies of the Civil War and Francoism: Ethics in Journalism and the Classroom

February 17, 2023
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Legacies of the Civil War and Francoism: Ethics in Journalism and the Classroom

When Cora Cuenca, an ALBA workshop alumna, teaches journalism to undergraduates in Seville, she invites them to consider the Spanish Civil War in personal terms. The legacies of the war, she writes, continue to weigh on Spain: “Education is political. There are no gray areas when dealing with fascism.”
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Human Rights Column: Building Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina

<em>Human Rights Column:</em> Building Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Twenty-seven years after the Dayton Peace Accords ended the bloody war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, ethnic tensions in the region have been etched into law. The Center of Peacebuilding builds bridges through interethnic dialogue.
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Why Does the Spanish Right Want to “Recover the Historical Memory” of Sephardic Jews?

November 19, 2022
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Why Does the Spanish Right Want to “Recover the Historical Memory” of Sephardic Jews?

Spanish conservatives who have rejected any accounting for Francoist crimes are nevertheless willing to make amends with the descendants of the Sephardic Jews who were expelled five centuries ago. The contradiction is only apparent.
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Jeff Chang: “The Lincoln Brigade’s Example Is Poignant and Inspiring”

November 18, 2022
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Jeff Chang: “The Lincoln Brigade’s Example Is Poignant and Inspiring”

Here is the keynote address that Jeff Chang gave at ALBA's 2022 Bay Area Gala. Click here to see the videorecording.
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Spanish Diary by Dutch Resistance Hero Discovered

August 18, 2022
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Spanish Diary by Dutch Resistance Hero Discovered

When 93-year-old Rosa Ruivenkamp died in 2019, in her nightstand her son found a blue notebook that had belonged to her brother Evert, who had been active in the resistance and was murdered by the Nazis in 1943. The notebook—which, fortunately was not thrown out—turned out to contain the diary notes Evert had written...
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“Starting the IBMT is the best thing we’ve ever done.” Checking in with ALBA’s Younger Sister Across the Pond

August 18, 2022
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“Starting the IBMT is the best thing we’ve ever done.” Checking in with ALBA’s Younger Sister Across the Pond

Around the turn of the millennium, the association of British veterans of the Spanish Civil War merged with the Friends of the International Brigades to form the International Brigade Memorial Trust (IBMT), ALBA’s sister organization in the UK. Like ALBA, the IBMT is dedicated to keeping alive the memory of the antifascist volunteers who...
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Yes, Women Did Serve in the People’s Army of the Spanish Republic: Esther Gutiérrez Escoda Sets the Record Straight

August 18, 2022
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Yes, Women Did Serve in the People’s Army of the Spanish Republic: Esther Gutiérrez Escoda Sets the Record Straight

For more than 80 years, historians have ignored the important role played by thousands of women soldiers in the People’s Army of the Spanish Republic. A new dissertation takes a crucial first step to correct the record.
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