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...
Read more »
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.
Read more »
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.
Read more »
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.”
Read more »
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.
Read more »
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.
Read more »
Here is the keynote address that Jeff Chang gave at ALBA's 2022 Bay Area Gala. Click here to see the videorecording.
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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.
Read more »
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
sign up to receive email updates from ALBA. Support ALBA through a tax-deductible gift! To inquire about a donation, please contact the ALBA office at info@alba-valb.org or 212-674-5398.
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...
Read more »
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,...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
Peter Verbergh translated this article from CeSoir describing the arrest of the Dallet-Nelson Group. “The Interrogation of the Passengers of the Sans-Pareil”, CeSoir, March 29, 1937 (From our Special Correspondent) Perpignan March 28 (By Telephone) Yesterday morning around 10am, The Coast Guard Vessel Cebère docked in the port of Port-Vendres alongside the torpedo boat...
Read more »
Only five veterans of the Spanish Civil War are known to be buried in Virginia outside of Arlington National Cemetery: two in Richmond, two in Norfolk, and one in Big Stone Gap. ALB Tribute visited the graves of Harry Edward Farris and Thomas Moore in Richmond as well as Manuel Lizarrago and Crawford Morgan...
Read more »
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
Search the Database