“Why should one care about events taking place far away?” This is one of the “essential questions” that drive our work with teachers around the country. Together with the question “When do you stand up for what you believe in?” it captures the spirit of the internationalist commitment that drove the almost 40,000 volunteers...
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Dear Friends, We at ALBA would like to express solidarity with all those affected by the COVID crisis. When the brave men and women of the Lincoln Brigade departed on their odyssey for Spain, they were practicing the solidarity that has always been at the heart of our organization. If we wish to endure...
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How can we leverage our educational system into a building block for an anti-fascist front? This has long been the key question behind ALBA’s work.
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It’s late summer, a time when news used to be slow. It no longer is. On the Mediterranean, the fearless life-saving professionals of ProActiva Open Arms, led by the visionary Òscar Camps, are battling narrow-minded, xenophobic European governments for the right to help drowning African migrants safely reach the shores of Italy and Spain....
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To the Editors: I was privileged to attend the ALBA event at the Museum of the City of New York with a friend whose cousin died fighting with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. It was a moving experience. ALB volunteers and their stateside supporters were driven by a passion for a better world. They were...
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A few years ago, my wife and I visited Vienna and made a side trip by train to Mauthausen.
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Dear Friends and Comrades: One foot in the past and one foot in the present, with our eyes set on the future: that’s ALBA’s signature straddle. As our tagline says, we teach history to inspire activism and uphold human rights. Inspired by the anti-fascist activism of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, ALBA taps into America’s...
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Thank you, Alan Singer, for your article in The Volunteer (June 2018). Considering the lessons offered by history is the reason ALBA exists, and your article was important and relevant.
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We are going to press on the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Ebro, the longest, most extensive, and bloodiest battle of the Spanish Civil War. In spite of Franco’s superiority in manpower and equipment, the Republicans sought to thwart the Fascist offensive on Valencia and to gain time in the hope that...
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Letter by eight-year-old Luca Kaufman at Kolot Chayeinu (Voices of Our Lives, Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY), written as part of a school project on Heroes of Jewish Resistance.
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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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We write in mourning for the loss of our dear friend, Perry Rosenstein, Founder and President of the Puffin Foundation, Ltd., who passed away in Teaneck, NJ on April 3 after a brief struggle with the COVID-19 virus.
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The Volunteer, Volume 5, No. 3. We were surrounded. We were assembled on a hill. It seemed hopeless – except that the Estado Mayor was with us. “They’ve gotten us out of tough spots before.” That was the general comment. I was particularly aware of Dave Doran (i) who seemed so calm and unperturbed...
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The Volunteer, V. 5, N. 3 Editor’s note: Here are more excerpts from the log which Sid Kaufman kept in the last days of the war. You will remember, from the transcript of his tape which we printed in our last issue, that Sid got out of Spain much later than most of us....
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The Albuquerque Museum hosted ALBA’s Shouts from the Wall: Posters and Photographs Brought Back from the Spanish Civil War from September 8, 1996 to October 27, 1996. Four biographical sketches were prepared to highlight volunteers from New Mexico. Mildred Rackley (1906-1992) and the Spanish Civil...
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The Albuquerque Museum hosted ALBA’s Shouts from the Wall: Posters and Photographs Brought Back from the Spanish Civil War from September 8, 1996 to October 27, 1996. Four biographical sketches were prepared to highlight volunteers from New Mexico. Henry George Rauert Passport address: 139 Candelaria, Santa...
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The Albuquerque Museum hosted ALBA’s Shouts from the Wall: Posters and Photographs Brought Back from the Spanish Civil War from September 8, 1996 to October 27, 1996. Four biographical sketches were prepared to highlight volunteers from New Mexico. Ralph Lawrence Neafus Passport address: 110...
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The Albuquerque Museum hosted ALBA’s Shouts from the Wall: Posters and Photographs Brought Back from the Spanish Civil War from September 8, 1996 to October 27, 1996. Four biographical sketches were prepared to highlight volunteers from New Mexico. Virgil Ivan McCasland Passport address: Tucumcari,...
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The Volunteer for Liberty January 13, 1938 Enrique Lister, commander of the famous division that bears his name, has been promoted from the rank of major to that of lieutenant-colonel. His elevation is the first to take place under the new decree of the Ministry of Defense, which changes the rule that men who...
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On Monday March 2, 2020, we will request passport files for the last set of 26 volunteers in Phase One of the Freedom of Information Act Project. The project started in May 2018 with a request to Office of Legal Affairs and Law Enforcement Liaison, Bureau of Consular Affairs, Passport Services, United States Department...
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Volunteer John Augustus Ramatowski was only 21-years old when he went missing in action during The Retreats in April 1938. Six of the numerous letters he wrote home were saved and passed down through the family. His letters were addressed to his older brother Adam and his family disclose his observations about France, Spain,...
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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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