Dear Editor, Fine piece about Bart van der Schelling in the September issue. I recall going along with Alvah and Bart on two occasions, somewhere between 1949 and 1951, where Alvah spoke about Spain, and Bart sang. The place where one was held was at the old mission in Santa Barbara, California. I vividly recall...
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Dear ALBA, On behalf of the Broggi family (Dr. Moisés Broggi was my wife’s grandfather), I want to thank you for the thoughtful obituary published in The Volunteer. … As you know, the IB experience was a turning point in his medical career and his political awareness. He recalled that experience often, with clarity...
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With tears in my eyes I read the list of American brigaders who fought in Spain with the Spanish Republic. The only thing I can say as the grandson of anarchist combatant is thanks, thanks and thanks always for their heroic sacrifices beyond duty, beyond life itself. When I read those names I cannot...
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I have always been intrigued by the men and women of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. They fought for the right reasons- stopping tyranny, and supporting a legally elected government and a fledgling democracy. After Tina died I played my DVD copy of "The Good Fight" and watched it again. From there I gathered inspiration...
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Dear Editors, In the December issue, in an article on “Nick” Carter, the writer makes what seems to me some shameful and unwarranted remarks. He says Carter’s death fighting in the British International Brigade was “especially tragic because of what he might have become.” He then says Carter’s decision to enlist in the brigade...
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Thank you for acknowledging my father’s bequest to ALBA. He would be pleased to know that the money will be used for specific programs and that these will be named after him. Still, knowing my father as I do, I rather suspect that he would find this honor less important than the on-going mission of...
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David Fellman, son and nephew of ALB vets Sol and Harry Fellman, recently featured in an episode of PBS's History Detectives, writes to supply additional details and to share remaining questions.
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For me, as for so many others throughout the world, the volunteers of the Lincoln Brigade are an example of courage and solidarity… They were the kind of people who fight against the worst cancer of humanity: indifference.  It is our duty to carry this idea of solidarity forward. —Judge Baltasar Garzón, on receiving...
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Martin David Maki wrote many letters in Finnish when he was in Spain with the International Brigade. The letters were recently discovered, and thanks to Matti Mattson, the only man who could translate them because he knows both Finnish and the war, we have them now. Martin’s own handwritten story shows that he was...
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We Spanish people will never be able to express with words the gratitude we feel for the likes of Mr. Samuel Lesser. Just one small note that I think is important to clarify: The expression “presente!” was (and is still) an expression USED BY FASCISTS to glorify their dead “heroes” … I think is...
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