Fritz Teppich, no longer so agile physically at 92, is still mentally active and as cantankerous as ever, especially on three issues, to be mentioned later. But first it must be recorded that Fritz is the last survivor of some 3000 German volunteers who fought against fascism in Spain. He was one of the...
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Hank Rubin, father of the Berkeley Food Revolution and well-known writer about food and wine, died in his sleep Thursday, February 24, 2011. He was born in Portland, Oregon, and spent most of his life in California, first in Los Angeles, then in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1950. He was 94 years...
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Maynard Goldstein, the last Spanish Civil War veteran residing in New York City, died on January 12. Just three months earlier, Goldstein—the last surviving veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who fought at Jarama (February 1937)—spoke at a benefit event for ALBA. He spoke passionately, bringing to life the streets of New York in...
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By the time Mark Thornton and his 18-year old son Nate took a leaflet on a street corner in San Francisco in 1933, their family was down to two. They had left Utah after Mark had been beaten by Pinkertons at a miners’ strike, and the family arrived in Fresno in 1924. Nate’s mother...
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Matti Mattson, veteran of the Spanish Civil War, died while in hospice at JFK Hospital Atlantis, Florida, on January 11, 2011.
Mattson was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. He completed one year of high school and then studied at the B.F. Brown Junior High School, where he took an elective course in printing. He then worked...
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Lincoln vet Peter Schemrock died on June 24 in southern California, a few weeks before his 100th birthday. Peter was born on August 17, l910, in Dunbar, Pennsylvania. His family went back to Croatia (former Yugoslavia) when he was about four years old. Peter returned to the United States as a young man during...
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My father, Norman (Nathan) Berkowitz, died peacefully at the age of 96 on July 30, 2010. After not being able to speak for 36 hours, Norman rallied and spoke continuously for 30 minutes. His final words were directed to his grandson and they were, surprisingly, entirely in Spanish. Not surpisingly, they were about his...
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Carl Geiser, a key political leader in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and author of a pioneering book, Prisoners of the Good Fight, died November 28 in Corvallis, Oregon.
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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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Teesside, an industrial region in Northeast England that in the nineteenth century grew to be a center of shipbuilding and iron and steel production, spawned no fewer than thirty International Brigade volunteers. Of the nine who were born in the borough of Stockton-on-Tees, moreover, six played leading roles in Spain: five rose to the rank of Lieutenant...
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The first thirty-six Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for Phase IV were submitted December 30, 2024. Phase IV is intended to focus on volunteers on whom we have minimal information. At some point in the future, I plan to resubmit some volunteers who were returned as not found or on whom no information...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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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