Almost eighty years after he disappeared, Ascención Mendieta could finally give a proper burial to her father, murdered by the Franco regime.
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Founded by the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Almost eighty years after he disappeared, Ascención Mendieta could finally give a proper burial to her father, murdered by the Franco regime.
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If you have ever attended VALB reunions or latest ALBA’s celebrations, you won’t forget Velina Brown, whose singing of Spanish Civil War songs has grabbed her audience’s hearts and brought tears to their eyes. Now she is starring in “Walls”, a new musical as the 58th-season production by the award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe....
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After the 1936 outbreak of the war in Spain, students at the University of Michigan rallied in support of the Republic. A symposium on March 23-25 featuring Peter Carroll and Robert Cohen commemorated this history of political commitment.
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Karen Pleasant, History Department Chair at Stoneleigh Burnham School in Greenfield, Massachusetts, participated in ALBA’s two-day institute this spring. A 17-year veteran in the classroom, she teaches U.S. History and several history classes in the International Baccalaureate curriculum.
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Reflecting a growing interest among Americans about the history of fascism and anti-fascism, and resulting struggles for the rights of citizens and civilians in wartime, ALBA launched a three-day symposium for high school teachers of New York City to explore these themes using primary sources that remain accessible and challenging for their students.
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ALBA has expanded the scope of its teaching institutes, moving from the Spanish Civil War to a broader and more ambitious focus on the role of the United States in the world, as well as the moral, political, and judicial aspects of the struggle for human rights. The time is right: “Fascism” was among...
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Every day we are inspired by the millions in this country and around the world who engage in acts of resistance against racists and oppressors. Like many of you, we worried about the recent elections in France and the Netherlands and were relatively relieved by the outcome. We were also thrilled to see the...
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On April 16, Òscar Camps, Gerard Canals, and Laura Lanuza of Proactiva Open Arms joined ALBA’s annual celebration at the Museum of the City of New York to receive the 2017 ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism. Before the main award ceremony, they were interviewed by Emma Daly of Human Rights Watch. The main...
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A lovingly curated exhibition goes to great lengths to re-create the impression of the original Spanish Republic’s Pavilion in the famous Paris Exposition of 1937.
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This fall, photography curator Joaquín Gasca, while doing research at Catalonia’s National Archive, came across a batch of unpublished photographs documenting the march through Barcelona of one of the first groups of American volunteers joining the Republic’s struggle against Franco’s army. The photographs, taken on January 16, 1937, are by Josep Brangulí (1879-1945) and...
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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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The family of Paul Andrew Mooney (1910-1961) is searching for documentation to substantiate information he provided to his family about serving in the International Brigades. Paul Mooney was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. He graduated from Hughes High School in 1929 and attended the University of Cincinnati in 1929, 1935 and 1936. In...
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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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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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