His life begins with the rain, and the soggy cushions / of a couch left by the landlord to die on a Brooklyn sidewalk / in the year 1930. His life begins at age fifteen, Abe / the high school wrestler straining the cords in his neck / to lift the couch with the...
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A lovely evocation, in video and prose, of Harold Meloffsky, Ernie Arion, and Bernie Abramofsky (Aibel) by Spanish journalist Pablo Mediavilla, marred only by a gratuitous and puzzling swipe at NYU students. Historical irony: the recipient of most of the letters on which these evocations were based, was Miriam Sigel, mother of the NYU...
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I’ve been away for some days, and haven’t had time to catch up with the press coverage of the 15-May movement in Spain. But one of the messages I found in my cluttered inbox upon my return contained this link to photos of the violent disbandment of the peaceful protesters that took place today...
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Contrary to earlier indications, the Spanish government has decided not to exhume the remains of an estimated 30,000 victims from the Valley of the Fallen, the massive monument that also serves as the tomb to former dictator Francisco Franco, The Daily Telegraph reported last week, because it would be "impossible" to match bones to...
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On this day, 1939, Franco declared victory over the Spanish Republic. In this five-minute video, produced for the exhibition “Facing Fascism: New York and the Spanish Civil War,” several New Yorkers, including Lincoln vets Abe Osheroff and Abe Smorodin, remember that sad day. Video here: When the War Was Over
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The socialization and assimilation of second generation children of immigrants promoted by World War II is a relatively well-known phenomenon. Peter Carroll has argued that for many of the children-of-immigrant volunteers in the Lincoln Brigade, service in Spain was, in a complex way, a path towards Americanization. This insight is powerfully borne out in...
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Some years ago, a student of mine did a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the percentage of Hispanic surnames that are included on the Lincoln Brigade roster, and she came up with the figure of 8% – 12%. The ALBA archives contain the personal papers of roughly 280 volunteers, or about 10% of the total number...
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Today I had the pleasure of introducing the Spanish journalist, Anna Grau, to the treasures of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. Together, we went through the scrapbook of Bernard Danchik, a young gymnast from Brooklyn, who lobbied for, and participated in, the Olimpiada Popular, an alternative anti-fascist sports competition organized in Barcelona in 1936,...
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The haunting strains of “El Cant dels Ocells” – a Catalonian folk song orchestrated by the great cellist and Spanish Civil War refugee Pau Casals—were the overture to the memorial service for Lincoln vet, Matti August Mattson, held yesterday, March 18, in the auditorium of NYU’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center. The...
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ALBA Board Member Soledad Fox recently sent me this lovely dispatch about an excursion she led of US college students to the town of Gernika in the Basque Country. A professor at Williams College, Fox is the author of the outstanding book about Constancia de la Mora, In War and Exile: International Voice for...
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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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