Do refugees have rights? If so, who is responsible to protect them? These contemporary questions are not new. Indeed, they were raised eloquently by the American journalist Jay Allen in November 1939 in Survey Graphic, a monthly magazine edited by Paul Kellogg, illustrated with images by Ione Robinson (1910-1989), an American photographer and artist....
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In April 1937, Ernest Hemingway filed a series of dispatches from Madrid on the atrocious Nationalist bombing campaigns. Curiously, he failed to mention the attack on Guernica. The legion of international observers – journalists, photographers, writers and “celebrities” of all kinds – passing through Spain during the Spanish Civil War undoubtedly shaped how that...
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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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Amy Rao, a member of the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch, gave the introductory address at the presentation of the seventh ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism to Òscar Camps and Gerard Canals, the founders of Proactiva Open Arms, at the award ceremony held at the Museum of the City of New...
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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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Former ALBA Board Member and longtime emcee at the annual reunions of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Henry Foner, died in New York on January 11. He was 97.
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A longtime ALBA friend, Herb was also a member of The Jarama Society, generously leaving ALBA in his plans to help continue our commitment to social activism.
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ALBA notes with sadness the death of former executive director Marvin E. Gettleman. He was 83. A historian of the American left, he taught for many years at Polytechnic University, well-known as editor of Vietnam: History, Documents, Opinions. He is survived by former Board member, historian Ellen Schrecker.
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In 1937 volunteers on their way to Spain through Paris were taken in groups to see the Spanish Pavilion at the International Exposition of Art and Technology of Modern Life. The Mayoral Gallery (London and Barcelona) has brought together artwork and archive materials relating to the Spanish Pavilion: ‘an exhibition whose main protagonists are...
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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 back of a Catalan poster held at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley holds a surprise: a 2,500-word, handwritten letter from Spain.
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Historians have long recognized that Soviet military advisors had commanded troops in the Russian Civil War, suggesting that their experience shaped the way they viewed the Spanish situation. Did Soviet advisors introduce military strategies derived from the Russian Civil War—particularly, guerrilla tactics—into the Spanish war?
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Fifty years after the end of the Spanish Civil War and one year after the death of the last US volunteer, Tamiment Library’s archives of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade continue to grow.
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Norman Bethune, the reputed Canadian pulmonary surgeon who joined the Spanish Civil War as a volunteer for the International Red Aid, witnessed one of the war’s most tragic and least known episodes. A new exhibit in Madrid honors his life and work.
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Chris Brooks is the driving force behind ALBA’s online biographical database of Lincoln Brigade veterans. His countless hours of research and correspondence have produced a comprehensive and accessible collection that has put a story and a face to thousands of veterans.
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We live in interesting times. Hundreds of thousands of women and men across the country and around the world are engaging in acts of resistance against oppression and bigotry, and demonstrating for democracy and human rights. The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives stands with this broad progressive movement. Following in the footsteps of those who...
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Trump’s election creates new challenges for everyone involved in history teaching. What is it like to teach history when the nation’s president appears to chronically ignore factual evidence? What’s the task ahead?
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On Sunday, April 16 (details | tickets), the annual ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism will be granted to Proactiva Open Arms (POA), a humanitarian aid organization based in Badalona (Catalonia) dedicated to rescuing refugees who take to the sea in an attempt to flee war, persecution, and poverty, and to reach the...
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ALBA can’t do all it does without our generous donors. Fortunately, there are many ways to support our work, from our monthly donor program to gifts and bequests–and of course our merchandise.
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Adam Hochschild, Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Memory and Cultural History of the Spanish Civil War: Realms of Oblivion, edited by Aurora G. Morcillo, Boston: Brill, 2014
Dear Editor, After 25 years of receiving and enjoying The Volunteer I was saddened by the unbalanced and misleading article by Eric R. Smith entitled How to understand the Catalan Independence Movement published in No. 3 of Vol. XXXIII. Though I’m too far removed from my research to properly comment on the simplistic statements...
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As a sergeant in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, Alex Maclure firmly aligned himself with New Zealand volunteers in the International Brigades. In the above letter, published in the Communist Party of New Zealand’s Workers’ Weekly, he refers to himself as a ‘Pig Islander’, a term then applied to New Zealanders by other nationalities. Yet Alexander...
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Sadly, we have now reached the end of an era. With the death of 98-year old Stan Hilton, there are no longer any British veterans of the International Brigades who fought in the Spanish Civil war of 1936-1939 alive to tell their tale.
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The archives of the Communist International in Moscow, now partly available online, hold many small treasures. When we found the news bulletin published by a group of Cuban veterans of the International Brigades who were interned in the French concentration camp of Argelès-sur-Mer, we sent it to Denise Urcelay-Maragnès, who wrote a book on...
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On a sunny Saturday, October 22, the French International Brigades Association, ACER (Amis des Combattants en Espagne Républicaine), corrected a longstanding injustice. The city of Paris, home of the main recruiting and screening center for international volunteers from 1936 to 1938, had no public monument to the International Brigades. While a monument to the...
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Among the American medical volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, Dr. Leo Eloesser, a thoracic surgeon affiliated with San Francisco General Hospital, organized a team of west coast doctors and nurses and brought his considerable experience of military medicine to Republican Spain. His extraordinary experience is chronicled in a recent volume written by a...
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Pablo Durá is the author of The Lincoln Brigade, a new graphic novel based on the life story of Oliver Law, of which we are proud to feature an excerpt in this issue.
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What will Governor Dalrymple sacrifice for the Dakota Access Pipeline? Activist and former Green Party candidate Winona LaDuke reminds us that Standing Rock is only the most recent chapter in a long history of dispossession. “The Lakota people have survived many invasions.”
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Sixteen years ago I moved to New York, not as an economic migrant nor as a political exile, but as a student. The years went by and I stayed. I am from the 9/11 generation, I arrived in the city just a couple of months before the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers 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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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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Peter Verbergh translated this article from CeSoir describing the arrest of the Dallet-Nelson Group. “The Interrogation of the Passengers of the Sans-Pareil”, CeSoir, March 29, 1937 (From our Special Correspondent) Perpignan March 28 (By Telephone) Yesterday morning around 10am, The Coast Guard Vessel Cebère docked in the port of Port-Vendres alongside the torpedo boat...
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Only five veterans of the Spanish Civil War are known to be buried in Virginia outside of Arlington National Cemetery: two in Richmond, two in Norfolk, and one in Big Stone Gap. ALB Tribute visited the graves of Harry Edward Farris and Thomas Moore in Richmond as well as Manuel Lizarrago and Crawford Morgan...
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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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