It is raining in New York, the day after the election, as we go to press. On the streets, people go about their business with a grim expression and reddened eyes. History can weigh on us; it can shock us as it suddenly turns—but it also can guide us, showing us the path that...
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Eighty years ago an epic struggle began, largely to be overwritten in public memory by World War II and smeared by the anti-communist witch-hunts that followed. Now a dramatic and intensely political musical play, Heart of Spain, ran at the Zellerbach Playhouse on the University of California at Berkeley campus.
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Berkeley, California, flagship campus of the University of California, knows how to stage a political fight. To mark the 80th Anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the campus featured a spectacular series of events—lectures, panel discussions, archival exhibitions from the Bancroft Library, film screenings, and poetry readings—honoring the volunteers of the...
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Nick Lloyd, Forgotten Places: Barcelona and the Spanish Civil War, Barcelona: Nick Lloyd, 2015, 392 pp.

Carlos Giménez, Paracuellos: Children of the Defeated in Franco’s Fascist Spain, with foreword by Will Eisner, edited by Dean Mullaney, and translated by Sonya Jones, San Diego: EuroComics (IDW Publishing), 136 pp.

Eugene Poling (1908-2000), from Lone Wolf, Oklahoma, fought with the Republic in Spain, joined the U.S. Army in World War II, and for almost forty years launched repeated campaigns for a U.S. House seat. Journalist Andrew Griffin reconstructs his life. “When I went to Dougherty to talk to people who knew ‘Mr. Poling,’ they...
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“It was always rumored that my uncle fought in Spain, but now we finally know for sure. I’ve had an amazing number of touching reactions of that type,” Yvonne Scholten says, “especially from family members.” Scholten, a Dutch journalist, is the driving force behind a new biographical dictionary of Dutch volunteers in Spain that...
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Kate Doyle, winner of the ALBA-Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism, now serves on ALBA’s Board of Governors where she leverages her formidable expertise. Aaron Retish speaks with her about her work uncovering U.S. involvement in Latin American human rights violations.
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Among a handful of India-born brigaders who fought with the Spanish Republic was Gopal Mukund Huddar, a journalism student in his thirties. Nancy and Len Tsou, experts on the Asian volunteers in Spain, tell his remarkable story, which passes through the POW camp at San Pedro de Cardeña.
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Catalonia’s desire for independence has resurged in recent years, thanks in large part to the intransigence of the central Spanish government in Madrid. Historian Eric Smith reviews the history and background of the Catalan independence movement.
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Michael Ratner, who passed away in May, was an internationalist in the best sense of the word. That meant for him in the first place to combat the use and abuse of power by U.S. actors in, and very often outside, their own country. A tribute from Wolfgang Kaleck, founder and head of...
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Award-winning author Adam Hochschild speaks in Detroit and two Wayne State students receive Lincoln Veterans scholarships.
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We hope you had a wonderful summer. ALBA and its Board members, braving the summer heat, with your encouragement and support have been involved in a range of initiatives—including planning for the fall celebrations in the Bay Area (see page 3), the Watt essay contest (winners will be announced shortly), updates in the volunteers’...
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Eleven panels have been shattered and are now completely gone, while other panels have active cracks and are missing large areas. The parts that were grafittied and cleaned in the past have, over time, become discolored and need treatment. With support from your donations, ALBA, working with the Architectural Resources Group, will replace the Onyx...
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Please join us in September and October for a full slate of Spanish Civil War-related events in the San Francisco Bay Area, closing with ALBA’s annual celebration on October 23 at the Zellerbach Playhouse on the UC Berkeley campus. Exhibits Guerra Civil @ 80  Bancroft Library Display of Spanish Civil War Collection Corridor cases...
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During a brief visit to Spain in July, President Obama met with the leaders of Spain’s largest political parties. Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias took advantage of the occasion to give Obama William Katz’s Picture History of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
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On May 7th over 200 family, friends and supporters of the women and men of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade met at Japan Society in Manhattan for an afternoon of poetry, socializing, and song. Together we commemorated the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the defense of Madrid, and the arrival...
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Yesterday was the last of the three-day workshop. I look forward to participating in future ALBA events. I already started teaching the Spanish Civil War and used the ALBA website.
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Del Berg’s son Ernst, comrades and friends celebrated Del Berg’s life at Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library in Berkeley, CA on May 21, 2016. On the wall behind the podium, was a Spanish flag with the International Brigades logo, which was hand-made by Nate and Corine Thorton.  Corine told the story of how she and Nate...
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This report let me feel the atmosphere of the reunion, energetic, exciting, and promising for the future. The act to visit Del Berg and interview him, was excellent and timely.
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Our colleague Tony Geist—the longest serving ALBA Board member, professor of Spanish at the University of Washington, author and translator—has been awarded one of Spain’s highest civil honors, membership into the Order of Isabella the Catholic with the first-class title of Caballeros de la Gran Cruz de Oficial, or Knights of the Officer’s Cross....
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In 1949 Harold Ickes, the Secretary of the Interior under Franklin Roosevelt, described General Francisco Franco as a “mimic of Hitler” whose regime “chokes the breath out of liberty in a police state.” Four years later, The Christian Century, a liberal Protestant magazine, called Spain “that pathetic remnant of medievalism.” The Spanish Civil War...
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Ángel Luis Arjona Márquez, Las Brigadas Internacionales a través del cómic: 1977-2012 (Albacete: Instituto de Estudios Albacetenses “Don Juan Manuel,” 2014)

Reviewed by Carl-Henrik Bjerstrom

Ángel Viñas, La otra cara del Caudillo. Mitos y realidades en la biografía de Franco, Barcelona: Crítica, 2015, pp. 439.

Reviewed by Antonio Cazorla-Sánchez

Palmira Julia Tello Landeta, immortalized as miliciana on a magazine cover in wartime Spain, passed away in early 2016.
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Diverse opinion abounds with regards to Hemingway’s actions during and after Spain’s Civil War. The Spanish journalist and diplomat Álvarez del Vayo recalled that “I talked with him in Madrid and I realized the Spanish war was fundamentally alien to him. Hemingway’s was the Spain of the running of the bulls at...
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There are numerous comparisons that can be made between the conflict in Syria and the Spanish Civil War. Both conflicts feature a ruthless dictator, appalling loss of life, war crimes and the massive displacement of tens of thousands of refugees. However, such superficial comparisons apply to many other conflicts. Merely in terms of...
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On May 20, 1938, Dave Lipton tells his parents that he is leaving for the Catskills to work as a waiter. Instead, he sails for Europe to join the Abraham Lincoln. Dave sends letter after letter home detailing his hopes and begging for forgiveness. He never receives a reply. Decades later, his niece Eunice...
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Del Berg, the last known surviving veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, died peacefully in his California home on Sunday, February 28. He was 100 years old. Berg was born in 1915 outside of Los Angeles to a family of poor farm workers. His mother’s line had long since emigrated from Bavaria while his...
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The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA, www.alba-valb.org) mourns the loss of Michael Ratner, a longtime defender of civil liberties in the United States and abroad.
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While attending an ALBA institute, a veteran Brooklyn teacher discovers that a Lincoln volunteer lived just around the corner. He decides to find out more and unearths a touching story.
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Salvadoran survivors of state terror—crimes for which no one has been held accountable—have created an organization that helps families uncover the truth of what happened to their lost loved ones. This is no small task. But given the intense U.S. involvement in El Salvador, some of the information they seek may be available in...
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The torch has been passed. Eighty years after the Spanish Civil War inspired volunteers from 52 countries to challenge the spread of international fascism, no American veterans of that struggle are alive to bear witness, but their spirit and commitment to social justice, human rights, and anti-fascism lives on in the work of current...
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The legacy of the Spanish Civil War played a crucial role in the lives of Lydia Cacho and Jeremy Scahill, the winners of the ALBA/Puffin Award. But how do we ensure its transmission to younger generations, whose life world is so different that they often have trouble even reading the Lincolns’ hand-written letters? ALBA’s...
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Efforts are ongoing to address the deterioration of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade monument in San Francisco. After initial problems of deliberate vandalism were dealt with, the elements began to take their toll on the structure. However, we have been involved in extensive conversations with different offices of the city of San Francisco for well...
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