Of particular interest are the photos that Fernández and Argeo have rescued from family albums for Chapter V, which documents the intense pro-Republican mobilization of Spanish American communities all over the country.
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Twenty medical doctors serving in the International Brigades went straight from Spain to China to help the country defend itself against Japanese aggression. They are remembered fondly in China today.
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Las Brigadas internacionales a través del cómic: 1977-2012, Ángel Luis Arjona Márquez, Albacete, 2014.
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Christopher Vials, Haunted by Hitler: Liberals, the Left, and the Fight against Fascism in the United States. University of Massachusetts Press, 2014. 296 pages.

Hearty congratulations on the terrific job you have done setting up the huge database on the Volunteers! This is the crucial information and you have made it very accessible, attractive and useful. I finally found an old friend of the family here at last. A splendid job!
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In the September 2015 issue of The Volunteer an obituary of Bobby Hall pointed out that in the 1960s Hall and Jeremiah Stamler "initiated a landmark and successful court case" against HUAC. You failed to mention the third member who walked out and sued HUAC: the vet Milton M. Cohen. Here is a...
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It is always tempting to imagine writers looking over our shoulders when we critique their works, smiling or grimacing as the case may be. The compelling interview that Sebastiaan Faber conducted with Francisco Fernández and their incisive analysis of the “exhumation efforts” in Spain (“An Underground Landscape of Terror,” June 2015) made me...
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Mexico was one of the very few countries to stand by the Second Spanish Republic as it was attacked by fascism—but in practice, not all Mexicans agreed with their government’s position during the Spanish Civil War.
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The trial of the POUM in October 1938 is often seen as a Spanish version of the Soviet “show trial.” But it makes more sense to examine it as an attempt by the Republican government to build stable judicial institutions.
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The George Watt Prize for the best student essays received submissions from across the globe, the various entrants writing on topics of history, literature, politics, and culture of the Spanish Civil War, or the global political and cultural struggles against fascism in the 1920s and 1930s, or the contributions of the Americans who fought...
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In the fall of 2014, Stanley Payne and Jesús Palacios published a new biography of Francisco Franco. Spanish historian Ángel Viñas, who was finishing up his own book on the dictator, was appalled to find their account riddled with “the most flagrant and, at times, grotesque mistakes, omissions, and misleading interpretations.” This past September,...
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Some soldiers instinctively respond to concepts in international law of which they may not even be aware. When men and women in the military do or see things that offend their deeply held sense of right and wrong, they may experience moral injury, a condition that overlaps with but is not the same as...
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Max Aub (1903-1972) was born in Paris to a German-Jewish family that moved to Spain when he was 11. During the Spanish Civil War, he worked for the Republican government. After Franco’s victory he was arrested in France and spent three years in concentration camps, after which he fled to Mexico. He spent his...
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We have just returned from the Bay Area, where we joined close to 200 Lincoln family members, friends and supporters at our Annual Celebration honoring the Lincoln Brigade in Berkeley. We gathered for an afternoon of songs and to hear California writer and documentary photographer David Bacon, who described how his encounters with...
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All my life I've known about Spain. I grew up singing Freiheit and Viva la Quince Brigada and Los Cuatro Generales, and knew the names of some of the places in Spain where the big battles were fought. I owe a lot to my parents, and to the culture they helped create. They didn't...
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British and Spanish archaeologists have spent two years investigating Spanish battle sites. American journalist Steve Dinnen joined the dig at Belchite. “We are not here to tell nice stories about the past. The past hurts.”
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“We have to reclaim our history, not discard or forget it,” labor organizer David Bacon advised an enthusiastic crowd honoring the legacy of the Lincoln Brigade at the 79th Bay Area reunion event in Berkeley, California on November 8. His talk, together with tributes to Emilio Silva, this year’s winner of the ALBA/Puffin...
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When should one government intervene in the affairs of another country? When, if ever, should private civilians violate laws to participate in foreign wars? And how do we teach high school students to think about these questions? ALBA’s Peter Carroll considered these questions at the annual conference of the Ohio Council of Social Studies.
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ALBA’s fifth annual Human Rights Film Festival featured 21 documentary films from 12 countries (four world premieres, 12 New York premieres). The Randall Award went to Among the Believers, about radical Islam and a charismatic cleric in Pakistan.
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In May, 21 organizers from the US participated in a social movement delegation to Spain. The trip was timed to coincide with Spain’s municipal elections on May 24th. The group learned from new political parties that seek to make electoral politics more accountable and democracy more participatory, from social movements working on housing and...
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Julian Bond died on August 14. A few days later, Democracy Now! aired a tribute to him and I was struck by one of the comments by Benjamin Jealous, who was CEO of the NAACP while Julian Bond was President.
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What you leave to friends and loved one--and the causes you champion--are ways of expressing your hopes and dreams for the future and perpetuate your part in the story of the Lincoln Brigade. As you make your plans, please consider including ALBA in your will or living trust, or naming us as a...
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The first thing you see as you approach the Civil War Shelters Museum on Gisbert Street in Cartagena are the trees growing out of the mountainside. Their unusual network of thick, exposed roots pushing out of the ground suggests that these ancient trees might have been around since the Bronze Age, witnessing Hannibal as...
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P. D. Murphy, As I Walked Out Through Spain in Search of Laurie Lee (Bristol: Silverwood Books, 2014).

An unpublished poem by Víctor Jiménez Jódar, with translation by ALBA's Antony Geist.
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Progressive organizer Yolanda “Bobby” Hall, a lifelong political activist, social justice advocate and educator who served on ALBA’s Board of Governors, died on June 19 at her home in Oak Park, Illinois. She was 93.
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Lincoln vet and path-breaking composer Conlon Nancarrow was among the dozens of American leftists who no longer felt at home in the United States. After moving to Mexico he began a 40-year career of composing for the player piano. In June, New York's Whitney Museum of American Art celebrated his work with a 10-day...
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For the past 15 years, Velina Brown has been singing at Lincoln Brigade reunions, most recently at ALBA’s New York celebration in May.  “The vibe in the room is often lush with emotion, a sense of connectedness and passion.”
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What a surprise, a few minutes ago, to open the June issue of The Volunteer and to see on page 14 the article about my father, Pierre Daura, with reproductions of two of his paintings.
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Mari Pepa Colomer y Dolors Vives fueron las primeras dos mujeres de la España republicana en conseguir su título de piloto y ambas trabajaron como instructoras para el Ejército de la República durante la Guerra Civil. Vivieron vidas de leyenda, pero una década después de su fallecimiento, la mayoría de los españoles no las conocen. (Version in...
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Mari Pepa Colomer and Dolors Vives were the first two women in the Spanish Republic to earn their pilot’s license, working as flight instructors for the Republican Army. Both led lives of legend and enjoyed an uncommon longevity—yet a decade after their deaths, most Spaniards have never heard of them.
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Impugning Impunity: ALBA’s 5th Human Rights Film Festival October 26-28, 2015 Instituto Cervantes New York 211 E. 49th Street New York, NY 10017   79TH Annual Celebration honoring the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Bay Area 1 pm to 3 pm Sunday, November 8, 2015 Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse 2020 Addison Street Berkeley, California 94704 For...
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When do we stand up for what we believe in? What are our obligations in the face of injustice? In July ALBA worked with a dozen public school teachers from Detroit.
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Over the course of three days, a selection of the best independent human-rights documentaries chosen from over 150 entries–sent in from all corners of the globe–will challenge, educate, and inspire audiences at Impugning Impunity.  October 26-28, 2015 Instituto Cervantes New York 211 E. 49th Street New York, NY 10017 One standout film from the Official...
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