In another year of strong submissions from students across the United States and Europe, the jury of the Watt Essay prize was pleased to award prizes to six promising scholars.
Read more »
As this issue is going to print, ALBA’s Human Rights Committee is hard at work finalizing the process of selecting this year’s winner of the ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism. Keep an eye on your email and social media for an announcement. Jack Mayerhofer, chair of ALBA’s Human Rights Committee said, “We are...
Read more »
On Sunday, December 7, at a holiday gathering in NYC, descendants of veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, ALBA board members, and supporters gathered under the theme, “The Things We Carry.” Brought together by familial ties and mission, descendants of ALB vets reflected on the artifacts and memories they carry on behalf of their...
Read more »
In February 1937, American volunteers saw their first military action in the Spanish Civil War, fighting as part of the International Brigades in the struggle to defend Madrid. With little training, poor equipment, and none of the promised air and artillery support, the Lincolns took part in the attack on strategic Pingarrón Hill. Raked...
Read more »
Charlotte Beradt, The Third Reich of Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation, trans. Damion Searls Princeton University Press. 129 pp. $24.95
Read more »
Sarah Watling, Tomorrow Perhaps the Future: Writers, Outsiders, and the Spanish Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023), 372 pp.
Read more »
In six hour-long episodes, two historians discuss their ancestors, attempting to describe their family members’ possible frames of mind amid war.
Read more »
Although this text by Ivens is little known—and has never been translated before—it offers an eye-opening reflection on the power of his filmmaking.
Read more »
The climate of the Cold War was anti-radical—but it was also white supremacist, as Paul Robeson experienced firsthand. Yet it didn’t faze him, Lindsey Swindall explains. “He not only refused to stop speaking against militarism, segregation, and colonialism, but found new ways to disseminate his message.”
Read more »
Levante UD, the Spanish soccer club that recently recovered its 1937 Cup of Free Spain, has another victory to celebrate. Our football correspondent reports.
Read more »
Antifascism has long been synonymous with American values. In 1934, student activists at New York’s City College arguably understood this better than many do today.
Read more »
After the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, the Seegers family did not hesitate to join the resistance. They had experience fighting fascism: their son Piet had fought for the Spanish Republic. When Tom King started digging into his family history seventy years later, he fell from one surprise into the other.
Read more »
For Miguel G. Morales, the archive is an endless treasure trove. His new short on Cuban volunteers in the Spanish war brings it to life. Next up: a feature-length project on the Lincoln Brigade.
Read more »
Tina Modotti’s short life took her from Italy to North Beach and from there to Mexico, Berlin, Moscow, and civil-war Spain. Rightly known as a pathbreaking modernist photographer, she was also a radical activist. “Modotti spent the second part of her working life fighting for revolution.”
Read more »
Kirsten Weld has spent years studying Latin American dictatorships and the citizens who fight to hold them accountable. That experience has proven valuable in her current role as president of the AAUP chapter at Harvard, which, in March, sued the federal government for targeting students and faculty—and won.
Read more »
Targeted by the far right, Rutgers historian Mark Bray and his family went into exile in October. Speaking with The Volunteer from Madrid, he reflects on the current political situation. “Fascism shamelessly takes over institutions that, under liberal norms, are supposed to remain neutral.”
Read more »
Dear Friends, Since the never-ending news cycle has us all gasping for air, it’s hard to recall what life was like last week—let alone last year. Still, it will be a while before we forget this past November 4. For one, it’s not every day that a politician opens a victory speech quoting Eugene...
Read more »
More than 30 New York City teachers and others joined ALBA’s annual, full-day teaching workshop on November 4. Titled “The United States and World Fascism: Human Rights from the Spanish Civil War to Nuremberg and Beyond,” the workshop guided participants through ten modules—with primary texts, videos, and lesson plans—that seek to recast the narrative...
Read more »
On September 19, ALBA’s popular monthly series of online film discussions featured a well-attended session on two well-known newsreel compilations, led by Jordana Mendelson and Ameya Tripathi, both of NYU. (A recording is available on ALBA’s YouTube channel.) On January 8, we’ll discuss Fred Zinneman’s classic Behold a Pale Horse, (with Linda Ehrlich). On...
Read more »
ALBA Marks Jarama March and Franco’s Death On November 20, ALBA board member Nancy Wallach, daughter of Lincoln vet Hy Wallach, was joined by a group of IB family members to present a lively online event to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Franco’s death and look back on this year’s Jamara March, which specifically...
Read more »
On October 16, as part of the annual Susman Lecture, Joyce Horman, a lifelong human rights activist and current member of ALBA’s Honorary Board, shared her life story in an online conversation with ALBA board member Gina Herrmann. Joyce and her husband Charles were in Chile during the September 1973 military coup that overthrew...
Read more »
On November 4, days after a IB conference was held in Barcelona, the cabinet of Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s Prime Minister, voted to grant Spanish passports to some 170 descendants of International Brigade volunteers.
Read more »
Read the latest print edition of The Volunteer in pdf.
Read more »
Elena Fortún, Celia in the Revolution, translated by Michael Ugarte (Chicago: Swan Isle Press, 2023), 278 pp.
Read more »
Emilio Silva, Nébeda (Madrid: Alkibla, 2025), 212 pp.
Read more »
To the Editors: An article by Kathryn Everly in the March 2022 Volunteer on Salaria Kea’s life and her experiences in Spain focused on the fairness of comments found in the ALBA Collection at the Tamiment Library. When Fredericka Martin reviewed materials by and about Salaria, she found that some accounts of incidents were...
Read more »
To the Editors: As a longtime supporter of VALB and ALBA—and as a 76-year-old “red diaper baby” having been brought up in a “Brigade-adjacent” family—I was excited to see the announcement for the play At the Barricades, brought to us by a younger generation of activist theater makers. The performance was so impressive that I...
Read more »
Jay Greenfield died peacefully on June 29, at the age of 92. Having grown up in Rockaway, Queens, Jay was a graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Law School, where he was a Law Review editor. Following service as a lieutenant in Korea, he began his long career at Paul, Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton &...
Read more »
Bob Caminiti, who passed away on June 26 at the age of 88, spent much of his life behind the scenes in the television business. Born to Italian immigrants in Brooklyn, NY, he joined NBC in 1956, became Associate Director on Jeopardy in 1967, and worked on the production staff of Saturday Night Live from...
Read more »
I. In the Beginning Second child, Bernard, born March 1, 1915 Older brother, my father, Jacob (Jack), born June 3, 1912 Younger sister, Roslyn, born (June 1, 1922) disabled, hospitalized, died February 10, 1942 Their father, Abraham, died March 21,1930 Their mother, Nettie, died April 29, 1953 Bernie Brilliant student, graduated High...
Read more »
The title of this new occasional feature of The Volunteer is the Esperanto word for “archive.” In it, we will present, translate, and contextualize iconic non-English language documents related to the anti-fascist struggle in Spain.
Read more »
A Spy in the Footnotes: In Search of John Sherman By David Chambers There was his name in the very first footnote of Eric R. Smith’s 2013 book American Relief Aid and the Spanish Civil War: John Sherman, working for the Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy. A few pages later, the notes...
Read more »
In recent years, citizen groups in Leipzig and Madrid have fought to preserve the buildings that were backdrops in two of Robert Capa’s best-known photographs. Their steadfast dedication has created two sites of historical memory whose significance extends far beyond Capa’s original images.
Read more »
On November 8, 1937, Salaria Kea, a 26-year-old African American nurse from Ohio, had been in Spain for seven months and one day. The country was in disarray. Half its territory was controlled by fascist rebels. Cities were being bombed, and civilians were killed by the thousands. Thousands more were forcibly displaced. But Kea...
Read more »
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
sign up to receive email updates from ALBA. Support ALBA through a tax-deductible gift! To inquire about a donation, please contact the ALBA office at info@alba-valb.org or 212-674-5398.
A new episode of the podcast “Family Secrets of the Spanish Civil War” is now available. In the podcast, which premiered in October 2024, historians Patricia Schechter and Dan Czitrom discuss the impact of the Spanish war on their and others’ families. This episode features the children of Anna and Alvin Warren. Below is a...
Read more »
In 2025 the fourth stage of ALBA’s Passport Project wrapped up. The fourth stage focused on volunteers on whom we have very little information to enable a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) search. Most of the volunteers submitted had at least a year of birth to reference. Expectations...
Read more »
On the fiftieth anniversary of Franco’s death, the New York Times published an article by Jason Horowitz about the “nostalgia” for Francisco Franco being expressed by a growing number of younger Spaniards, most of whom have no direct experience of the dictator. As is common these days in the Times’ coverage of any number...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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,...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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...
Read more »
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
Search the Database