“This is the most photogenic war anyone ever has seen.”* Estas palabras transcritas por Claud Cockburn carecían, en plena guerra civil, de perspectiva, mas no de perspicacia. Cierta magia hubo en esta contienda que la convirtió en epifanía de un nuevo tipo de conflicto bélico: violento y despiadado para una población civil que fotógrafos,...
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There were mixed feelings at the end of last year among those of us dedicated to preserving the memory of the 2,500 International Brigade volunteers from Britain and Ireland. On the one hand we celebrated the fact that the International Brigade Memorial Trust now has over 900 paying members. This is a record figure,...
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Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain until 1975, was obsessed with the notion of a powerful international conspiracy—led by Jews, Masons, Communists, and other “reds”— against the “new” Spain that emerged from his victory in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. He referred to this plot in the very last speech he gave on October...
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Among many other Spanish Civil War commemorations this year, it may be interesting to note that July 2013 marks the 75th anniversary of one of the conflict’s most bizarre episodes. In December 2005, Professor Sandie Holguín of the University of Oklahoma published a piece of research in the American Historical Review, was based on...
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Several hundred undocumented migrants die each year of heatstroke or at the hands of organized crime as they attempt to cross the deserts of Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. Law enforcement officials struggle to identify the bodies, while families in Mexico and Central America wait anxiously, not knowing what happened to their relatives.
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Hurricane Sandy swamped the schools of Bergen County, New Jersey last November, forcing postponement of ALBA’s teaching institute, but the spring term brought an exciting revival as 22 Spanish language and social studies high school educators attended a lively one-day session at the Bergen County Academies, organized by administrator Tim Casperson, in Hackensack.
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President Barack Obama has escalated the Bush administration’s use of targeted killing with drones and other methods. Drones, which avoid U.S. casualties, are more palatable to the American people than ground invasions such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of the 366 U.S. drone attacks that have killed more 3581 people in Pakistan...
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Michael Ratner, President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and filmmaker Oliver Stone spoke at ALBA’s event in New York, highlighting the connection between the courage of the Lincoln Brigade’s internationalist activism and the courage of the activists of United We Dream. See videos of their speeches. Kate Doyle, senior analyst at the National...
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Courage and fear, hope and despair: those were the recurring emotions expressed by five panelists who spoke about immigration reform at a round-table discussion organized by ALBA in New York on May 5. Speaking from the trenches, they confirmed that much has been achieved. And although the road ahead is long and complicated, every...
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Filmmaker Oliver Stone offered a moving encomium to the volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in his keynote speech at the 77th annual reunion held at Pace University in New York on May 5, where United We Dream received the annual ALBA / Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism (video | pictures).
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Paul Preston is impossible to avoid. Author of twelve books, editor of several more, and director of an important series on the subject, he towers mile-high in the landscape of Spanish Civil War scholarship. And yet in person he can be quite elusive. A previously arranged meeting for an interview in London first had...
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Jim Benét, lifelong journalist and veteran of the American Regiment de Tren (Transport) in the International Brigades, died in December near his home in northern California of a blood infection. He was 98. Born in New York to a literary family on both sides—his father was William Rose Benét, a poet; his uncle, Stephen...
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David Lomon, who died on 21 December 2012, aged 94, was the last known survivor in Britain of the more than 2,500 volunteers from the British Isles who joined the International Brigades.
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Dear ALBA, On behalf of the Broggi family (Dr. Moisés Broggi was my wife’s grandfather), I want to thank you for the thoughtful obituary published in The Volunteer. … As you know, the IB experience was a turning point in his medical career and his political awareness. He recalled that experience often, with clarity...
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Sylvia H. Thompson, who spent her life fighting for the poor and oppressed and championing the legacy of the veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, died of cancer in December in New York City. A stalwart supporter of both VALB and ALBA, she volunteered countless hours, year after year, organizing VALB’s annual reunions in...
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On the last day of 2012, Dr. Moisès Broggi decided to not celebrate New Year’s Eve for 105th time in his life. Some months earlier we had finished up an article together, L’exili i el silenci (“Exile and Silence”). It would be the last piece of writing of someone whom many of us had...
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Moises Broggi i Vallès, Catalan surgeon who served in the 35th International Division Medical Services, passed away on December 31, 2012. As a young doctor, working in an on call capacity, he provided medical care in the Military Hospital of Barcelona from the first day of the war. In early 1937 he was appointed...
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Tom Buchanan. East Wind: China and the British Left, 1925-1976 (Oxford University Press, 2012); “Shanghai-Madrid Axis’? Comparing British Responses to the Conflicts in Spain and China, 1936-39”, Contemporary European History 21.4 (November 2012): pp 533-552.
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David Boyd Haycock. I am Spain: The Spanish Civil War and the Men and Women Who Went to Fight Fascism (Old Street Publishing, Brecon, 2012).
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Can anyone shed any light on the origins of this sketch? It belonged to Arthur West, an activist in the Aid Spain movement in Nottingham and a prominent local trade unionist, who died in 1979, aged 67. The portrait is dedicated at the top to “the Liverpool Local with Red Front Saluds, Jack Coward.”...
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Not in My Father's Footsteps. By Terrence Rundle West. (General Store Publishing House, 2011).
The Road, and Nothing More. By J.T. Bautista. (Andrea Young Arts / El León Literary Arts, 2012).
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Garbo: The Spy. A documentary by Edmon Roch (Spain, 2009; US release 2012, distributed by First Run Features, 88 minutes).
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La crisis económica española que muchos pensaron pasajera se vuelve interminable. En un intento desesperado por comprender qué ha ocurrido y qué cabe esperar del futuro próximo, prácticamente todo el mundo tiene un relato que da sentido a la situación actual.
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The economic crisis in Spain, which many thought short-lived, appears to have no end in sight. In a desperate attempt to understand what has happened and what the near future may bring, almost everyone has adopted a narrative that helps explain the situation and charts some way forward.
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Antonio Frasconi, the great graphic artist, illustrator, teacher and humanitarian, created this woodcut of the Lincoln Memorial, which resides in the nation’s capitol next to the famous words of the Gettysburg address, “That government, of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” He titled this 1956...
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In 2013, the Wayne State University Abraham Lincoln Brigade Veterans Scholarship Committee will celebrate its 30th anniversary awarding scholarships to deserving students. It has been a long road that began during the Spanish Civil War when nearly 100 Michiganders joined the International Brigades. Four were Wayne State University students who put their studies aside...
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While his friends Robert Capa and Gerda Taro were most at ease in action shots, Chim’s range was much wider. And although Chim--aka Dawid Szymin, aka David Seymour--was a master at the photo story, many of his single images are striking on their own.
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Several years ago, a researcher from the small Galician town of As Pontes, participating in the excavation of a mass grave from the Spanish Civil War in the heavily left-leaning region of Asturias, caught his breath as he heard a vitriolic torrent of abuse directed at the gallegos. The Galicians, he was told, were...
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The struggle to end impunity for state violence has been a central concern of the human rights movement in Latin America for decades. Efforts by victims, rights advocates, and justice officials to promote accountability have been determined, and in many instances heroic. The results have been mixed. Many human rights abusers who once seemed...
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After more than seven decades of impunity, those who committed crimes during Francisco Franco’s dictatorship may finally have to face a judge. Spain has never lifted its 1977 amnesty law, which, unlike similar laws in Chile and Argentina, was passed by a democratically elected government. Claiming that the law was a crucial piece...
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Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger, and Oliver Stone join ALBA in inviting you to a celebration of the third ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism, featuring United We Dream and music by Barbez and Bernardo Palombo. (Tickets | Invitation | Press Release English / Spanish)
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A survey of Lincoln veterans in the 1980s showed that 80 percent of the surviving volunteers were immigrants or children of immigrants. Some had participated in the mass migrations before WWI but many were relative newcomers who were "internationalists" rather than nationals.
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United We Dream, the national network of youth-led immigrant activist organizations that fight for the rights of millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States, has been selected as winner of the 2013 ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism. The United We Dream Network (UWD) will receive the award at ALBA’s annual event...
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El pasado mes de febrero recibí una llamada del Ateneo de Madrid pidiéndome que preparara una pequeña exposición sobre algún aspecto de la II República Española para presentar en la tertulia que todos los lunes reúne a un grupo de republicanos –la mayoría ya muy mayores- deseosos de saber más sobre ese breve periodo...
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(English version.) Josep Maria Massons Esplugas falleció el 10 de noviembre de 2012 en Barcelona. Nació en Valls (Tarragona, Cataluña) el 18 de enero de 1913. Se licenció en la Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de Barcelona en 1934. Ganó una plaza de medico-interno de cirugía del Hospital Clínico de Barcelona. Cuando estalló...
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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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On Friday April 26, 2024, as part of my work with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Tribute Project I set out to visit the grave of Harry Farris in North Henrico, VA. I located the cemetery easily but my search for his grave proved a bit more complicated. I had the section he is buried...
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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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With deep sadness, I write of the passing of Helene Susman, widow of Bill, at the age 103. She did not go to Spain with the Lincolns nor held a position with the VALB or ALBA, but to me and many others she was a founder of our small organization and a kindred spirit....
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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 places are...
Read more »
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 places are...
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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
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