Quaker Relief Work in the Spanish Civil War. By Farah Mendlesohn. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002. During the Spanish Civil War, in the face of the enormous civilian suffering, a number of non-governmental international organizations stepped in to perform relief work. Many of these supported one side of the conflict or the other;...
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Al servicio de la República. Diplomáticos y guerra civil. Edited by Ángel Viñas. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2010. Diplomats are funny creatures. On the one hand, they embody an anachronistic kind of superficiality—all form, protocol, and etiquette. On the other, they are influential actors behind the scenes, no less devious or powerful than spies and...
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Young men volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War for many reasons, but few American volunteers came from privileged backgrounds. When I saw 1938 and Calaceite, Spain, on a list of Williams College men who died in World War II, I was introduced to Barton Carter. The full story of Carter’s radicalization and...
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Part of the difficulty in studying Kea’s life—and what makes her story so intriguing—is that subtle details change from memoir to memoir. Over the last three years, I have travelled to archives in the United States and England tracking down information about Kea, and yet I am still piecing together her story. The process...
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Viewing seven documentaries about the Lincoln Brigade in two days, a curious thing happened: I had difficulty telling them apart. Not, of course, in their broad sweep. Rather, it was in the details, and more specifically in the archival footage, where I had difficulty distinguishing them.
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Fanny Schoonheyt, the tall, blond “queen of the machine gun,” was the only Dutch woman to join in the battle action during the Spanish Civil War. Her life is shrouded in mystery. Could she have been the only female foreign official in the Republican Army? What was her involvement in the events of May...
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Luis Buñuel: The Red Years, 1929-1939, due to be published next month with the University of Wisconsin Press (excerpt, order), reveals scores of unknown facts about the life and work of Luis Buñuel during a crucial decade not only in the filmmaker’s life but in the history of film and photography—as well...
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Among the sources of information about Buñuel's activities during the first few weeks of the war: is a receipt signed dated 25 August 1936, for a loan of £490 granted by Leo Fleischman, an engineer from New York who enlisted in the Fifth Regiment and died in combat in October 1936.
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The story of Thane Summers, a student at the University of Washington, provides a case study of one man’s road to the Spanish Civil War. Because he came from a middle class, white, native born, Christian family, Thane did not experience the social discrimination and political disenfranchisement common to many other Lincoln volunteers. He...
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This essay examines a crucial facet of violence against the clergy: the processes by which male identities, and popular ideas regarding priests’ sexuality and masculinity, influenced the forms and intensity of anticlerical violence. During the conflict, acts of violent anticlerical collective action were committed primarily by male workers. Although women did take part in...
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ALBA’s George Watt Memorial Essay Prizes are awarded annually to a graduate student and an undergraduate student who have written an outstanding essay or thesis chapter about any aspect of the Spanish Civil War, the global political or cultural struggles against fascism in the 1920s and 1930s, or the lifetime histories and contributions...
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Focusing a wide lens on the human rights agenda, ALBA hosted “Impugning Impunity: A Human Rights Documentary Film Series” at the Museum of the City of New York in November. The festival kicked off with Hollman Morris’ Impunity, a film about the victims of state-sponsored terrorism in Colombia and the truth commission that was...
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To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the International Brigades, ALBA is hosting a benefit party in the spirit of the '30s on December 9th in New York City (tickets, info), including live music and a silent auction featuring Jo Davidson bust of Pasionaria (preview and bid). The ALBA...
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(English text.) Durante las últimas dos semanas del mes de octubre, han estado muy a la vista las amplias y profundas contribuciones del Juez español Baltasar Garzón a la promoción de la justicia y de los derechos humanos. Aunque los titulares y los “sound-bytes” que nos llegan de lugares tan alejados como...
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I see many men jump out of doors and windows and dive into trenches: I follow quickly. I land on my hands and knees in the bottom of a four or five foot deep trench. I straighten out my legs and like down with my face on my crossed wrists. ...
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The appointment of Philip Levine as U.S. Poet Laureate for the coming year brings a familiar name to prominence. Ten years ago, Levine presented the ALBA-Bill Sennett Lecture at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, and he presented the ALBA-Bill Susman Lecture at New York University the following year, both on the subject of Spanish...
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One year after Clarence Kailin died, our family still feels the pain of his loss as if it were yesterday. But today we have finally, this morning, brought Dad to rest by his dear comrade John Cookson. We have honored Dad’s fervent wish, a wish that he first expressed to you here in Marçà...
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Trisha Ziff’s Mexican Suitcase, a gripping documentary on the photography and historical memory of the Spanish Civil War, has been selected for the New York and Los Angeles DocuWeeks, the San Sebastián Film Festival, the DocMiami International Film Festival, and as opening feature for the AFI Latin American Film Festival in Silver Spring, MD....
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Thank you for acknowledging my father’s bequest to ALBA. He would be pleased to know that the money will be used for specific programs and that these will be named after him. Still, knowing my father as I do, I rather suspect that he would find this honor less important than the on-going mission of...
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David Fellman, son and nephew of ALB vets Sol and Harry Fellman, recently featured in an episode of PBS's History Detectives, writes to supply additional details and to share remaining questions.
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Unearthing Franco’s Legacy: Mass Graves and the Recovery of Historical Memory in Spain. Ed. Carlos Jerez-Farrán and Samuel Amago. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010. (Buy at Powell's and support ALBA) In the past 10 years, organizations both in Spain and abroad have vindicated the need to honor victims of the...
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Olavi Kantola was a Finnish-American volunteer in the International Brigades. This text by Alina Flinkman appeared in the Finnish magazine "Vaku" in 1941.
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Behind the lines during the Spanish Civil War, nearly two hundred thousand men and women were murdered extra-judicially or executed after flimsy legal process. They were killed as a result of the military coup of 17-18 July 1936 against the Second Republic. For the same reason, at least three hundred thousand men...
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With the support of the Puffin Foundation, ALBA has now successfully conducted educational outreach workshops in New York; Tampa, Florida; Oberlin, Ohio; and Alameda County, California. Similar programs are slated to take place this fall in New York, New Jersey, and Chicago. Scores of high school teachers all over the country are enjoying...
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The first major exhibit featuring the Spanish Civil War work of Catalan photographer Agustí Centelles (1909-1985), co-sponsored by ALBA, is opening at NYU’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center on October 5th; a symposium on Centelles’ work featuring six speakers will be held on at the Center on November 30th, including NYU's...
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Judge Baltasar Garzón, recipient of the first ALBA-Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism last May, has accepted a special assignment from the Organization of American States (OAS) to work on the peace process in Colombia. As Special Advisor to the Mission to Support the Peace Process (MAPP), he will coordinate the...
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Planning for your will and your legacy? The Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade established their legacy with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. Now you can continue their “good fight” by establishing a legacy gift to ALBA in your will. As a non-profit educational organization, 501(c)(3), ALBA can accept legacy gifts in any amount,...
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Five major new documentaries on historical memory and transitional justice in Spain, Latin America, and Africa! That is how, this November 3-5, ALBA, the Puffin Foundation, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the North American Congress for Latin America, and several other human rights organizations are honoring the work of...
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October 2011 marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the International Brigades. To properly honor the brave men and women who fought to save the Spanish Republic, programs of appreciation and remembrance will take place for a full week in different parts of Spain. ALBA will be joining the official program of activities in...
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For me, as for so many others throughout the world, the volunteers of the Lincoln Brigade are an example of courage and solidarity… They were the kind of people who fight against the worst cancer of humanity: indifference.  It is our duty to carry this idea of solidarity forward. —Judge Baltasar Garzón, on receiving...
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His life begins with the rain, and the soggy cushions / of a couch left by the landlord to die on a Brooklyn sidewalk / in the year 1930. His life begins at age fifteen, Abe / the high school wrestler straining the cords in his neck / to lift the couch with the...
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Written in Red: The Communist Memoir in Spain. By Gina Herrmann. University of Illinois Press, 2010. Written in Red analyzes the life writing of six Spanish Communists: Dolores Ibárurri, Jorge Semprún, Rafael Alberti, María Teresa León, Teresa Pàmies and Tomás Pàmies. Notwithstanding significant stylistic and political differences, their writing shares a preoccupation with the personal...
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Two Americans stand out as among the most effective and least typical of their generation to aid Spain in its fight against Fascism. Unlike most of the other U.S. volunteers who participated in the Spanish Civil War, the flyers Frank Tinker and Albert J. “Ajax” Baumler were not politically motivated men who learned to...
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A Spanish court has initiated criminal proceedings against six former officials of the Bush administration. John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, William Haynes and Douglas Feith may face charges in Spain for authorizing torture at Guantánamo Bay. If arrest warrants are issued, Spain and any of the other 24 countries that are...
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The First Annual ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism attracted widespread interest among the media in Europe and the Americas. Among the highlights: David Cole in The Nation; Dan Kaufman in The New Yorker; Amy Goodman for Democracy Now!. All the major Spanish papers featured the event prominently as well, as...
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