When people think about mass graves in Spain, most relate them to the war years. Yet an estimated 50,000 victims were executed after the war. This summer, I visited a cemetery where the ARMH are exhuming the remains of some of these victims.
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In 2019, Shannon O’Neill became the curator for the Tamiment-Wagner Collections of the New York University Special Collections that houses the ALBA archives. She previously worked at Barnard College, the Los Angeles Public Library, and the Atlantic City Free Public Library.
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Dear Friends, “Bringing the past alive” is one way to describe ALBA’s mission. Everything we do, from our lecture series and film screenings to our publications and educational work, is meant to underscore the relevance today of the historic struggle against fascism—a struggle that, we are convinced, can still serve as an example and...
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About 30 years ago, I spent a long day driving from Long Island to Brandeis and back with two Lincoln vets—Bill Susman and George Watt—when the conversation turned to whether they had gone to Spain in 1937 as Communists or Jews. There was no question what had motivated them, it seemed, as the topic...
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The Susman lecture this year was delivered by Marc Fasanella, son of ALB veteran and artist Ralph Fasanella, who discussed his father’s life and work, including his experience during the Spanish Civil War. Luisais Taveras, a Hunter College undergraduate student, introduced the speaker and led the Q&A session. Luisais had previously interviewed Ralph for...
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This summer, ALBA teaching staff offered the third fully online professional development workshop on “The United States and World Fascism: Human Rights from the Spanish Civil War to Nuremberg and Beyond,” together with Rich Cairn of the Collaborative for Educational Services. Some 20 secondary school teachers, from Massachusetts to Washington State, gathered weekly in...
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ALBA is gearing up for two great Bay Area-based events! Join us for a Gathering at the Monument on Sunday, August 22 to celebrate the newly restored National Monument to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade on the San Francisco Embarcadero (1:30 PM PDT to 4:00 PM PDT). You’ll have a chance to meet June Gipson of My...
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When a friend first pointed me to Tina Paterson’s colorized portraits of International Brigade volunteers, I was skeptical. Yet the images are disturbing and strangely powerful. Throwing time out of joint, they undermine the idea that the Civil War is a remote historical occurrence.
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A found manuscript in the Basque Country leads to a surprising correspondence.
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The Virtual Museum of Women in War (Museo Virtual de la Mujer Combatiente, MVMC) is now open for visits at www.mujeresenguerra.com. Based on the ongoing work of  a research group led by Gonzalo Berger (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) and Tània Balló, the website features a plethora of resources–including materials from Spanish and international archives, provincial...
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To the Editors: Thank you so much for the wonderful discussion on Invisible Heroes. I was wondering if you knew if Langston Hughes’ writing on Spain for the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper is available in book form. I understand his writing was published in Spanish by BAAM, but I cannot seem to locate a compilation...
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While growing up in New York City, I was fortunate to have various strong, intelligent, and politically committed women in my family. One of the most impressive of these women was my “aunt,” Shirley Katz Cohen (actually the sister of an aunt), whose presence at family dinners and special events had a distinctive influence...
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Not for King or Country: Edward Cecil-Smith, the Communist Party of Canada, and the Spanish Civil War, by Tyler Wentzell. University of Toronto Press, 2020. 386 pp. $32.95.
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Spanish Trenches: The Minds and Deeds of the Irish who Fought for the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War, by Barry McLoughlin and Emmet O’Connor. University College of Dublin Press, 2020. 400 pp. $35.
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The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War, by Giles Tremlett. 696 pp. London: Bloomsbury. $30.
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No Barrier Can Contain It: Cuban Antifascism and the Spanish Civil War, by Ariel Mae Lambe. University of North Carolina Press, 2019. 310 + xvi pp.
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In July last year a small group gathered—socially distanced—at the memorial to the International Brigades in London. As Jeremy Corbyn spoke of the “incredible sense of solidarity with people around the world” to a camera in a near-deserted Jubilee Gardens, I uploaded a short video as a personal act of remembrance on the International...
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Salaria Kea, the only woman among the close to 100 African American volunteers who left for Spain from the United States, married an Irish ambulance driver. Who was John O’Reilly?
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Born in Leeds, England, Syd Harris ended up in a Chicago orphanage when he was five. Fifteen years later, he volunteered for the Lincoln Battalion. After the war, as a well-known labor photographer and journalist, he was targeted by the FBI. A former boxer, he also acted as Paul Robeson’s personal bodyguard when the...
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Colleen Darby never met her uncle, who died in Spain five years before she was born. A reconstruction of his life and the circumstances of his death.
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Richard Sennett was in his late twenties when he found out his father had served in the International Brigades defending the Spanish Republic. So, it turned out, had his uncle.
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Dear Friends, “Health care is a human right,” Neal Rosenstein, the President of the Puffin Foundation, said at our annual gala on May 2. “And yet in a country as wealthy as the United States, health care isn’t a right, but all too often a condition of privilege.” The urgent need for health care...
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Students around the world are invited to submit their work for ALBA’s annual essay prize. The Watt Award, named in honor of Lincoln Brigade volunteer George Watt, awards outstanding work 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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Several hundred people from around the world joined on February 21 to attend a panel discussion of the documentary film Invisible Heroes, which tells the story of the African-Americans who joined the Spanish Civil War. The film was made available for screening beforehand. The lively panel featured the director, Jordi Torrent, along with Tim...
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From late January through early March, ALBA faculty once again partnered with the Massachusetts-based Collaborative for Educational Services to offer a five-week, online professional development institute for teachers. The workshop drew an enthusiastic and committed group of teachers from the United States and Spain, who developed engaging lesson plans to incorporate the history of...
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ALBA’s annual Susman lecture—offered online this year, register here—will feature Marc Fasanella, who will speak about the art of his father, Lincoln Brigade veteran Ralph Fasanella (1914-1997). A largely self-taught painter, Fasanella was born to an Italian immigrant family in the Bronx.
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“All you fascists, you are bound to lose,” sang Billy Bragg, the legendary British folk singer and activist, at ALBA’s annual gala on May 2. Bragg was one of the event’s featured musical guests, along with Miriam Elhajli, the cast of the musical Goodbye Barcelona, and Guy Davis—the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and bluesman, whose parents,...
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Dear Friends, The two main lessons to draw from the last 12 months are not particularly new—but they are crucial nonetheless. First, healthcare is a public good and should be treated as such. And second, the far right is as dangerous as we feared and should be taken very seriously. In relation to the...
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ALBA’s first event of the year was an interactive workshop featuring the beautiful and heart-rending art of children in wartime. Over 40 people joined two separate sessions conducted by ALBA’s in-house experts, Professors Jo Labanyi (NYU) and Anthony Geist (University of Washington). More information on the exhibit can be found here on ALBA’s website.
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On May 2, the eleventh ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism will be awarded to My Brother’s Keeper (MBK), a private, non-profit organization based in Mississippi that works to improve the health and well-being of minority and marginalized populations in the United States. (Press release.)
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Join us on Sunday, February 21 at 5pm ET for the inaugural event of the Perry Rosenstein Cultural Series—a roundtable discussion on African American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, whose stories are told in the documentary Invisible Heroes.
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ALBA’s second online institute for teachers, titled “The United States and World Fascism,” offered in conjunction with the Massachusetts-based Collaborative for Educational Service, began in late January and will run through February. Participants include History and Spanish teachers from all over the world, including the United States and Spain. Browse ALBA’s educational resources, including...
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The Tamiment Library will remain closed during the spring 2021 semester due to New York University’s COVID-19 protocols. We are not able to schedule any in-person appointments for external researchers at this time. For those who want limited access to our collections, our staff is continuing to work onsite in a staggered schedule and...
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One of the most compelling first-person accounts in English from the Spanish Civil War languished in the archives for more than 80 years. Artist and model Kate Mangan (1904-77) was a keen observer of character with a sharp nib on her pen. After traveling to Spain in 1936 in search of her lover, Jan...
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The Volunteer is proud to present these translated excerpts and images from Las voces de la tierra, a new book in which thirty-three writers pen brief texts about everyday objects recovered during the exhumations of the mass graves of Franco’s victims. The photographs are by the renowned photographer José Antonio Robés, who also curated...
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