The bombing of Gernika, in April 1937, continues to be shrouded in mystery and lies. Xabier Irujo has spent six years researching 12,000 documents from Basque, Spanish, French, British, United States and Italian archives. A summary of his findings.
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The United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances closed its visit to Spain yesterday with a poorly attended press conference at which the two UN representatives presented the Spanish government with a long list of urgent tasks: “The State must assume a leadership role and engage more actively to respond to the demands...
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This week the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas–which houses one of the largest humanities collections in the world–announced the acquisition of the papers of Barbara Probst Solomon (b. 1928), a long-time friend and ally of the Spanish Republic and the Lincoln Brigade. The collection includes manuscripts, correspondence, published books, first drafts, interviews, documentaries and...
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As a child growing up in Madrid, I frequently used to ask my mom, María Luisa Jerez Marín, about her parents, whom I had never met. My grandmother, Modesta Marín, died of cancer at the early age of 42. And my grandfather, Arturo Martín, I was told ‘died in the war’, like so many...
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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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Garbo: The Spy. A documentary by Edmon Roch (Spain, 2009; US release 2012, distributed by First Run Features, 88 minutes).
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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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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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A couple of weeks ago, Luis Argeo and I inaugurated a Facebook page that we hope will serve as a kind of dynamic storefront for a more staid and long-term scholarly and documentary project aimed at chronicling the history of Spanish immigration to the United States. This past Sunday, I posted on that FB...
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“Across the Pyrenees” is a presentation of the Walk Across the Pyrenees organized by British friends of the International Brigades. It follows the path of the volunteers as they stole into Republican Spain in the dead of night. Their goal was to defeat fascism in Spain before it spread into Europe. Three people from...
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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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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...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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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...
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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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Peter Verburgh’s translation from the French Newpaper Le Journal about a group of 29 Americans arrested in France. “29 American Volunteers Arrested in Muret” Le Journal, 5 April 1937 Toulouse, 4 April- The Control services of the Non-Intervention Committee do not remain inactive, especially with the help of the French Police and Gendarmerie. Thus...
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ALBA Board Member Steve Birnbaum made the trek on Memorial Day to the Home of Eternity Cemetary in Oakland, California to pay tribute to ALB veteran Hans Joachim. Joachim was born in Berlin, Germany in 1906 and moved to the US in 1924. He served in Spain with the George Washington Battalion and later...
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Please find attached photos of my visits to the graves of Lester Rowlson and Tersil Obriot last weekend. I left a brigade flag and a fresh white rose at each. ,,, I was also proud to include aspects of my Clapton CFC scarf; you might have heard of this small football club in London that...
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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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