The Volunteer March 2017

Vol. XXXIV, No.1

March 2017

PUBLISHED BY THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN BRIGADE ARCHIVES

Refugees Welcome: ALBA/Puffin Award for Migrant Rescuers Soviet Strategies in Spain (p. 15) New Photos Unearthed (p. 20) A Poster’s Hidden Treasure (p. 12)

Óscar Camps brings an infant ashore. Photo courtesy POA.

Dear Friends and Comrades: Founded by the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade 799 Broadway, Suite 341 New York, NY 10003 (212) 674-5398 www.alba-valb.org Editor Print Edition Peter N. Carroll Editor Online Edition www.albavolunteer.org Sebastiaan Faber Associate Editor Aaron B. Retish Book Review Editor Joshua Goode Graphic Design www.eyestormonline.com Editorial Assistance Phil Kavanaugh Manuscripts, inquiries, and letters to the editor may be sent by email to info@alba-valb.org The editors reserve the right to modify texts for length and style.

Books for review may be sent to Joshua Goode Claremont Graduate University Blaisdell House, #5, 143 East 10th Street Claremont, CA 91711

www.albavolunteer.org 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 (193639). Drawing on the ALBA collections in New York University’s Tamiment Library, and working to expand such collections, ALBA works to preserve the legacy of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade as an inspiration for present and future generations.

IN THIS ISSUE p 3 p 6 p 7 p 8 p 10 p 11 p 12 p 15 p 19 p 20 p 21 p 22

ALBA/Puffin Award Trump & Historical Memory Update from the Archives Faces of ALBA Paris 1937 Exhibit Reprised Bethune Exhibit A Poster’s Hidden Treasure Guerrillas Spain & the USSR Book Reviews New Photos Discovered Obituaries Contributions

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We live in interesting times. Hundreds of thousands of women and men across the country and around the world are engaging in acts of resistance against oppression and bigotry, and demonstrating for democracy and human rights.

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives stands with this broad progressive movement. Following in the footsteps of those who stood shoulder-toshoulder with the people of Spain to make Madrid the tomb of fascism, ALBA is intensifying its efforts to support and inspire those who struggle for a better world today.

The past two years have seen the largest migration crisis since World War II. With this year’s ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism, we are providing tangible aid to the brave Spanish internationalists of Proactiva Open Arms who voluntarily patrol the treacherous waters of the Mediterranean to rescue thousands of refugees fleeing war and tyranny. In September 2015, after seeing media coverage of drowned children on the beaches of Lesbos, Proactiva’s director Oscar Camps traveled to the island with three members of the company to see if they could help. A year and a half later, Camps and his team have expanded their operation, rescuing hundreds of people every day.

Their work—protecting refugees and highlighting the injustices they face—has never been more important. ALBA is proud to honor this group.

With your continued support, we are expanding our efforts to link the struggles of the past with the current fight against social and economic inequality, bigotry, and racism. In addition to our annual event in New York on April 16, we are continuing our work with high school teachers around the country. They, too, are facing difficult challenges as they are trying to help their students understand the need for citizen activism.

This is not a time to despair. All of us, in our own way, have a responsibility to oppose the forces of reaction. We have our work cut out for us and together we will face the challenges ahead.

With optimism and resolve,

Fraser Ottanelli Chair of the Board of Governors

Marina Garde Executive Director

P.S. Please support our common effort as best as you can. The struggle continues.

Letter to ALBA ALBA 799 Broadway, Suite 341 New York 10033 I will be 87 years old next June. For my 7th birthday I was given a dollar which I donated to the Friends of the Lincoln Brigade. In return I got a pin shaped like the Liberty Bell.

Enclosed is a contribution for restoral of the monument in San Francisco.

Onwards with the struggle!

Victor Chechanover

ALBA/Puffin Award Honors Refugee Rescue Work

Proactiva Open Arms, a Spanish NGO, Has Saved Thousands of Lives On Sunday, April 16, the annual ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism will be granted to Proactiva Open Arms (POA), a humanitarian aid organization based in Badalona (Catalonia) dedicated to rescuing refugees who take to the sea in an attempt to flee war, persecution, and poverty, and to reach the shores of Southern Europe.

March 2017 September 2016 THE VOLUNTEER 3

ALBA/Puffin Award Honors Refugee Rescue Work Proactiva Open Arms was founded by 54-year-old Óscar Camps, a long-time lifesaving professional.

Proactiva Open Arms in action before the coast of Lesbos, Greece. Photos courtesy of POA. Bottom left: Óscar Camps with rescued infant.

Photo Yannis Behrakis/Reuters.

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Catalan politicians, including Barcelona mayor Ada Colau, visit with Óscar Camps and his crew as the Astral leaves the Barcelona port.

Photo Ajuntament de Barcelona. CC BY-ND 2.0

ALBA/Puffin Award Honors Refugee Rescue Work

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n September 2015, POA was the first NGO specializing in rescue missions to arrive at the island of Lesbos (Greece). Since June 2016, POA’s ship Astral, fully equipped for open-sea rescue and medical care, has been present in the Mediterranean, saving thousands of lives.

Proactiva Open Arms was founded by 54-year-old Óscar Camps, a long-time lifesaving professional who heads up a rescue company with up to 600 staff. In September 2015, deeply moved by photographs of children drowning in the Aegean sea, he used his personal savings to set up a rescue operation on Lesbos, staffed by volunteers, in an attempt

The refugee crisis in Europe is severe and shows no sign of relenting. The refugee agreement between the European Union and Turkey has encouraged organized gangs to explore longer and more dangerous escape routes, forcing Proactiva Open Arms to cover a new key point in the refugees’ trajectory: the crossing between Libya and Italy, where POA collaborates with the Italian Coast Guard to provide search and rescue for refugees at sea. Thanks to a generous donation, POA now has a 90-foot, fully equipped rescue boat, the Astral. Its professional, experienced crew works in two-week shifts.

Between January 2015 and October 2016, more than 1.3 million people reached Europe by sea. More than 7,700 have drowned, a third of them children. to save as many lives as possible. Currently, Proactiva has a permanent team stationed on Lesbos that commands three rescue boats, four water scooters, and a full supply of professional equipment, funded by donations.

The work of Proactiva Open Arms has been widely featured in Spanish, European, and US media. The organization has played a key role in raising awareness of and support for the ongoing refugee crisis.

Between September 2015 and the signing of the agreement between Turkey and the European Union in March 2016, Proactiva Open Arms helped more than 143,000 people reach the coast and rescued more than 10,000 people who were adrift. They also brought more than 9,000 who were trapped on coastal cliffs to safety and saved 475 people who were in direct danger of drowning.

Sunday, April 16, 2017 81st Annual Celebration (New York) and presentation of the ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism

The thousands of refugees who undertake the dangerous journey from the North African coast across the Mediterranean are often victims of gangsters that charge high sums of money but fail to provide them with any safe boats, let alone life jackets. The fleeing refugees include a high percentage of minors. Between January 2015 and October 2016, more than 1.3 million people reached Europe by sea. More than 7,700 have drowned, a third of them children.

Museum of the City of New York 1220 5th Avenue New York, NY 10029 4:45 p.m.

Reception to follow

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Hundreds protested outside Trump Tower, Dec. 20, 2016. Photo by Joe Catron. CC BY-NC 2.0

Trump or the Decline of Historical Memory

By Sebastiaan Faber and Peter Carroll

Trump’s election creates new challenges for everyone involved in history teaching. What is it like to teach social studies when the nation’s president appears to blatantly ignore factual evidence? What’s the task ahead?

“I

don’t think there was any racism until Obama got elected,” Kathy Miller, Trump campaign manager in Mahoning County, Ohio, told a Guardian journalist in the runup to the November elections. “If you are black, and you haven’t been successful in the last 50 years, it’s your own fault.”

Spain, it turns out, is not the only country facing challenges when it comes to historical memory. Trump’s candidacy “represents the predictable outburst of an electorate whose civic awareness has been hollowed out,” the journalist Kevin Mahnken wrote. The country, he added, is facing “the bill come due for decades of failure in teaching American students the foundational concepts of their history and political system.” Trump’s election creates new challenges for everyone involved in history teaching—including ALBA. The morning after last November’s election, ALBA’s teaching instructors, James Fernández and Peter Carroll, arrived at the planned professional development day for high school teachers in Bergen County, New Jersey. Weary from watching the late election returns, they entered school hallways crowded with students weeping openly, mourning the results and the consequences for their own lives. Inside classrooms, teachers expressed the same sentiment, with the additional burden of having to provide emotional support for their anxious students.

We had all learned the great truth that separates hope and history.

“Trump embodies the failure of an educational system in which history teaching is less and less important,” says Kurt Russell, a Social Studies teacher at an Ohio high school. “But it’s not just that history takes up fewer hours or carries less weight. We used to agree that teaching history and civics helped form conscious citizens who knew how the system worked, understood this country’s evolution, and saw it in terms of values: truth and lies, justice and injustice. Who took for granted that the government served to protect the equal rights of its citizens. That’s no longer the case. And that’s partly due to standardized testing. According to the Ohio guidelines, for example, students are expected to know the Treaty of Versailles. But at no point do the standards talk about the values and ideals that informed it.” The Ohio legislature 6 THE VOLUNTEER March 2017

is Republican dominated. “You can tell,” says Tracy Blake, who teaches in a Cleveland suburb. “The Social Studies standards, for example, make no mention of human rights.”

What is it like to teach history when the nation’s president appears to chronically ignore factual evidence? “It’s a real professional dilemma,” says Blake. “I have always tried to maintain a certain political neutrality in my classes when it came, for example, to different presidential candidates. In this case, that’s been impossible.”

For all his lack of historical knowledge, Trump represents an all-American archetype, says Daniel Czitrom, a member of the ALBA board who teaches history at Mount Holyoke college and has co-authored high school textbooks: “He’s a George Babbitt, or a P.T. Barnum.” Czitrom doesn’t agree that Trump’s rise can be blamed on the educational system. “Education doesn’t only occur in schools. In reality, those of us who teach history have the entire culture working against us. I notice it in my students. Just being interested in history makes you a nerd.”

The United States needs to get its historical memory in order more than ever, says Bryan Stevenson, the civil rights lawyer from Montgomery, Alabama, who received the 2014 ALBA/ Puffin Award. “We are utterly incapable of reflecting honestly on our history and the things that we do wrong,” he said on that occasion. “We confuse pride and support for America with the notion that we can never apologize, never acknowledge our defects. And we are suffering because of it.” Inspired by the examples of Peru, South Africa, and other countries, Stevenson has called for a truth and reconciliation process. “Trump is the latest manifestation in a long line of hate,” Stevenson said in an interview with CNN in December 2015. “And if we don’t denounce his racism, we are aligning ourselves with the forces that perpetuated slavery … and instituted segregation.”

Sebastiaan Faber and Peter N. Carroll are former chairs of ALBA’s Board of Governors. A longer version of this article appeared, in Spanish, in CTXT: Contexto y Acción (www.ctxt.es).

Tim Johnson. Photo: Elena Olivo. Courtesy of NYU Photo Bureau.

Update from the Archives

By Timothy Johnson

Seventy-eight years after the end of the Spanish Civil War and one year after the death of the last US volunteer, the ALBA collection at the Tamiment Library continues to grow.

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elatives of volunteers and veterans continue to uncover material that had been stored in boxes or packed away in basements, attics and other out-of-sight locations. We recently acquired, in such a manner, some material from a Lincoln veteran named Aubrey Kirby Kelley.

Up to now, the VALB database had some basic information on Kelley, which states: Kelley, Aubrey Kirby. (Kelley, Arthur; Edwin; Eiwin; Hirby), b. September 4, 1903 (1904), Bessman (Bessmay), Texas; Canadian with American Passport; Carpenter and Plasterer; CP 1938 (Spanish?); No passport issued; Domicile 638½ Proctor Street, Port Arthur, Texas (Momryk indicates Kelley lived in Toronto at some point); Arrived in Spain on May 1, 1937 (March 1, 1938); Served with the XV BDE, Lincoln-Washington BN, Machine Gun Company, later Co. 1, rank Soldado; Returned to the US on December 20, 1938 aboard the Ausonia; WWII Armed forces; d. 1970.

a copy of Estampas de la Revolución Española 19 Julio de 1936, which had been signed by over 50 other Lincoln vets, and a number of clippings from Texas newspapers announcing his return from the war.

While this material won’t initiate a radical re-evaluation of the ALB, it does assist in fleshing out the stories of the men and women who volunteered. Just as importantly, it often helps their descendants understand the motivation of their often-distant relatives. Upon her return to Texas, Ms. Pickett wrote: I really enjoyed our visit. Your knowledge of Spain’s revolution helped me a great deal in putting some pieces together about my grandfather. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be involved in the donation process at the Tamiment Library and look forward to continued correspondence with you.

Timothy V. Johnson is the Head of Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives

There was no further information about Kelley in the ALB Archives until Tamiment received an email from Kelley’s granddaughter: My name is Laura Pickett, my maternal grandfather Aubrey K. Kelley was a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and I have found some of his personal memorabilia regarding his time spent serving their cause in Spain. I was unaware of the specifics of his service until a few months ago when I discovered a trunk with a scrapbook, newspaper clippings, etc.

In particular, is a beautiful art book depicting scenes from the Spanish Revolution with signatures of American men who were (I think) involved with the fight. If you are interested in any of these documents, please let me know.

We responded to Ms. Pickett, informing her that we would appreciate adding her grandfather’s collection to the archive.

She notified us that she was planning a trip to New York City in August and would bring the material with her.

When she arrived, she had with her some materials from Kelley’s service in World War II (including dog tags). The ALB materials included a copy of Kelley’s Spanish carnet (military passport),

Fordham students visiting the Tamiment Library to consult the ALBA collection.

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Faces of ALBA-VALB

Chris Brooks

By Aaron Retish

Chris Brooks is the driving force behind ALBA’s online biographical database of Lincoln Brigade veterans. His countless hours of research and correspondence have produced a comprehensive and accessible collection that has put a story and a face to thousands of veterans.

“I am currently delving into the International Brigade Archives that are housed in the Russian State Archive.”

You have created the online biographical database of Lincoln Brigade veterans (alba-valb.org/volunteers). How did you get interested in researching and cataloging the lives of the Lincoln Brigade volunteers?

I initially engaged with VALB in graduate school when I was looking for a topic for my MA thesis. My interest lies primarily in military history and I found the American volunteers’ service in Spain to be unique. After some background reading, I settled on a study of African-American volunteers. I came across the phone number of the VALB office in my initial research. I cold called Moishe Brier and quickly arranged to travel to New York City to interview some of the veterans. My interviews with Charlie Nusser and Ken Graeber were the first of more than 30 veterans. The VALB office assisted my research by distributing a survey on African-American volunteers that went out to surviving veterans and family members. They also introduced me to veteran Adolph “Buster” Ross.

Ross had compiled a comprehensive list of American volunteers that was first published as a part of the VALB 50th Anniversary program. He continued to refine the list and I started working with him in the course of my research. We corresponded and I made several trips to Seattle to interview other veterans and work with him in person. Ross proposed that I expand the list into a biographical database and funded a grant through the New York Times to help cover the costs. ALBA administered the grant and published the database with the last of these funds. I have continued to volunteer my time maintaining the database, conducting research, and interacting with other researchers.

How many veterans have you collected information on and how many more veterans’ stories are still left to be told?

Adolph Ross arrived at an estimate of 2,800 American volunteers.

There are many more names that have been put forward as volunteers. I have a confirmed list that exceeds 2,600 volunteers at present. I began my confirmation process using Ross’s list and 8 THE VOLUNTEER March 2017

added and removed names when they were supported by other sources. Part of the challenge is determining what constitutes an American volunteer. Veteran Bob Reed in his study of Pacific Northwest volunteers broke his list into three sub-categories.

I adopted a similar system. Currently only the Category I volunteers are presented online.

Category I includes those born in the US; those who were residing in the US when they left for Spain; and volunteers who were temporarily living in other countries and left for Spain from a foreign country. There are some odd cases such as Canadians who appear on the American list because they traveled on US passports. These individuals likely considered themselves to be Canadians and appear on the Canadian list.

Category II includes non-native volunteers who lived in the US at some point prior to going to Spain and did not return to the US. This category includes some fascinating characters like Bruno Bonturri, who was born in Italy, emigrated to the US at age 14, returned to Italy six years later, then went back and forth between Italy and the United States before emigrating to Barcelona, Spain in 1934. He was expelled from Spain in 1935 and returned when the civil war broke out. After the war Bonturri attempted to return to the US but was denied reentry.

Category III are veterans who came to the US after Spain. This category includes veterans like English volunteer Bernard Knox, French volunteer George Sossenko, and Cuban volunteer Blas Padrino Calzadilla.

Where do you find the information on the veterans?

The database represents the work of several contributors. I have used primary sources whenever possible. Records from the Subversive Activities Control Board, the Sail List from the VALB office, United States State Department Records, and the ALBA Collection at New York University’s Tamiment Library formed the initial framework of the database. I am currently delving into Chris Brooks. Photo courtesy of Chris Brooks

the International Brigade Archives that are housed in the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI). Many files from the collection are online. The accessibility of these records proved invaluable in finding American records filed under other nationalities. Many American volunteers were recent immigrants or first generation Americans. Ancestry.com is also a gold mine of information. Dr. Ray Hoff, son of veteran Harold Hoff, assembled the “Lincoln-Washington Tree” on Ancestry.com. He is linking available documents from the collections available on Ancestry.com to every American volunteer. One of Hoff’s recent finds, in the Seaman’s Certificate of Identity application records, yielded photographs of over 130 American volunteers.

The generous contributions of fellow researchers who gave permission to incorporate their data provide greater depth to the database. Contributions include veterans Carl Geiser and Bob Steck’s POW Historical Commission files; Bob Reed’s Pacific Northwest study; Myron Momryk and Michael Petro’s biographical dictionary and database on Canadian volunteers; Jyrki Juusela’s biographical sketches on Finnish-American volunteers; Len and Nancy Tsou’s biographical sketches on Chinese- and Asian-American volunteers; José Alejandro Ortiz Carrión and Teresita Torres Rivera provided work on Puerto Rican volunteers; John Peter Kraljic’s study of South Slav volunteers; and the late Richard S. Allen’s sketches of American aviators. James Carmody was extraordinarily generous with his time, his patience for my off-the-wall questions, and his vast knowledge of the British volunteers. Victor Berch and Gail Malmgreen, archivists who worked with the ALBA Collection, provided encouragement, guidance and leads to source materials within the ALBA collection. Other researchers, individuals and family members too numerous to mention by name contributed data, research and information. I also draw on a continually growing library on the International Brigades as well as books and my extensive collection of pamphlets and articles.

For the past year I have worked with documents in the RGASPI archive to identify Category I volunteers filed under countries other than the United States. I also recently completed rough drafts of the South American, Caribbean and Mexican biographical databases. I am halfway through the Canadian RGASPI files. My notes on these files will be added to the Canada and the Spanish Civil War’s volunteer database. Once the Canadian work is completed I am committed to working with Dr. Ariel Lambe on an improved Cuban biographical database.

Once those tasks are completed I will begin a complete update of the online database of American veterans.

What have been your greatest surprises in your research?

I am constantly amazed when I come across new information confirming an alias used by a volunteer that Adolph Ross had intuitively connected when he initially drew up his list. More often than not, Ross was correct despite the fact that he did not have access to many of the primary sources that are now available.

The biographical database is such an invaluable resource for families of veterans and anyone interested in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. I use it in my own class when I teach the Spanish Civil War. Have you heard from others who use the database?

I am delighted to hear that you are finding ways to put the database to use in your classroom. The point of my work is to provide students, researchers and family members with the best information available for each American who volunteered. I do receive queries, mostly from family members who are looking for more information or who want to provide corrections to the record. I welcome feedback and input from all of the family members and do my best to provide a speedy answer.

A Sample from the Database

Elieceer López Fernandez is a volunteer on whom we had no information prior to finding his records in RGASPI. I recently updated his information based on feedback from his daughter. Ray Hoff’s Lincoln-Washington Tree in Ancestry fleshed out his information. I just posted his entry online. We are hoping to obtain more information from his family and will continue to add to the entry.

—Chris Brooks

López Fernandez, Elieceer. (Eliecer; Elicer); b. April 18, 1918, Reina Horna, Spain (NYC), To the US in 1920; Spanish American; Father Vincent López, Mother Josefa Fernandez; Elementary Education; No prior military service; Single; Painter; No party affiliation; Domicile 313 East 95th Street, NYC; Left for Spain May 11, 1938; Arrived in Spain on May 23, 1938; Served with the XV BDE, BDE Transmissiones, Machine gunner; Rank Soldado; Served at the Ebro Offensive Returned to the US on May 29, 1939 aboard the Normandie; WWII US Army, enlisted January 21, 1943, out October 30, 1943; d. July 18, 1990, NYC, buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery and Mausoleum, Newburgh, Orange County, New York, Find-A-Grave# 122495089; Younger brother of Epiphanio López Fernandez; Wife Alice V. Lopez.

Sources: RGASPI Fond 545, Opis 6, Delo 937, ll. 41-46.

Elieceer López in Spain, RGASPI Fond 545, Opis 6, Delo 937 March 2017 THE VOLUNTEER 9

London Gallery Reprises 1937 Spanish Pavilion

By Richard Baxell

A lovingly curated exhibition goes to great lengths to re-create the impression of the original Spanish Republic’s Pavilion in the famous Paris Exposition of 1937.

“Vivid Republican posters accompany a short film of the original 1937 exhibition.”

Installation shots from the exhibit in London.

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et in the heart of London’s commercial art gallery district, Mayoral’s “Art Revolutionaries” is an homage to the Spanish Republic’s Pavilion in the famous Paris Exposition of 1937. The Spanish contribution deliberately and consciously expressed both the modernity of the Republic and the life and death struggle in which it was embroiled. The centrepiece, of course, was Picasso’s powerful depiction of the bombing of Guernica, prominently displayed at one end of a spacious, open auditorium.

This lovingly curated exhibition goes to great lengths to re-create the impression of the original pavilion. On the first floor, works by Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder and Julio González, many sourced from private collections, sit within a scale model of the original auditorium. Downstairs, interposed among detailed replicas of the original furniture, vivid Republican posters accompany a short film of the original 1937 exhibition, while helpful panels and displays of rich archival material recount the political and artistic context.

The exhibition has already been shown in Paris and Barcelona and when its time in London ends, there are no plans for it to go elsewhere. That, I think, is a shame.

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This (Mayoral’s wonderful catalogue aside) is the nearest most of us will get to experiencing the original Paris exposition. Based solely on what is on display here, it must surely have been a sight worth seeing.

Richard Baxell is the author of Unlikely Warriors, a history of the British volunteers in the Spanish Civil War.

View of exterior mural, Spanish Pavilion, 1937, Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques. Arxiu Historic del Collegi Oficial d’Arquitectes de Catalunya, Barcelona. Photo by Roness-Ruan.

Madrid Honors Dr. Norman Bethune

By Alejandro Torrús

Norman Bethune, the renowned Canadian pulmonary surgeon who joined the Spanish Civil War as a volunteer for the International Red Aid, witnessed one of the war’s most tragic and least known episodes. A new exhibit in Madrid honors his life and work.

“Bethune exemplified the battle for the recognition and effective guarantee of human rights” “[I]magine 150,000 men, women and children setting out for safety to the town situated more than 100 miles away. There is only one road they can take. There is no other way of escape. This road, bordered on one side by the high Sierra Nevada mountains and on the other by the sea, is cut into the side of the cliffs and climbs up and down from sea-level to over 500 feet. The city they must reach is Almeria, and it is more than 200 kilometers away. … [W]omen, children and old people must face [a journey that] will take five days and five nights at least. … They must walk and as they walked, staggered and stumbled with cut, bruised feet along that flint, white road, the fascists bombed them from the air and fired at them from their ships at sea.”

The passage is from the notebook of Norman Bethune, the reputed Canadian pulmonary surgeon who joined the Spanish Civil War as a volunteer for the International Red Aid. His written testimony and the photographs of his assistant, Hazen Size, recall one of the most tragic and least known episodes of the Civil War. On February 8, 1937, as Málaga fell into the hands of the Francoist army, tens of thousands of people fled the city on foot.

They were pursued by troops under the command of General Queipo de Llano, bombed from the air by German and Italian planes, and shelled from the sea by rebel ships.

Until April 2, an exhibit at the Conde Duque Cultural Center in Madrid honors the life and work of Dr. Bethune, including his participation in World War I, his work in Canada, his time in Spain and his death in Judge Carlos Jiménez Villarejo speaks in Madrid. Photo Óscar Rodríguez,

China in 1939, where he traveled following the Japanese invasion to organize the medical services of the Chinese Army.

“Bethune exemplified the battle for the recognition and effective guarantee of human rights, and in particular international humanitarian law,” Carlos Jiménez Villarejo, a former Spanish anti-corruption public prosecutor said at a symposium accompanying the exhibit. “He bore witness to acts that amounted to an indiscriminate, brutal attack on the civilian population … that caused thousands of deaths.

Eighty years have passed since that immense crime and no one has ever been held responsible for it in a court of law. But those grave crimes have not been proscribed, and it is entirely possible to hold those who committed and ordered them criminally responsible.

Today’s event …. offers an outstanding opportunity to demand, once more, that Spain’s authorities create a Truth Commission—a demand shared by the United Nations—so that we may know precisely any and all crimes against humanity committed, first, by the rebels and, later, by the dictatorship, between July 18, 1936 and November 20, 1975.”

Alejandro Torrús writes for Público, which published a longer version of this text, in Spanish, on January 25, 2017.

The talk by Jiménez Villarejo was published in CTXT: Contexto y Acción on January 30.

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Wounded Reporter Penned Letter on Back of Civil War Poster

By Theresa Salazar

The back of a Catalan poster held at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley holds a surprise: a 2,500-word, handwritten letter from Spain Newspaper reporter Harry C. Shepard Jr., wrote a detailed letter on the reverse side of the poster ¡Dona!

Supera la teva obra [Woman! Rise above your work], which champions the contributions of women to the Spanish Republic’s cause. He writes the letter to Marshall Lakey back home in Oklahoma City, recounting fervently his experiences and observations about the Spanish Civil War. Written from a hospital on September 17, 1938 where he is recovering from injuries after an offensive on the Ebro Front, Shepard provides insightful commentary about Republican troop movements, his stay at the hospital and the camaraderie of the soldiers and hospital staff. He also comments on the war in Spain, the Spanish people, and his stay in Barcelona.

The poster/letter are part of The Bancroft Library’s Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Bay Area Post Records, which includes a variety of materials, including correspondence, posters and broadsides, photographs, and numerous artifacts including pins, scarves and buttons. The records provide details of local, national and international engagement of the Veterans during the Spanish Civil War as well as the activities of the bay area post after the war, including its continued local and international political activism. The Bancroft Library is currently hosting an exhibition related to the 80th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, which will be on view through April 2017.

A transcription of the letter follows. The letter was transcribed by Adrian Acu, PhD candidate in the English Department at the University of California, Berkeley.

Theresa Salazar is Curator of the the Bancroft Library Collection of Western Americana “¡Dona! supera la teva obra” poster with Harry C. Shepard Jr. letter on verso, Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Bay Area Post records, 1928-1995, BANC MSS 71/105 z. Courtesy of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

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“Our battalion was on the go all through the day—and, man, it was just like a July day in Oklahoma” To—Marshall Lakey 1300 Northwest Tenth St. Oklahoma City, Okla S. R. I. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA From—Harry Shepard Plaza del Altozano, 17.1 Barcelona, Spain Dear Marshall— Thanks a lot for your letter. I’d have answered sooner but have been in bed for a couple of weeks and, as I was lying on my stomach all the time, I found it pretty difficult trying to write.

I’m writing this on the back of one of the posters used here for propaganda. There are many of much more striking design, but the local officers had only a few. I thought your NYA girls might be interested in this one, which directs women to aid with their work, and shows women at work in the hospital, the home, the factory, and the field. The language is Catalonian, which is spoken more here than regular Spanish, or Castillian [sic].

I’m having enough trouble trying to learn ordinary Spanish and can’t be bothered with Catalonian, a difficult tongue.

The young people’s organizations have been very active here in putting out handsome posters and publications. They have this poster art down fine. Many are educational, instructing people what to do in case of air raids, how to build bombproof shelters, the size and force of exploding bombs, health and hygiene instructions. Others urge support of various organizations, trade unions, etc., and the work they are doing. I feel it is unfortunate that such sordid subjects made [sic] be the basis for this work.

Don’t you know of some organization which might put this up on the wall, or which would have some use for it, if you don’t want it yourself that is.

I suppose you know of course that I’ve been in the hospital for some time with a bullet wound in my left hip. It wasn’t very serious, but the surgeons have just gotten around to taking out the bullet—that’s what had me in bed. They had to make an incision into my rear end and I have found sitting down a little difficult.

I picked up my bullet on the Ebro front when we made our big drive up there in late July. I suppose you read about that in the papers. We had practiced for it a long time, and it couldn’t have been anything but successful.

The whole maneuver went off like clockwork. Each man was trained for a

particular job. It was an immensely good piece of work on the part of the authorities to coordinate all the movement, for it was a huge movement, altogether about the most brilliant thing the Loyalist army has done in the whole war.

Our brigade, the 15th, along with scores of others, marched up to the river in the earliest hours of July 25. We were spread along a huge stretch—from Flix to Mora del [sic] Ebro. I crossed at a little town called Ascó, in one of the first boats. The fascist line on the other side had already been broken however, and the only danger at the time was from their big guns and the avion. That was enough, though, to give us a hot time.

We drove off the planes with rifle fire, though, and soon captured all their guns because they were too heavy to move out.

The planes had time to do some bombing and strafing which did little damage, but it still wasn’t a nice thing to be around. They were using the newest type of German and Italian ships, and those are craft to be feared.

When we started across that 100 yards of river (it’s a beautiful stream, incidentally, cool and green and deep with pine-covered banks), we didn’t know what we’d find on the other side and naturally were a little bit apprehensive.

The coast was clear, however, and we soon found this wasn’t going to be a battle, for the present, but a footrace. We started to the interior after them, and it was the first time I have stepped on ground captured by Loyalists since I’d been in Spain.

Our battalion was on the go all through the day—and, man, it was just like a July day in Oklahoma. But no matter how fast we marched, we just couldn’t catch up with those fascists.

As we climbed up the first heights to the plains of Aragon, we could look back down to the river we had crossed that morning and see further examples of the beautiful precision of our move. All along the curving stream, pontoon bridges (previously prepared) were being thrown up and the essentials—trucks, ammunition, food, etc. were beginning to follow us.

Late afternoon found us almost at the outskirts of a little village 17 kilometers from the Ebro. It wasn’t a good idea to move ahead as we had no immediate reserves behind, and we had no idea at all what we would find in the silent town.

Our company spent the night on a hill outside, but commanding the village, and dadgummit if the captain didn’t put the machine gun squad I was in on guard duty.

Wow, I was tired out, but we had to do a one hour on, one hour off, and I had to keep awake. Most of the duty, as you know, means lying down without the gun braced against your shoulder. That made sleep even more tempting, and if it hadn’t been for the cold wind sweeping across the low hills I’d never have made it.

The night was just black, and we could hear only an occasional shot. There was no excitement. Early in the grey morning before anyone had awakened, a German bomber came by, almost over our heads. If she’d seen us, it would have been too bad as we had no anti-aircraft and not a big supply of men.

Fortunately she didn’t, although she came close enough for us to see the men in the cabin, and eventually she took her stinking self elsewhere.

That morning, we “captured” the town.

Officially we “captured” it, but actually we were presented with it by the townspeople it seemed. They had been under three months of fascist terror and were plenty glad to see us.

They led us gaily to the military supply house where a big stock of everything a soldier could want or need was housed. Co. 1 immediately became the best-equipped, most tobaccoladen outfit in the whole Lincoln-Washington battalion.

The fascists had nearly all fled the town before we arrived, although we found a few lurking about. They were taken easily—we had a lot of help from the townspeople. The population brought out paint and immediately began to slap it over the pictures of Francisco Franco which had been stenciled on the walls.

The “Arriba España” signs immediately came down.

The captain immediately ordered the town evacuated, for he knew what would be happening in a few hours. The people left for the hills, just in time to escape the fascist planes which came over and wiped the village off the Spanish Earth. The bombardment hurt no soldiers, it captured no territory—all it did was to destroy old buildings and the frugal possessions of the peasants who inhabited it. Franco doesn’t seem to worry though. He figures it’s the money of Germany and Italy and the cash they get from England that he is spending, and he doesn’t care how many people he kills while doing it.

We took several hundred prisoners after leaving that village, poor fellows most of them who were glad to be out of the fighting to which they had been unwillingly conscripted

by Franco. Each of these captures was usually preceded by a little skirmish, but seldom lasted long and no one got hurt.

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“I have just gotten a small book of poems by Federico Garcia Lorca, the Andalusian martyr” We finally reached, on the third day, a point northwest of Gandesa—where the fascists had reorganized their lines. We maneuvered, attacked, drove them back a ways, attacked again and settled down to the business of hard fighting.

I got hit when we were making a little attack. I flopped on my face—a skinned elbow I got hurt about as bad as the bullet. I had to crawl out of the line myself, and it wasn’t easy as my leg was useless. When I got to the first aid station, I was dressed and put in a shelter, safe from the shell fire and stray bullets—and there were plenty of both.

There were others hurt much worse than I, and the stretcher bearers were busy carrying them down to the road where the ambulances could evacuate them. On their return trips, they would fill up their caps with fresh figs and apples and tomatoes swiped from gardens around and give them to us.

All the time the airplanes kept hanging around doing their devilish bit—God how I hate those bastards, and it’s a hate born of both knowledge and fear. They are potent as hell, there’s no getting around it Now I’m in the hospital having a good rest and a very rapid recuperation. The hospital is one of the big International clinics and sits on the hill overlooking a small town about the size of Muskogee and the blue Mediterranean. The patients here are from all over the world. Right around my bed are Swedes, a Dutchman, a Dane, a Frenchman, a Canadian, an Englishman, a Norwegian, two Poles and an Argentine. Our doctor is Austrian, the head nurse German. There are Spaniards, too, of course, who are from the International brigades.

There are four other nurses, Spanish girls, who have volunteered for hospital work. They are all sweet as can be. I imagine your NYA girls would be interested in the Spanish girls, but not as much as the Spaniards are interested in the Americans. These girls get most of their ideas about the United States from American movies which are shown in the country with Spanish subtitles. One of the principal things one notices about the Spanish young woman is her extreme neatness of dress and hair, and makeup. All of them I’ve seen, and these are mostly daughters of working class families, are extremely smart looking because of this neatness. My general impression is also that they are extremely beautiful. They work at the hospital from 7:30 in the morning until about 8:30 at night. And 50 patients in a week can really keep those girls busy during that time.

There are nurses here from all over the world, even two girls from New Zealand whom I knew previously at another hospital.

14 THE VOLUNTEER March 2017

There are American nurses, too, and an American doctor is head of the hospital staff. Another American doctor operated on my leg. They all think the work in Spain is a wonderful experience, and so do the nurses.

The American and English nurses are sweet as they can be to us soldiers, and frequently have a cigaret [sic] or piece of chocolate for us. I even envy many of them their work, which is frequently more exciting and fully as hazardous as fighting. Many have told me of experiences they’ve had in front line work which I wouldn’t care to undergo for my health.

An English fellow I run around with here and I have been going up to the room of an English nurse for tea or coffee with her and her husband, also a patient here. He is a fellow named Bill Harriday who has been both Ethiopian and Madrid correspondent for the London New Chronicle. He flew a plane in Abyssinia during the Italian fascist invasion there, and has been shipwrecked, written a novel, etc., etc. All this, and he’s younger than I. Dorothy, his wife the nurse, does a bit of sculpting incidentally. I saw a trio of her heads and thought they were pretty. She hasn’t any pretensions about it, and of course I couldn’t judge her work. Of course I told her about you. Another nurse here, Irene Golding, who’s from the States, was the first American girl I saw in Spain. She was in the hospital at Tortosa when I was there late in March just before the town became no man’s land. She has always treated me grand—I’ve ran into her several times in Spain—and seems to dig up buttered toast, canned peaches, cigarets [sic] and chocolate out of thin air sometimes.

She and Dorothy are close friends, worked together at the front. I would consider falling in love with her, in fact I have considered, but she’s just gotten married to a patient. Oh, well, the war gets us all. I have got my eye on one of the New Zealand girls.

Spain is full of interesting people and nice people to know. Many of them live here, others have come to aid in the fight for democracy.

It gets very discouraging sometimes and I’d willingly trade all the world’s most interesting people for five minutes with Sara and Dad. Those letters from home really help though, and frankly, the tobacco that sometimes comes is a miraculous aid to morale. Every grain is cherished.

(This is getting to be quite a letter. The fellows around my bed having been making bets as to whether I or the paper will give out first. It looks like the ink will win.)

Dreiser came to Barcelona while I was in the hospital there, also Daniel Roosevelt, nephew of Mrs. FDR, but I didn’t see either.

André Marty came around to the hospital there and talked to all of us. Harry Pollitt, the Englishman, visited us here, and also Joe North, but I didn’t see the latter.

I have just gotten a small book of poems by Federico Garcia Lorca, the Andalusian martyr.

I’ve heard his stuff read in Spanish, and oh, it’s wonderful, even to one who can’t understand 25 percent of the words. Have seen only one or two of his pieces translated into English.

I’m trying to translate some of these, and while I can get his meaning, I’m not capable of putting it into English. In Spanish, the words are just like music. Most of his works are gypsy lyrics, but at many times he became the poet of the Spanish people. He is much revered by all Spain. As you probably know, Garcia Lorca was killed by the civil guard in Granada a few months after the war began.

The sea has been beautiful here. I sometimes think Id’ like to spend all my life near it. There is a big sandy beach here but I’ve been unable to go swimming. It’s pretty cold, anyway.

I went in for a dip on May 31 when I was near Barcelona, and nearly froze. We went down to the beach yesterday and played in the sand and waded like a couple of kids. We watch the fishing boats often, and sometimes get a glimpse of Barcelona in constant danger from the abominable blockade. And there are frequently British or French cruisers around— big ships but they see little. Yesterday we watched a fisherman cleaning baby octopi. He says they are swell when cooked up in a stew with wine and olive oil. Haven’t tried them, but I’ve had snails and various other interested delicacies. All good.

Since our Ebro victory, the moral all over Spain has shot up about 200 points. The people are not just hopeful, they are actually confident of victory. Much of their hope is based on President Roosevelt and America’s leadership towards collective security. Food ships, medical supplies, tobacco are all wonderful things to send to Spain, but the best present of all would be to lift the arms embargo. If some congressmen could see the horrible bombings of cities like Barcelona and the villages like this one, they’d soon see that we were sold some ships to equal those that Mussolini and Hitler send our enemy. Planes, arms—God, we need them. How can anyone resist an appeal from a heart as big as Spain is something I don’t understand.

My best wishes, Marshall, to you and everyone in Oklahoma City.

Salud y suerte, Harry

Guerrilla Violence across Borders

The Russian Revolution, the Spanish Civil War and the European Civil War

By Glennys Young

Historians have long recognized that Soviet military advisors had commanded troops in the Russian Civil War, suggesting that their experience shaped the way they viewed the Spanish situation. Did Soviet advisors introduce military strategies derived from the Russian Civil War—particularly, guerrilla tactics— into the Spanish war?

W

as the Spanish Civil War a nexus through which violence moved across borders?—an epoch of military violence and ideological, cultural, political, social and economic conflict that began either in 1914, with the outbreak of the “Great War,” or with the Russian Revolutions of 1917, especially the Bolshevik Revolution, and ended in 1945, when fascism’s defeat brought a resolution of the conflicts that had wracked the European continent since 1914?

The concept of a European Civil War was first advanced by contemporaries who lived through it. Since then it has been adopted and refashioned by scholars and historical actors across the political spectrum, among them the political theorist Hannah Arendt, the controversial German historian Ernst Nolte, and the left-leaning scholar Enzo Traverso. Its champions don’t agree on the chronological endpoints and causal mechanisms that generated violence across the European continent during this period. Yet they all oblige us to investigate how the civil wars and expressions of violence of this period became interlocked. An interesting case in point is the transnational odyssey of guerrilla tactics from the Russian Civil War, via Soviet advisors, to the Spanish Civil War — and then back to the Soviet Union as military tactics against the Nazi Wehrmacht, with the same advisors and Spanish Republican officers exiled in the USSR. It is certainly useful to think of the Russian Revolution and Spanish Civil Wars as interlocking events within a general European Civil War. But I am troubled by the way contemporary

actors and scholars of the period have pointed to the Russian Revolution as a cause of subsequent violence. Particularly questionable are their claims that its influence consisted of ideas about violence and the role of the modern state in it. To be sure, ideas about violence are important to consider. But what were the processes by which specific historical figures transmitted what Nolte calls a “totalitarian germ” of the Russian Revolution across space and time? Moving beyond the murky claims about the causal effect across national borders of ideas about violence, in my work I focus on the human beings who carried the violent practices of the Russian Revolution—especially the Russian Civil War—across the European continent.

As for connections between the Russian Revolution and Spanish Civil War, it is well known that Soviet military advisors and other personnel were on the ground in Spain. Among them were Vladimir Efimovich Gorev (1900-1938), a key Soviet advisor in the Loyalists’ defense of Madrid in the late fall of 1936. Gorev has been credited by the American Louis Fischer with saving the city from Franco’s assault. General Gregory Stern was the Chief Military Advisor to the Spanish Republic.

General Yakov Smushkevich played an integral role in defeating the Italian forces at the Battle of Guadalajara. Semën Krivoshein commanded tank forces of the Republican Army in the Battle of Madrid.

These Soviet military advisors differed in many respects, but with few exceptions, the common denominator was that they had

Cover of the Mexican edition of journalist Manuel Chaves Nogales’s Secrets of the Defense of Madrid.

March 2017 THE VOLUNTEER 15

Guerrilla tactics traveled from the Russian Civil War, via Soviet advisors, to the Spanish Civil War — and then back to the Soviet Union as military tactics against the Nazi Wehrmacht. helped the Soviets’ Red Army defeat their enemy, the White Armies, during the Russian Civil War. Gorev saw combat action in Russia and fought in another interwar conflict: the Chinese Civil War, which began in 1927. Smushkevich joined the Red Army and the Communist Party in 1918, and fought on the western front. He became commissar of a battalion and then of a regiment in the Russian Civil War. Like Smushkevich, Krivoshein enlisted in the Red Army in 1918, and fought in its First Cavalry Army.

Historians have long recognized that Soviet military advisors had commanded troops in the Russian Civil War and have suggested that this experience shaped the way they viewed the Spanish situation. Helen Graham has said that “Soviet personnel had a tendency to project the fears inherited from the Russian Civil War onto the Spanish situation, seeing saboteurs and internal enemies everywhere.” Michael Alpert also asserts that “the Spanish Communist Party and the Soviet Russian advisers of the Republican Army inevitably thought in terms of their experience of the Russian Civil War of 1918-20.” But did Soviet advisors introduce military strategies derived from the Russian Civil War into the Spanish war that otherwise would not have been there?

And, if so, did it matter?

This is a huge issue, and what follows are some examples of my research in progress. First, let’s examine the Soviet advisors and their experience in the Russian Civil War in the Republic’s crucial defense of Madrid from October 1936 to January 1937. The defense of the capital went hand-in-hand with the creation of the Republican army, in large part the organizational work of Soviet advisors. The three most important of them were Vladimir Gorev, whom we have already discussed, as well as K.A. Meretskov, and B. M. Simonov. They provided the organizational blueprint for transforming, as Daniel Kowalsky puts it, the “Republic’s irregular militia forces and disorganized officer corps into a rigidly hierarchical institution modeled on the Red Army that defeated the anti-Bolshevik forces in the Russian Civil War.” All three joined the Red Army at the beginning of the Russian Civil War, and all played important military roles in it.

Not only were Soviet advisors, as veterans of the Russian Civil War, instrumental in transforming the disorganized Republican militias into a centralized, hierarchical fighting force, the Spanish Republican Army, or Ejército Popular. Not only, in that capacity, did they seek to reproduce in Spain their experience of creating a hierarchical and disciplined regular army out of the factory militias or “Red Guards” of the Russian Revolution. Not only did they bring to Spain the lessons they had learned from defending the Russian capital—Moscow—from the White Armies, lessons they would seek to apply in defending Madrid from Franco’s armies. What historians have often overlooked is that they brought to the Battle of Madrid their experience of commanding, participating in, or otherwise witnessing guerrilla actions against anti-Bolshevik Forces.

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True, Spain had a homegrown tradition of guerrilla warfare, most notably on display against Napoleon’s invaders in 1807-1814, during the “Peninsular War.” And my attention to the Soviet role in importing guerrilla tactics into the Spanish Civil War will surprise those who recall that military historians have claimed that guerrilla warfare— if by that is meant guerrilla units or detachments—did not play a significant role in the Spanish conflict. It will surprise those who recall the blame that Spanish Communists and Spanish anarchists assigned for the fact that guerrilla warfare was not used as much as it should have been by the Republican side. In 1965, for example, the Spanish Communist Enrique Líster, one of the most storied combat officers of the Spanish Civil War and, in exile in the USSR, commander during the 1942 Battle of Stalingrad in World War II of a division of the Soviet Red Army, blamed the Republican Government for not organizing a “powerful guerrilla movement in Franco’s rear.” Spanish anarchists, such as the Anarcho-Marxist Abraham Guillén, who fought in the Spanish Civil War, criticized Soviet advisors for insisting on “frontal attack.”

Yet Soviet advisors did play a crucial role in importing guerrilla tactics to Spain and in producing “guerrilla detachments.” Soviet advisors, certainly with Stalin’s knowledge, established six schools for training guerrillas in Spain. Run by the Soviet Secret Police or the NKVD, these schools trained over 1,000 operatives for missions of short duration. The kinds of violent practices they were taught included, in the words of Alexander Orlov, head of the NKVD in Spain and a Russian Civil War veteran, “demolition work, high-grade marksmanship, elementary guerrilla tactics (raids and ambushes), map reading, living off the land, and long marches with loads up to 25 pounds.” “Saboteurs,” as he calls them, operated in “groups of seven or nine.” By night, they crossed into enemy territory with missions such as blowing up bridges across railway tracks, and, in turn, setting mines to blow up the “army emergency squads” when they came to the scene.

What comes to mind for readers of Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, is, of course the American International Brigade volunteer, Robert Jordan, who blew up a bridge.

Orlov himself stated that the guerrilla tactics applied in Spain had their origins in the Russian Civil War, or, more specifically, the Russo-Polish War. In his Handbook of Intelligence and Guerrilla Warfare, he wrote: “The experience gained by the Soviet guerilla troops in the Russo-Polish War became the cornerstone of the Soviet guerrilla science of the future. Sixteen years later, the former commander of the Soviet guerrilla troops in the RussoPolish War was sent by the Russian Politburo to Spain, where he organized and directed guerrilla detachments which operated in the rear of Franco’s forces.” (Orlov is referring to himself, of course!) Two American volunteers on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War—Bill Aalto and Irving Goff—noted, in 1941, the Russian Civil War origins of guerrilla tactics they were taught Soviet partisans in Belarus 1943. Russian state archive. Public domain.

First row, from left to right: General Manuel Tagüeña, General Smushkevich, General Líster; Gorev, with General Rojo and others.

Second row, from left to right: Ilya Starinov, Mikhail Koltsov, Pravda correspondent in Spain, with General Líster, Krivoshein, Aleksander Orlov.

in Soviet guerrilla schools in Spain: “In our guerrilla schools, lessons from the Red army’s experience were taught to us, verbally and through Spanish translations of Red army manuals. The mines and the trick apparatus we used in Spain were constructed from patterns given to us by our Soviet advisors.”

Following the Spanish Civil War, when the Nazi Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, many key Soviet advisors who had brought guerrilla tactics from the Russian Civil War were back in the USSR. But not all of them were, to be sure. Some, like Orlov, never returned to the USSR, because they feared becoming victims of Stalin’s purges. (Orlov fled to Canada in 1938, and eventually moved to the US, where he became an informer for the CIA.) Some had died in Spain. But many of the key figures—for example, Rodion Malinovsky, Marshal of the USSR and Defense Minister in the late 1950s and early 1960s, who fought in the Russian Civil War and the Spanish Civil War—were now tasked with defending the USSR from the Nazi invaders. Joining them were Spanish exiles, including Republican military officers such as Enrique Líster, Francisco Ciutat de Miguel, and Manuel Tagüeña Lacorte, who served in the Red Army even if they did not necessarily see combat action. In any case, Stalin drew upon their experience in Spain as he listened to his generals in mapping out military strategy against the Nazis.

The USSR made use of, as Orlov put it, “the lessons of Spain” regarding guerrilla practices. Indeed, as Orlov described it—perhaps in effect crediting himself for having a key role in defeating the Wehrmacht, even in absentia: “[T]ens of thousands of ‘partisans’ (the Russian name for guerrillas), organized and led by the KGB guerrilla experts, harassed the German overextended lines of communications from Poland to Stalingrad, from Kiev to the Caucasus, and from Latvia to Leningrad, blowing up bridges and troop trains, mining roads, attacking marching columns, and plundering supplies and ammunition.” The guerrilla strategies that the USSR employed against the overextended Nazi Wehrmacht were drawn straight from the Spanish Civil War, in which, as we have seen, the lessons of guerrilla warfare in the Russian Civil War had been applied.

A Soviet military officer who exemplifies these connections is Ilya Starinov (1900-2000), who joined the Red Army in 1918, fought in the Russian Civil War, served with the Republican Army in Spain, and, during World War II, led Soviet partisan (or guerrilla) units. In terms of the strategies that Red Army partisans applied against the Nazi Wehrmacht in World War II, the principle remained fundamentally the same as during the Spanish Civil War and the Russian Civil War: as Orlov put it, the basic strategy entailed “delivering a lightning blow and disengaging oneself from the enemy in order to get ready to strike the next blow at every turn”—and, as well, “not to enter into battle against superior forces and not to engage in a war of positions.”

Just as Russia’s guerrilla tactics had to be adapted to Spanish circumstances, so, too did the Red Army (and KGB, which supervised the guerrilla units) have to adapt Spanish tactics to the “Great Patriotic War.” Soviet guerrilla bands were much larger than the Spanish guerrilla units: rather than 7-9, with the “influx” of peasants and urban residents, they reached several thousand.

They were also able to wrest enemy weapons, such as “artillery, mortars and bazookas.” Such tactics enabled guerrillas to defeat “battalion-size units of the German army,” partly by sapping the seemingly formidable strength of the Wehrmacht by preventing “regular supplies in men and arms” from reaching Nazi troops deep in Soviet territory.

During the European Civil War, the guerrilla warfare of the Russian Revolution had the effects it did—especially in Spain— because of the unpredictable movement of revolutionaries across borders. Important, too, was their ingenious adaptation of guerrilla tactics to the different military and revolutionary circumstances they faced.

Glennys Young is Jon Bridgman Endowed Professor in History and Professor of International Studies at the University of Washington.

She is working on two book projects: Refugee Worlds: The Spanish Civil War, Soviet Socialism, Franco’s Spain, and Memory Politics and Returned: From the USSR to Franco’s Spain during the Cold War. March 2017 THE VOLUNTEER 17

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Book reviews Emili Teixidor, Black Bread. Translated by Peter Bush. Canada: Biblioasis, 2016. 304 pp.

By Olga Sendra Ferrer

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hrough the voice of its child narrator, Andreu, Emili Teixidor’s novel Black Bread offers a penetrating look into the years of hunger in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, roughly 1940-1950. As a kind of Bildungsroman, it escorts the reader through Andreu’s coming of age in a world of winners and losers that is haunted by the specter of the recent war, a reality that shapes how he grows up and winds up warping his pure and innocent spirit. Therein lies the critique that broadly steers Teixidor’s story: the young protagonist becomes a stand-in for a society that is forced to abandon its beliefs to survive in a country ruled by a dictatorial regime.

The black bread of novel’s title refers not only to the widespread and extreme poverty of post-war Spain, but also to a society that is dry, harsh, cruel, and soul-less, and that can lead astray even the most innocent of its members. The journey told in this novel is a double one, as Andreu’s life provides a pretext to reconstruct history through stories, giving voice to the past silence that articulates what she calls “the deceit of history.” Following in the footsteps of authors such as Ana María Matute (First Memory, 1959), Carmen María Gaite (Among Anti-macassars, 1957) and Juan Goytisolo (Fiestas, 1958), Teixidor uses the pure but critical point of view of a child to describe the consequences that the Civil War had on the defeated but, even more so, on the construction of social, cultural, and political discourses that many years later would define the transition and subsequent democracy. In other words, Teixidor attempts to show the perseverance in contemporary Spanish society of discourse rooted in the historical and social limitations imposed by Francisco Franco’s regime.

Two quotations that open the novel warn the reader about the inevitable and difficult connection between present and

past, and history’s aspirations to tell the truth even if not always successful. As Andreu’s teacher, Mr. Madern tells us, “Considering that history is written by the winners, and the defeated don’t have the right even to a footnote in the big book of history….” What is claimed to be truth becomes something else. And here is where the reader becomes an unusual protagonist, charged as we are with recovering and making meaning of a narrative of silence about the past that has constituted the basis of Spanish democracy even today.

The linear narrative that covers several years in Andreu’s life contrasts sharply with the gaps, silence, and lack of information that characterize the world of adults that surrounds the protagonist. This illogical world is marked by the hypocrisy of the adults’ actions and the irrationality and corruption of the post-war period, and is what will pervert Andreu’s purity as he attempts to give meaning to the hushed stories that make up his everyday life. Here we see the connection between past and future through not just Andreu’s eyes but also through the constitution of words and, therefore, the novel we hold in our hands. Fiction inundates every aspect of daily life, not just the protagonist’s but ours as well. The imaginary world that attempts to give meaning to the puerile world of children unmasks the fiction of the reconstruction of history.

The author could be accused of committing the same mistake as those who wrote the official history. Like all authors do, Teixidor proceeds to create a narrative based on the selection of specific information—just as Andreu does—which together along with the rupture of a strictly chronological storyline, the simultaneous coexistence and absence of voices, and the Manichean division between good and bad, between children and adults, lays bare the manipulation of the narration and the gaps that are filled by fragile and not always dependable memory, whether information from newspapers or fairy tales. That is how Andreu’s grandmother explains reality to her grandchildren, and that is how we the readers receive it.

Their stories begin with claims like, “Once upon a time there was, and you must believe that this is truly authentic…,” and like them, we believe we know the stories—all true—that they tell us. However, we only need one story, or even one new word, to change what we thought we knew so well.

By following the life of Andreu, Teixidor takes us on a voyage that makes us question what we know about the past and what we think we know about the present. In a moment in which organizations like the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory (2000) and the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory in Catalonia (2005), and laws like the Law of Historical Memory (2007), are trying to make amends for the pact of silence that formed the basis of Spain’s transition to democracy, Andreu’s story reminds us not just about the problems that underlie the distortions of Francoist historiography and the official amnesia of the Transition, but also the problems that underlie the reconstruction of any illusory truth, wherever it may come from. And in this reconstruction we must acknowledge and accept, as our protagonist discovers, the monsters that dwell inside of us.

Olga Sendra Ferrer is an assistant professor of Spanish at Wesleyan University. She is currently writing her first book about the construction of Barcelona during the dictatorship.

March 2017 THE VOLUNTEER 19

Curator Discovers New Photographs

T

his fall, photography curator Joaquín Gasca, while doing research at Catalonia’s National Archive, came across a batch of unpublished photographs documenting the march through Barcelona of one of the first groups of American volunteers joining the Republic’s struggle against Franco’s army. The photographs, taken on January 16, 1937, are by Josep Brangulí (1879-1945) and his sons Joaquim (19131991) and Xavier (1918-1986).

The Barcelona march is the first documented instance in which American volunteers identified themselves as belonging to the “Abraham Lincoln Battalion,” as indicated by the large banner they carried. Most of them had left New York on the S.S. Champlain on January 5. They included Walter Garland, John William Parks, John Tisa, and Harry Wallach. At the time, the Lincoln Battalion included Centuria Antonio Guiteras, consisting of Cuban volunteers from New York, who marched with their own banner.

“It is an honor to discover, among the hundreds of thousands of photographs of the Spanish war, these originals by the great photographer Brangulí,” Gasca writes in a note to The Volunteer. “We have been able to ascertain that these images were never published at the time. They ended up among the large Brangulí family archive. Although several Barcelona photographers bore witness to the arrival of the U.S. volunteers—including Centelles, Branguli, Pérez de Rozas, and Merletti—only one photograph was published in the press at the time. I’d like to thank the volunteers from the Americas—Canada, Mexico, Cuba, the United States, Puerto Rico— who traveled to Spain to defend our life and our liberty. Many paid with their own lives. We are commited to remember them forever.”

20 THE VOLUNTEER March 2017

International volunteers march in Barcelona, January 16, 1937. Photo Brangulí

By Sebastiaan Faber

Photo credit: Len Tsou

d

d

Henry Foner (1919-2017)

Former ALBA Board Member and longtime emcee at the annual reunions of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Henry Foner, died in New York on January 11. He was 97.

Henry served as president of the Fur, Leather & Machine Workers Union for 27 years before retiring in 1988. He was also a founder of Labor Arts, a non-profit organization devoted to art as a part of working people’s lives. He served as president of the Paul Robeson Foundation, as part of the editorial board of Jewish Currents magazine and on the Board of the New York Labor History Association. His wide-range of activities and his genial disposition made him the perfect moderator for left-wing audiences.

Herbert Molin (1925-2016)

Photo credit: Stephanie Berger

A longtime ALBA friend, Herb was also a member of The Jarama Society, generously leaving ALBA in his plans to help continue our commitment to social activism.

Herbert Molin was born to immigrant parents. Rooted in Yiddishkeit, he was raised in Queens, where his father owned a candy store and his mother was a seamstress. He attended Camp Kinderland and was a proud graduate of Stuyvesant High school.

Although he had lost an eye as result of childhood meningitis, his commitment to fighting fascism during WWII led him to enlist in the US Army and serve as a military police officer. At Queens College he was involved in unionizing and the American Communist Party. He also met his future wife and the mother of his children, the late Muriel Mandel. He studied at New York Law School and worked his entire career in many capacities for the NYC Department of Social Services. Herb and Muriel lived in upper Manhattan and the Bronx where they raised their three children to understand the importance of justice, academic pursuit, Jewish identity, participation as a global citizen and the vibrancy and necessity of the arts. Throughout his life until the day he died he attended all ALBA celebrations and supported those who believed in “the revolution.”

He leaves behind to fight the good fight his children, sister, grandchildren, and his favorite Lincoln Brigade lifelong comrade, Herbie Freeman.

Herb’s signature motto was: “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”

Marvin E. Gettleman (1933-2017)

ALBA notes with sadness the death of former executive director Marvin E. Gettleman.

He was 83. A historian of the American left, he taught for many years at Polytechnic University, well-known as editor of Vietnam: History, Documents, Opinions. He is survived by former Board member, historian Ellen Schrecker.

dd March 2017 THE VOLUNTEER 21

CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED FROM 11/1/2016 TO 1/31/2017 Benefactor ($5,000 and over)

Kurz Family Foundation • Estate of Herbert Molin • New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) • Puffin Foundation Ltd.

Sponsor ($1,000-$4,999)

Paul Blanc • Burton J. Cohen • Katherine Doyle • Sebastiaan Faber • Stephanie Fein • Jeffrey Heisler in honor of the Resistance • Timothy Johnson • Josephine M. Labanyi • Fraser Ottanelli in honor of Helene Susman • Harry Parsons • Edward Poll • James & Ellyn Polshek • Robert Shaffer • Tamaara Tabb • Cynthia Young

Supporter ($250-$999)

Kathie Amatniek Sarachild in memory of Ernest Amatniek • Joan Amatniek in memory of Ernest & Sara Amatniek • Anonymous • Steve Birnbaum • Aviva Blaichman in memory of Dr. Isaiah Gellman • David Bortz in memory of Louis Bortz • Christopher Brooks • David & Suzanne Cane in memory of Lawrence Cane, VALB • Claire Carsman in memory of Sam Carsman • Robert Coale • M. Melinda Dart in memory of Sana Goldblatt • James Fernandez • Gates Foundation • Sherna Gluck • Linda Hendley in memory of Nate Thornton • Adam Hochschild in memory of Hank Rubin & Bill Sennett • Raymond & Bonnie Hoff in memory of Harold Hoff (Lincoln-Washington & Mac-Pap battalions) • Jeanne Houck • Leslie Hsu • Glenn Lindfors in memory of Veikko Lindfors and Clarence & Kenneth Forester • Bernard & Louise Lown • Michael Mulcahy in memory of Abe Osheroff • Julia Newman • Deborah & Stan Organek • Michael J. Organek • Ronald D. Perrone in memory of John & Ethel Perrone • Kathleen Robel in memory of Charles Edward “Buck” Robel & Oiva Halonen • Robert Wood Johnson Foundation • Dan Rocker • Peter Smith in memory of Harold Smith, VALB • David Turner

Contributor ($100-$249)

Frederick & Ann Adams • Helene Anderson in memory of my parents, who always took us to Lift the Embargo on Spain marches • Jean Barish • Suzanne Pred Bass in memory of George Watt • Catherine Blair & Steve Becker • Ronnie Wellman Berish • Nancy Berke in memory of Henry H. Wasser, 1919-2016 • Nancy S. Bishop • Richard & Joanne Bogart • Nancy Bogen & Arthur Greissle in memory of Lt. Francis Schnider • Libby Bouvier • John & Jane Brickman • Ellen Broms in memory of Harry Kleiman “Chuch” (Cohn Haber) • Bonnie Burt in memory of Ben Konefsky (Ben Kline) • John & Irene Bush • Jerry Buttrey • Chris Castaneda • Darlene Ceremello • Wendy Chavkin • Cecile Chong & Ryan Behroozi • Charlie & Nancy Clough • Barry & Naomi Cooper in memory of Sol Zalon • Jeffrey Creque in memory of Fred E. Creque & Hilda V. Creque • Norman Danzig • Rita Delespara • Kathleen Densmore • Steve Dinnen in memory of Jack Shafran • Jeron & Marjorie Donalds • Mary Dooley in honor of all the ALBA organizers & teachers • Kathryn Dorn • Sherman Dorn • Victoria Doyle • David Elsila in memory of Ralph Fasanella, Sid Harris, Saul Wellman & Neil Wesson • Frank & Dolores Emspak • Paul & Adrienne Epstein • David Fairley in memory of Lincoln Fairley • Felicita Fields in honor of my father, Edward Young (Ehrlich) • Amy Freeman in memory of Jack Freeman • Herbert Freeman • Barbara L. Friedman in memory of Aaron Harris, VALB, & Helen Harris • Yael Gani • Paula Gellman in memory of Isaiah Gellman • Margo George • Frances Ginsberg • Peter Glazer • Paul Goldstein in memory of Irving Weissman & Stephanie Weissman Stein • Laura Goyanes • Alba Greco-Garcia, M.D. • Alan Greenbaum • A. Tom Grunfeld • Mark & Sandra Haasis in memory of Abe Osheroff • Angela Halonen in memory of Oiva Halonen & Bob Reed • Ilsa & James Halpern in memory of my father, Curley Mende, VALB • Joseph & Saundra Harris in memory of Sidney Harris • Birry & Thomas Heagle in memory of Ned Golomb • William Hedrick • Elaine Herman in memory of Daniel F. Herman • Bob Inget • Todd Jailer • Emily Mason Kahn • Henry Kahn • David Kannerstein • Bob Kantola • Temma Kaplan • Rhea Kish in memory of Leslie Kish, veteran • Edwin & Judith Klehr in memory of Clarence Schwid Kailin • Arnold Krammer in memory of Tom Trent (Arthur Witt), killed in Spain in 1937 • Paul Kranz • Alan Levine in memory of Alex Rosen • Jack Levine • Barbara Lilley • Susan Linn in memory of Sidney Linn • Abby London-Crawford in memory of Marc Crawford • Peter Lotto in honor of Ralph Fasanella • Henry Lowendorf & Susan Klein in memory of George Watt • Joe Luttrell • Ilona Mattson • Gerald Meyer • David Miller in memory of Mitch Miller (William Maher) • Sheila Moran & David Millstone • Judy Nakadegawa • Ralph & Marta Nicholas • Marc & Bonnie Nowakowski in memory of Toni Nowakowski • Lucienne O’Keefe • Ira Oser • Ann & Vittorio Ottanelli • Duna Penn in memory of Ted Pniewski, VALB • Olga Penn in memory of Ted Pniewski, VALB • Jack Purdy • Aaron Retish in memory of the Michiganders who fought the good fight • Susan Rosmarin Richter in memory of Pauline & Joe Rosmarin • Nina Rivkind in memory of Eugene Raleigh • Maria Cristina Rodriguez • Constancia Romilly in memory of Esmond Romilly & Jessica Mitford • Michael De C. Rosenfeld • Peter J. Rubin • Marvin E. Schulman in honor of Eleanor Roosevelt • Nadrian Seeman • Marc Shanker • Steve Tarzynski & Kathleen Sheldon • Thomas Silverstein • Irene & Eric Solomon in memory of Ben Leider • Adrienne Sosin • Linda Stamm in memory of Morris Stamm • Julie Starobin in memory of my parents, Irving Starobin & Rosalind Gould • Louise Katz Sullivan in memory of Sylvia & Bob Thompson • Helene Susman • Freda Tanz in memory of my husband Al Tanz, VALB • Sara & William Tattam • Jordi Torrent in memory of Jimmy Yates • Shirley Van Bourg • Lise Vogel • Nancy Wallach in memory of Hy Wallach, VALB • Constancia Warren in memory of Alvin Warren, Maury Colow & Arthur Munday • David Weinraub • Anthony W. White in memory of Barney Bailey • Shauna Haines & Mark Wieder in memory of Mark Billings • David Wyckoff • Nancy Yanofsky

Friend ($1-$99)

Yossef Aelony • Jean-Christophe Agnew • John & Peggy Ahlbach • Everett Aison in memory of Irving Fajans • Julia M. Allen • Anita Altman • AmazonSmile Foundation • Michael J. Ames in memory of Irving & Mina Ames • Mohsen Amin • Dexter Arnold in memory of Clarence Kailin • John August • Elaine Babian • Michael Bailey • Phillip Bannowsky • Eugene & Evelyn Baron in memory of Saul Wellman • David & Debbie Bell • Selma Benjamin in memory of Alvah Bessie • Philip Bereano • Judith Berlowitz • Martin Bigos • Lawrence Bilick • Maggie Block • Elizabeth Blum • Magda Bogin • Martin Boksenbaum • Robert Bordiga in memory of Milt Felsen • Dorothy Bracey in memory of Eileen Rowland • Samuel & Adele Braude • James Brodie Kahn • Nancy Hall Brooks • Tibby Brooks • David Brown • Garrett Brown • Betty Brown • William Brown in memory of Jefferson M. Brown • Joseph Bucholt • Paul Bundy • Elizabeth Burke • Vivian Calderon Zaks • Stuart Carlson • Kevin Cathcart & Mayo Schreiber, Jr. • Victor Chechanover • Robert Coane in memory of Anthony Toney, Charlie Nusser & 22 THE VOLUNTEER March 2017

CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED FROM 11/1/2016 TO 1/31/2017 Moe Fishman • Nancy & Geoffrey Cobden • Fai Coffin • Howard Cohen • Donald Cole in memory of Abe Osheroff • Carol Cope in memory of Albert Foucek & George Foucek • Leslie Correll • Mimi Daitz in memory of Dr. Ben Segal • Barbara Dane • Francisco Fernandez De Alba • Nina B. De Fels • Carmen Delgado in honor of people against fascism • Norman & Genevieve Dishotsky • Richard Dods • Vincent Doogan • Sherise Dorf • Lewis & Edith Drabkin • Pearl M. Drabkin • Milton Drexler • Carol Eberling • Ilse Eden • Robert Egelko • Elaine Elinson in memory of Milt Wolff • Gabriel Falsetta • Priscilla Felia • Alan Filreis in memory of Sam Filreis • Bernice Fischer • Paul V. Fitzgerald in honor of Daniel Fitzgerald • Robert A. Fitzgerald in memory of my father, Daniel Fitzgerald • Richard Flacks • Elaine Fondiller & Daniel Rosenblum • Lucy Fried in memory of Sidney Harris • Jeanne Friedman • Joseph & Jeanne Friedman • Alex Gabriles in memory of Delmer Berg • Elvira Garcia in memory of William F. Garcia • Anthony Geist • Isolina Gerona • Frances Goff • Deborah Gold • Eve Goldberg in memory of Dorothy Healey • Edward Goldman • Marc Goldstein • Maria Luisa Gonzalez Biosca in honor of Daniel Hutner • Eric Gordon • Luke Gordon in memory of Lou Gordon • Roderic Gorney • Paul Gottlieb • Rick Goulet • Amelia Grabowski in honor of Paul Friedlander • Tom Graff in memory of Mike & Flo Chessin • Geraldine S. Grant • Joan Green • Michael Grossman in memory of Henry Grossman, VALB • Rosalind Guaraldo • Victor Halitsky, M.D. • Annette Halpern in memory of Joseph Siegel • Chia Hamilton in memory of Edwin Rolfe • Gary Hammond • Susan Hanna in memory of Jack Penrod & the guys from Johnstown, Pa. • Roger & Meryl Harris-Sundove • Erica Harth • Phyllis Hatfield • William A. Hazen • Ruth Heifetz • Patricia Hendricks in memory of Francesca Ross • Edna Herrmann in honor of Dr. Gina Herrmann • Gina Herrmann • Jan Herzog • Helen Hill • Ann F. Hoffman • Joan Intrator • Gabriel Jackson • Anne Katz Jacobson in memory of Max Katz • Robert Jensen • Howard Johnson in memory of my grandfather, Howard Carole Johnson • Miriam Kachur • John L. Kailin • Carol & Lawrence Kaplan in honor of Carl Geiser • Eugene Kaplan • Sidney Kardon • Stephen Katz • Shirley Katz-Cohen in honor of Daniel Czitrom • Ruth E. Kavesh in honor of Ellyn Polshek • Dorothy Keller, Esq. • Patricia Kelso • Ronald Kent in memory of Milt Felsen • Howard Keylor in memory of Delmer Berg • Dorothy Kidd • Manfred Kirchheimer • Dorothy Koppelman • John Kraljic • Fran Krieger-Lowitz in memory of Martin Balter • Dr. Leonard & Eleanor Larks • Burt Lazarin • Gale Jennings Lederer • Gerson Lesser • Milton Lessner in memory of my cousin, Nathan Abramowitz • Eugene & Elizabeth Levenson • Eli Lewis • David J. Lichter • Catherine Lillie • Paul Limm in memory of Hans Beimler • Marlene Litwin • David Lopez • Gail Lopez-Henriquez • Larry Lorenz • James Lowenstein • Lori Lu Ján in memory of John & Cleo Lu Ján • Howard Lurie • Joan MacDonald • Milton Masur • Vivian Mazur • Anne P. McCready in memory of Frank B. Pirie • Andrew W. McKibben • Anne E. McLaughlin • Susan Mende in memory of Samuel Mende • Paul Michabofsky • Timothy Michel • Katherine Judd & Robert Miller • Debra Mipos in memory of Fred & Ida Mipos • Ruth Misheloff • Carol Moeller Costa • Sandra Morey in memory of Jack & Tillie Olsen • Selina Morris • Catherine Murphy • Laura S. Murra • Deborah Nabavian in memory of Jack Bjoze • Dr. José-Manuel and Maryann Navarro • Geraldine Nichols & Andres Avellaneda • Ann M. Niederkorn • Adele & Nick Niederman • Michael Niederman in memory of Albert Niederman • Susan Nobel in memory of I.J. & Florence Rosenbaum • Jerome Liebling & Rebecca Nordstrom • Coral Norris in honor of Jacob Freeman, who died in Spain shortly before his 20th birthday • Michael Novick in honor of Oscharoff & Arnow • Polly Nusser Dubetz in memory of my father, Charlie Nusser, a proud Lincoln vet • Shaun O’Connell • Michael O’Connor • Estella Habal & Hilton Obenzinger • Francis L. Olson • John Ondrejka in memory of John Rody, VALB • Nicholas Orchard • Ruth Ost in memory of Steve Nelson • Michel Otayek • Garry Owens • Vaughan Parker in honor of DeWitt Webster Parker • Ned Pearlstein in honor of the counselors from Camp Wo-Chi-Ca • Eric Peltoniemi • Teri Perl • Peter Persoff in memory of Jack (James) Persoff • Carol Pierson • Korell Pierson • Jeremy Pikser • Gordon Polon in memory of Esther Blanc Silverstein • Aris Polyzos • Louise Popkin • Robert Popper • Miriam Poser • Nieves & Manuel Pousada • Simon Prussin • John Queen • Michael Quigley • Kathrin Quinn in memory of John O. Quinn • Lee Quintana in honor of Nemil Soroden • Bobbie Rabinowitz in memory of Nate Thornton & Del Berg • Jean Kathleen Ranallo in memory of John Hovan of Providence, RI • Dorri Raskin • Helen Read in memory of Reginald Read • Michael & Jacqueline Reece in memory of Milt Wolff • Alan Reich • Lazaro Reyes in honor of la memoria que ALBA mantiene encendida • Brian A. Reynolds • Judith Reynolds • Fariborz Rezakhanlou • Arthur & Harriet Rhine • Chris Rhomberg • Joanne & August Ricca • Jerry Richard • Ruth H. Richwerger • Gerald & Mutsumi Robinson • Andrew Rogers • Suzanne & Alan Jay Rom in memory of Samuel S. Schiff • Josie Yanguas & Carl Rosen • Miki Rosen • Paul Rosenstein • Arthur Read & Cindy Rosenthal • Judith Ross in memory of Milton White, VALB • Leona Ross in memory of Sam Ross • Margaret Rossoff • Yaron Rozenbaum • Herbert Rubenstein in memory of Sherman Rubenstein • Joseph B. Russell • Selma Sachs in memory of Melvin Sachs • Suzanne Samberg in memory of Helen Samberg & Robert Taylor • Steve Sargent • Joel Schaffer in honor of Joe Shavelson • Judith & Jay Schaffner in memory of Felix & Helen Kusman • Earl Scheelar • J.E. Scheiner • Aric & Mady Schichor in memory of Bernard Minter • Peter Schneider in memory of John Wallach, brother of vet Harry Wallach • Peter Schwab • Daniel & Elaine Schwartz in memory of Mary MacEwen • Lynne Schwartz in memory of Steve Nelson • Anne Scott • Anuncia Escala & Paul Semonin • Allen Sherman & Marion Nelson • Paul Shneyer • Henry & Mary Shoiket • Laurence Shoup • Shoshana Silberman • Joan Sills in memory of Benjamin Sills • Carol Silver • Michael Silver • Bradley & Jonny Skinner • Sheila Slater • William Slavick • David C. Sloan in honor of John R. Sloan • Katherine & William Sloan • Pauline M. Sloan • Carole & Henry Slucki • Melvin Small • Harvey L. Smith • George Snook • Ronni Solman in memory of my parents • Mark Solomon in memory of George Karanzalos • Henry & Beth Sommer in memory of Harry Nobel • Kurt & Martha Sonneborn • Dale Sorensen • Sandra Souto • Ann Sprayregen in memory of Louis Cohen, VALB • Susan St. Aubin • Elizabeth Starcevic in memory of Evelyn Wiener and Abraham & Esther Unger • Clarence Steinberg • Naomi Stern • Kate A. Stolpman • Daniel Suman • Willam Sumner • Esther Surovell • Paul Susman • Cy & Lois Swartz • Eric Tabb in honor of George Orwell • Margaret Tanttila in memory of my uncle, Reino Tanttila, who died in Spain • Theodore Tapper, MD • Kathrine Unger in memory of Abe & Esther Unger • Judith Van Allen in memory of Benjamin Nichols • William Vandenburgh • Kathleen Vernon • Ernesto Viscarra • Luis Wainstein • Alan Wald in memory of Arnold Reid • Ada Wallach in memory of Harry Wallach • Frederick Warren in memory of Alvin Warren, Maury Colow & Arthur Munday • Richard Watkins • Dan Watt in memory of George & Margie Watt • Gil Weinstein in memory of Isidore Weinstein • Stephanie Weissman in memory of Irving Weissman • Nicholas Wellington • Joseph Wexler • Myra White • Rosalind Wholden Thomas • John Wiget • Neil Williamson in memory of Isaac Kuperman • Frank Woodman • Josephine & Henry Yurek • Leonard & Ellen Zablow • Sandra Zagarell in memory of Eugene Wolman • Michael W. Zak in memory of Celia Becker • Michael Zielinski • Robert Zimmerman March 2017 THE VOLUNTEER 23

SUNDAY APRIL 16, 2017 AT 4:45 PM MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

For tickets: www.alba-valb.org

ation ALBA’s 81st Annual Celebr

on the East Coast s

ivism to Proactiva Open Arm

ard for Human Rights Act Presenting the ALBA/Puffin Aw

At the Women’s March on January 21, 2017.

Photo Fraser Ottanelli

NEW ALBUM by Barbez with Velina Brown

For Those Who Came After: Songs of Resistance from the Spanish Civil War A new interpretation of ten iconic songs from the Spanish Civil War due out this May Viva la Quince Brigada | Venga Jaleo | L’Internationale | Song of the United Front | No Pasarán | Si Me Quieres Escribir | Peat Bog Soldiers | Freiheit | Los Cuatro Generales | A Las Barricadas Recorded live at the Japan Society in 2016 commemorating the 80th anniversary of the war Made possible with generous support from ALBA

Now available for pre-order at info@alba-valb.org