Hurricane Sandy swamped the schools of Bergen County, New Jersey last November, forcing postponement of ALBA’s teaching institute, but the spring term brought an exciting revival as 22 Spanish language and social studies high school educators attended a lively one-day session at the Bergen County Academies, organized by administrator Tim Casperson, in Hackensack.
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Jim Benét, lifelong journalist and veteran of the American Regiment de Tren (Transport) in the International Brigades, died in December near his home in northern California of a blood infection. He was 98. Born in New York to a literary family on both sides—his father was William Rose Benét, a poet; his uncle, Stephen...
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Harry W. Randall, Jr., once the chief photographer of the special photographic unit of the Fifteenth Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, died at a care facility in Snowflake, Arizona on November 11. His vast collection of photographs—which included not only his own camera work but a large array of negatives, albums of prints,...
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After organizing three successful professional development programs for high school teachers this spring—in Seattle, Tampa, and Oberlin, Ohio—ALBA launched three more in the autumn term in Alameda County, California, New York City, and Bergen County, New Jersey. As in the past, teachers are welcoming the presentation of fresh historical source material from the ALBA...
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We know, of course, that he gave his talent as a writer to support the Republican side.
But there are at least two additional things Hemingway did that have attracted little attention.
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One of the last surviving veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Vernon Bown, died of pneumonia at a VA hospital in Martinez, California, on March 23, as reported by his son Ricardo. Born in rural Wisconsin, Bown went to Spain in 1937 and saw action with the MacKenzie-Papineau battalion until the volunteers were repatriated...
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Now in its fifth year, ALBA’s educational program aims to reach high school teachers of social studies and Spanish who will use archival sources related to the Spanish Civil War in their classrooms. Three separate programs filled the calendar during the spring term; three more are expected in the fall. Last March, ALBA board...
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As we begin the fifth year of ALBA’s teaching programs for high school instructors, we are detecting positive patterns in the anonymous evaluations each teacher is asked to complete at the end of the program. Last December in Chicago, for example, a male world history teacher indicated that he had begun the session with...
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Focusing a wide lens on the human rights agenda, ALBA hosted “Impugning Impunity: A Human Rights Documentary Film Series” at the Museum of the City of New York in November. The festival kicked off with Hollman Morris’ Impunity, a film about the victims of state-sponsored terrorism in Colombia and the truth commission that was...
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A new spirit of human rights activism ignited tremendous enthusiasm as 300-plus friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade commemorated the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War at a reunion in New York on May 14. The day’s highlight was the presentation of the first annual ALBA-Puffin Award for Human Rights...
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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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The City College of New York (CCNY) was founded in1847 as the Free Academy of the City of New York. Offering free tuition, the school served as a combination prep school, high school and college. It was renamed the College of the City of New York in 1866 and became the City College of...
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Arthur Witt lived an interesting and full, but all too short, life. The first child of Herman and Ida Witkowsky, he was born on October 4, 1907, in Brooklyn, New York. The family changed its name to Witt in late 1916. He died February 27, 1937, fighting the Fascists on the battlefield at...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, v. 2, No. 33, October 6, 1938 When Major E. Cecil-Smith Commander of the Mac-Paps was wounded at Hill 565, Teniente Gunnar Ebb, Finnish commander of Company 5 of the Battalion became what the Spanish Army calls an “accidental” commander of the Battalion. But there is nothing accidental about Comrade...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, V2, No. 25, July 19, 1938 Just outside of Belchite towards Fuentes de Todos, a shell landed in the Estado Mayor of the Lincoln, killing commander Reiss and Battalion Commissar Parker. One of the corpse fell against Frank Rogers – a piece of shrapnel wounded him in the leg....
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Written During An Airplane Attack by Daniel Hutner American Volunteer Killed In Action –September, 1937 The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 1, No. 15, September 20, 1937 Dawn still sleeps; but we awake, Aware that soon those shadows in The sky may hover. Everywhere about us the earth is raw, With wounds from shells...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 2, No. 32, September 17, 1938. You know, when we got all those new Spanish recruits late in May, we looked at them and a lot of us thought “Hells Bells, look at the kindergarten broke loose.” Why, those kids –they didn’t shave, some of’em would cry if you...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, V2, no. 33, October 6, 1938 There is not a man of us who did not like and appreciate Teniente Johnny Cookson Adjutant of the Transmission Company of the 15th Brigade for he combined the rare qualities of a man of science, a good organizer, and a sincere simple and...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 2, No. 31, September 5, 1938 We moved down off the hill in single file, the taste of breakfast still in our mouths –coffee, chocolate, ham and sardines, bread, marmalade and plums. There was a comfortable weight inside us., and there was, too, the inevitable nervousness, the pre-action...
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Two Poems by Miles Tomalin The Volunteer for Liberty, V2, No. 35, November 7, 1938 TO ENGLAND From the English Dead We, who were English once had eyes and saw The savage greed of those who made this war Tear up from earth, like a hog loose in flowers So many lives as young...
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One Who Came Back by Joseph Rehill The Volunteer for Liberty, v. II, no. 29, August 13, 1938 I have been asked time and again “What made you boys come back to Spain?” Some comrades. I am sure must think that we had committed a crime and came back as fugitives from justice. I...
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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