Agustí Centelles (1909-1985) is one of the most important photojournalists of the Spanish Civil War, and his work should be studied alongside that of Robert Capa, David Seymour, Gerda Taro, Hans Namuth, and Georg Reisner. This much is clear in the wake of the successful exhibit Centelles in_edit_¡oh!, which has been on show...
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On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the International Brigades, ALBA is organizing a get-together on December 9 and a silent auction to benefit the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives.
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On a visit to sites important to the Spanish Civil War in October, 2010, Alan Warren took Josie Nelson Yurek, Parkie Parker, and me to visit the Ancient Major Synagogue in Barcelona. Historically, the Synagogue has roots dating back to the middle ages, although now it functions as a Museum in addition to...
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In a recent post in the Spanish-language blog FronteraD, filmmaker and novelist Alfonso Domingo reviews these two new books: Spanish translations of the memoirs of the Lincoln volunteer, James Yates (From Mississippi to Madrid: Memoirs of an African-American in the Lincoln Brigade) and of the complete writings of Langston Hughes about the war in Spain....
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Elizabeth Malkin reports in the NY Times:
The Spanish government asked the United States and El Salvador Friday to extradite 15 former Salvadoran military officers in the 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her teenage daughter. The arrest warrants were issued in...
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Judge Baltasar Garzón, recipient of the first ALBA/Puffin Human Rights Award earlier this year, will stand trial on January 17 and 24 for two of the three cases pending against him at Spain's Supreme Court. In both, the principal charge is prevarication, that is, knowingly overstepping judicial boundaries. The January 24 stems from...
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Several months ago, President Zapatero appointed a committee of experts to put together a report with recommendations on the future of the Valle de los Caídos, the pharaonic monument and burial place of José Antonio Primo de Rivera (founder of Spain’s fascist party, Falange) and the Generalísimo himself, Francisco Franco. The committee issued its...
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The plaintiffs in the case against Franco's repression that is being handled by the Argentine courts (see previous Volunteer coverage here) have requested that the judge, María Servini de Cubría, travel to Spain to interview victims of Franco's repression, allowing them to testify. The plaintiffs have also presented a response to the report issued...
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This coming Wednesday November 30th, at 6pm ALBA is co-sponsoring a symposium on the Spanish Civil War Photographs of Agustí Centelles at the King Juan Carlos I Center in New York City (53 Washington Sq S), where the exhibit Centelles in_edit_oh! is up for another couple of weeks. With the participation of...
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The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to promoting public awareness, research, and discussion about the Spanish Civil War. Learn more at our website or
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Fanny Schoonheyt, the tall, blond “queen of the machine gun,” was the only Dutch woman to join in the battle action during the Spanish Civil War. Her life is shrouded in mystery. Could she have been the only female foreign official in the Republican Army? What was her involvement in the events of May...
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Luis Buñuel: The Red Years, 1929-1939, due to be published next month with the University of Wisconsin Press (excerpt, order), reveals scores of unknown facts about the life and work of Luis Buñuel during a crucial decade not only in the filmmaker’s life but in the history of film and photography—as well...
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Among the sources of information about Buñuel's activities during the first few weeks of the war: is a receipt signed dated 25 August 1936, for a loan of £490 granted by Leo Fleischman, an engineer from New York who enlisted in the Fifth Regiment and died in combat in October 1936.
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Olavi Kantola was a Finnish-American volunteer in the International Brigades. This text by Alina Flinkman appeared in the Finnish magazine "Vaku" in 1941.
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Behind the lines during the Spanish Civil War, nearly two hundred thousand men and women were murdered extra-judicially or executed after flimsy legal process. They were killed as a result of the military coup of 17-18 July 1936 against the Second Republic. For the same reason, at least three hundred thousand men...
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Under the heading “New theories about a 20th century icon” El País reports that José Luis Alcaine has found extremely interesting parallels between the film version of Hemingway’s novel A Farewell to Arms, and Picasso’s Guernica. Alcaine, a director of photography who has worked with Pedro Almodóvar and Victor Erice, summarises his conclusions...
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Today I’d like to share with you my honest understanding of what has been going on in Spain over the last few weeks. It’s not easy to make sense of what’s going on; the mainstream Spanish press, in my opinion, has been getting things quite wrong, or else ignoring the situation, except in its...
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Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, members of ALBA, representatives of the Puffin Foundation, authorities, amigas y amigos:
Seventy-five years ago in my country, Spain, one of the darkest and saddest chapters in the history of humanity began. It lasted more than forty years and even today, after 34 years of democracy, it has not...
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I would like to add a note on Picasso's sketch on a copy of Paris-Soir of April 19th, 1937. Since my piece was published in The Volunteer I have come across some new information that links the evidence on Picasso's initial engagement with the Spanish Civil War at the end of 1936 and...
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Although Picasso experts agree that the painter’s interest in the war as a subject was sparked some time in late 1936 or early 1937, the precise circumstances of the “conversion” that made the Guernica possible were never fully made clear—until now, that is. Last year, while preparing an edition of the Spanish Civil War...
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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