Veteran Aaron Harris, on right, in Catalunya, Barcelona, 1937. Photo provided by his family

“This letter tells the story of my father Sol Fellman and his brother Harry,” begins another response to ALBA. “The two brothers traveled to Spain together, on the ‘Paris’ in 1937. They were both members of the YCL. Sol was in the Tom Mooney unit.…He was at Jarama, where my uncle Harry was wounded. The letters of Paul Siegel (in the archives) mention a meeting when my father found Harry in August 1937 when he left the line at Jarama, walked up to him and said, ‘Don’t I know you from someplace?’ (My dad had a great sense of humor.)” David Fellman goes on to let us know that his father Sol and Solomon Feldman are two different people, clearing up an error in our database. “Solomon Feldman came from New York and was arrested trying to enter Spain. My father was in the line at Jarama when Solomon was arrested.”

Secret marriages, humor under fire. These memories from family members vividly capture aspects of the human beings who volunteered in the war against fascism in Spain over 74 years ago. As their courageous example continues to inspire generations of activists who respond to the issues of the day, ALBA feels we have a unique opportunity and responsibility to expand on and disseminate each volunteer’s biography. We are combining these oral histories solicited from family members with the information we have from the archives at NYU’s Tamiment collection into a permanent feature on our website. By clicking on biographies, visitors to www.alba-valb.org can find a page for each of the veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

Jerry Cook in uniform in service in Belgium, 1945, where he served after his return from Spain. Photo supplied by his daughter, Catherine Cook

The responses often turn into family endeavors as computer savvy sons or daughters assist widows in capturing memories of lifetimes of activism. This excerpt from 94-year-old Anne Yellin’s letter beautifully renders the love and respect in her marriage to veteran Jack Yellin. “I did not know him before he went to Spain. While he was in Spain, my best friend…who was the sister of George Watt, met in Coney Island and became friends and helped organize ‘Friends of the Lincoln Brigade in Brighton Beach.’ In Spain, Jack was sent to the auto park, where he would fix cars, trucks and ambulances and drive them back to the front. On one of these journeys, Jack was very badly wounded, hurt by fire from the fascists.…He was sent to a hospital in Madrid. At first no one knew where he was sent and what hospital he was in. They finally assumed he was dead and his mother was told he had died. As time went on, he was finally found in the hospital in Madrid where he was very much alive.…A couple of years later Jack was stricken with a benign brain tumor, which his brother, a doctor, attributed to being blown up in Spain. When Jack came home in 1938, I met him at a dance at the Diplomat Hotel and fell in love and married him in 1939. When WWII started Jack was not drafted because he was married and had a young child. However, he enlisted and joined the navy where he served until the end of WWII.” One common thread that stands out in the range of responses we’ve received from family members is the pride and respect they feel for the sacrifices of these real life heroes.

One of the most exciting contributions we elicited is featured in another article in this issue of The Volunteer. Veteran Maynard Goldstein, who had attended NYU’s school of journalism and advertising and lives in NYC, sent in “Baseball in Espana” in response to the biography project.

I could not give you a complete picture of our efforts without mentioning the assistance of researchers who, while not related to volunteers, have been inspired by their example. Nacho Eli, a Spaniard, grew up next to the monastery in San Pedro de Cardena, Burgos, Spain, where the International Volunteers were incarcerated during the Spanish Civil War. He started a blog, http://thejailynews.blogspot.com/, named after the underground paper edited in the prison by Lincoln veterans Hy Wallach and Sydney Rosenblatt. The latest information he has sent us comes from his visit to the Public Record Office in Salamanca, where he viewed signatures from 25 prisoners who gave parcel authorizations to other international prisoners. He sent me a copy of the record for the authorization my father, Hy Wallach, signed for his friend at San Pedro, a Yugoslav, Radavoy Nicolitch, a fellow chess player. Eli explains that when a prisoner was released “from countries like the USA, Canada, or England, with strong solidarity groups for the Republic, they normally gave authorization to prisoners from countries like Germany, Austria or Yugoslavia, with right wing governments which stopped attempts at solidarity.…I will send you the other 25 authorizations of American prisoners, mostly from communists to communists.” The blog also documents the efforts of Eli to bring various groups and associations together to erect another commemorative monument at the site of the prison, after the original was removed by local authorities after its installation. Eli states that the “aim of the blog is to draw attention to what happened in the concentration camp and to highlight the ideals of those who fought for them but have been forgotten by official histories.”

His aim expresses our own purposes in undertaking the biography project on each of the volunteers. I know how moved I felt to hear from a person in Spain who was so inspired by the International Volunteers that he continues to use his holidays to travel to public record offices around his country to bring me documentation on my father. The aptness of the characterization of the volunteers as “forgotten heroes” came home to me when I was relating this project to a young Caribbean-American teacher at my school. He asked if I had a title for this article and suggested I call it “Stories of Our Unsung Heroes,” since he told me that although he was a history buff, he was learning about Americans who volunteered in Spain for the first time through this ALBA initiative.

Using the research begun by veteran Adolph Ross and ALBA’s Chris Brooks and from the Tamiment archives, we’ve just started to reach out to families of volunteers to add to the material and to help personalize their biographies. The anecdotes in this article are just a few of the stories that we hope to bring to light on the website and in future issues of The Volunteer. Although the archives contain a wealth of material already donated generously by friends and family, as well as by VALB itself, the database on ALBA’s website makes these highlights immediately accessible. I look forward to sharing many more of the responses that are continuing to come in.

Nancy Wallach is a member of ALBA’s Board of Governors.

For Nate Thornton on his 95^th Birthday, January 14, 2010

Tomorrow evening I’ll join with

many others for a meeting of the

Revolutionary Poets Brigade.

The Brigade exists because you

fought in Spain, Nate Thornton.

In 1983, Alejandro Murguia and

others organized poets, writers,

translators and intellectuals into

The Roque Dalton Cultural Brigade,

named after the great El Salvadorean

poet.  That Brigade existed because

you fought in Spain, Nate Thornton.

A year later, I and poets Boadiba in

Oakland and Paul Laraque in New

York formed the Jacques Roumain

Cultural Brigade, named after the poet

and novelist who was the youngest

founder of a communist party in the

20^th century, the Communist Party of

Haiti.  Which not only existed because

you fought in Spain, Nate Thornton, but

whom you may have encountered when

Jacques visited the International Brigades

in Spain itself during the Civil War.

These resonances of the engagement

of the 20^th and now into the 21^st cen-

tury Brigadistas of justice and light,

who cherish the vision of a world trans-

formed into ever blossoming tomorrows,

are part of the birthday acclamations for

you, Nate Thornton, who knows more

than most that that vision will never die.

“Beaten, chained, slandered — look, it’s

reaching for your voice. Lift it!  Let is

Rise in its place.  The Internationale

Shall be the human race.”

IZIBONGO* FOR THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN BRIGADE

(*Izibongo is a Praise Song in South Africa)

Accent on International

against the globaloney

that never arrives

at the hungry mouths of the world.

Accent on the International

Brigades that are still

the deathless moment human Being

became conscious of itself.

Accent on the Abraham

Lincoln Brigade, which has always

belonged to the heart of,

by and for all lovers of liberty,

which had never stopped

bringing supplies, medicine

to front lines of struggle against

fascism in whatever form,

with an ageless energy redounding

to original hope, defying

the advocates of coalitions of alone

by bringing collectivity

into the twenty-first century,

inspiring brigadistas

everywhere—on mountainsides,

on cultural fronts—

to continue the war

humanity can never lose.

Jack Hirschman

Eran años difíciles los “30, una crisis económica asolaba el territorio nacional, caída de la exportación agrícola-ganadera que era la principal herramienta productiva y comercial de entonces, lo que llevaba a altas tasas de desocupación inventando lo que se conocerían como Villa Desocupación o el Barrio las latas – comparable en Estados Unidos a los barrios de cartón o “Hoovervilles”.

A todo esto la dictadura iniciada en 1930, por el golpe de Estado del General Uriburu auspiciaba una ola represiva con muertos, torturas, y una violencia tendiente a desarticular cualquier reclamo político-social generado desde la clase obrera.

Brigadistas argentinos en campo de concentración de Saint Cyprien (Francia)

El movimiento obrero de aquellos años vivía las divisiones ideológicas del momento, fraccionados en un fuerte bloque anarquista y comunista, por un lado, acompañados por socialistas parlamentarios por el otro. Cada uno con mayor o menor fuerza en los diferentes sectores industriales, creaba sus propias organizaciones sindicales y políticas que jugarían un rol importantísimo a la hora de Socorrer a España.

Así fue como ante el golpe de Estado generado en España por los Generales Franco y Mola, el movimiento anarquista creo la Comisión Coordinadora de Ayuda a España aglutinando toda su fuerza en este movimiento, junto a Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista dirigida por Federica Montseny.

El Partido Comunista Argentino organizo la FOARE (Federación de Organismos de Ayuda a la Republica Española) con gran éxito. Logro aglutinar casi mil comités en todo el país, donde se recaudaba dinero, víveres, materiales y todo tipo de ayuda que se envió a España y luego sirvieron también para destinar una parte a pagar costos de manutención y viajes para exiliados, como se hizo para alrededor de 1000 republicanos que partieron en el barco Winnipeg hacia Chile. [3]

Los Centros Republicanos formados en nuestro país desde principios de siglo también favorecieron junto al Partido Socialista y los respectivos consulados y embajadas, otra fuente de solidaridad vital para una guerra larga como se preveía en la península.

De esta manera Argentina se convertiría en el segundo país, luego de Suecia, que más ayuda brindó a la España Republicana durante el conflicto bélico.

Pero todo este gran movimiento solidario tuvo su correlato en el envío de voluntarios.

En esta situación partieron hombres comprometidos con la causa española, militantes republicanos y algunos socialistas, que partían de manera individual, costeándose el pasaje o siendo ayudado por amigos. La Federación Anarco Comunista Argentina, de tendencia anarquista, envío solo a algunos grupos de dirigentes como Jacobo Maguid, José Grunfeld, Anita Piacenza, para dar soporte a organizaciones libertarias de Cataluña. También, de manera informal distintas organizaciones anarquistas de diferentes lugares de nuestro país apoyaban y enviaban militantes libertarios, decididos a combatir en las milicias anarquistas de Barcelona.

Pero el reclutamiento mayor fue oficialmente realizado por el Partido Comunista Argentino a pedido de la Internacional, aunque de forma clandestina por la dictadura que había derribado el gobierno democrático Argentino en 1930. Se buscaba reclutas jóvenes con tres características principales: que sea soltero, con algo de experiencia militar y afín ideológicamente al Frente Popular, al Partido Comunista o con claras posturas antifascistas.

Estos hombres y mujeres, saldrían con pasaportes falsos y su fisonomía cambiada para evadir los controles portuarios de la ciudad de la Buenos Aires, y lo harían también con voluntarios brasileños, paraguayos y chilenos que también fueron integrados a diferentes unidades militares. La llegada a través de los Pirineos los ubicaba en Valencia o Madrid, pasando por Albacete los que irían a las Brigadas Internacionales.

Muchos otros argentinos, debido a lazos familiares y culturales ya tenían residencia en España al momento del golpe de estado del 18 de julio de 1936 o vivían en Francia, aunque un grupo amplio de dirigentes estaban instalados en la península ibérica porque la dictadura Argentina aplicaba la Ley de Residencia que expulsaba a los militantes obreros y sindicales a su país natal. Este núcleo mayormente se integró en principio a las milicias obreras y luego al naciente Ejercito Popular en diciembre de 1936.

Pero el Comité de No Intervención de las Naciones Unidas les había solicitado a ambos bandos que retiren unidades militares de extranjeros del suelo español, y a pesar de que todas las potencias involucradas habían aceptado, ninguna de ellas cumplió la propuesta.

Dentro de esta situación desfavorable para la República de retirar a los extranjeros, el Partido Comunista Español ideó una estrategia, ya que no estaban dispuestos a perder ningún hombre que pueda combatir en el frente, y menos cuando los italianos trasladaban divisiones enteras del CTV (Cuerpo de Tropas Voluntarias) cercanos a los 70.000 hombres. La táctica consistía sencillamente en incluir a los latinoamericanos en el Ejército Popular, donde serían irreconocibles, no sólo por el idioma, sino por la integración cultural que había entre españoles y sudamericanos. Los extranjeros de habla hispana integrados al Ejército hasta finales de 1936 quedarían en dichas unidades y los recién llegados formarían las Brigadas Internacionales. Obviamente que hubo excepciones ya que algunos quisieron combatir con sus compatriotas y otros querían quedarse con sus camaradas con los que compartieron sus primeros días de batalla. También algunos cuadros dirigentes, como médicos, traductores o comisarios políticos fueron directamente al Ejercito Republicano para completar necesidades específicas. Este camuflaje sirvió para despistar al Comité de Intervención y no generar sospechas dentro de las unidades españolas.

Numerosos voluntarios argentinos, inmigrantes o nativos, hablaban o entendían lenguas europeas y eso motivó también en muchos casos la dispersión de ellos entre las Brigadas Internacionales como combatientes, traductores o auxiliares técnicos. El mayor número fue enrolado en la Brigada XV Abraham Lincoln, donde poseemos registros con más de 50 argentinos [4] que participaron como soldados, cabos, comisarios políticos, médicos o choferes de unidades de transportes. Gran parte de ellos estaba enrolado en el Spanish Batallion Nª 24, dentro de la Brigada XV, y junto a innumerables compatriotas cubanos que también participaron en dicha Brigada combatiendo junto a norteamericanos, ingleses, irlandeses y canadienses. En la mayoría de trabajos sobre las Brigadas no hacen hincapié en la participación cubana, aunque sabemos desde 1981  [5], que participaron más de 1200 voluntarios de este país en el Ejército y las Brigadas.

De Argentina podemos mencionar en la Brigada XV a: José Maria García Noya y Fernando Iaffa, cabos sanitario, Juan José Real y Francisco López Comendador como comisarios políticos, José Fontenla y Simón Tur como cabos y a Nicolás Berichagat, Pedro Prat, Aníbal Vega y Mario Rossi como soldados, entre otros. No todos los voluntarios argentinos en la Brigada XV eran comunistas, muchos de ellos eran anarquistas, como José Nieto o Ricardo Martín Álvarez entre otros, integrando la misma unidad como soldados o choferes. Una relación marcada a fuego fue la que tuvieron John Cookson nacido en Cobb (Wisconsin) [6]  y F. Iaffa homenajeados en el mes de mayo de 2007, en la localidad de Marcia (España) donde distinguieron a ambos voluntarios. Cookson murió cerca de Tarragona el 11 de septiembre de 1938, y Iaffa sobrevivió a la guerra civil, pero pidió en su testamento que sus cenizas fueran esparcidas al lado de su compañero de armas cuando muera y asi fue cumplida su petición. [7]

Antonio Arias Torre, llegó a España el 1ª de diciembre de 1937 y fue integrado a la Brigada XV en la 24ª División 2da compañía. Participo como enlace de la comandancia en los frentes de Aragón, Ebro y Gandesa. Fue herido dos veces por metralla en la cabeza y en la muñeca izquierda.

Otro voluntario fue Alfredo Borello, nacido en la ciudad de Lanùs (provincia de Buenos Aires) el 10/8/1910, técnico mecánico, llegó a España a mediados de 1938 e integrado también a la Brigada XV, 59ª Batallón, 3era compañía. Combatió en el sector de Gandesa, en la Sierra de Pandolls y en Corbera donde fue herido en el codo del brazo izquierdo. [8] Fue retirado hacia Francia con el resto de brigadistas y acompañado por su amigo Abraham Setty, nacido en Bagdad (Iraq), de familia judía y proveniente de Uruguay. [9]

Las fichas del Comité Central del Partido Comunista Español o del Comisariado de Guerra de las Brigadas Internacionales completadas por los voluntarios con todos los datos referenciales desde su nacimiento hasta su participación en España, fueron firmadas por comisarios y cuadros políticos de las diferentes unidades, como por ejemplo: Jose Beloqui (Arg), Jose Fontenla (Arg), Victor Garcia, Jorge Cell, Juan Lafontes, David King, John Gates (Usa), A. Donaldson, M. Del Pres, Swallbath, Konstantin Minkoff (Bulgaria) entre otros.

Además los voluntarios desempeñaron otro tipo de tareas, muy importantes como la de traductores, habiendo 11 de Argentina que tenían el español como idioma natal, o lo habían aprendido de pequeños. También numerosos médicos aportaron su práctica para el Ejercito Popular y las Brigadas Internacionales llegando a más de 12 los que participaron en España. Milan Matkovich, medico naturista, fue responsable de la enfermería en Albacete y Pozo Blanco e instructor sanitario en Puerto Llano terminando en la 35 División de la Brigada XV Lincoln. De igual forma Roberto Fierro participó en la misma unidad, siendo Jefe de Farmacia del Servicio Sanitario Internacional y colaborando en la misma división.

Al mismo tiempo, el envío de dirigentes argentinos fue lo que sobresalió en estas tareas de retaguardia. Casi la mitad de los dirigentes participó en la batalla como soldados u oficiales. Varios comunistas tuvieron alta graduación debido a sus dotes de mando y experiencia organizativa, el prestigio obtenido por su militancia en nuestro país hizo que varios de ellos ostentaran rápidamente altas graduaciones dentro del mando militar (4 capitanes, 15 tenientes, 9 comandantes).

En cuanto a los anarquistas argentinos varios cumplieron con importantes puestos delante de organizaciones tan importantes como la CNT y la FAI, y participando la mayoría en las milicias que luego se convertirían en el Ejercito Republicano, y algunos en las Brigadas Internacionales, principalmente en la XV Lincoln.

De esta forma se fue configurando la participación de los voluntarios de Argentina, en diversas unidades, siguiendo el mismo destino que los otros internacionales de la XV cuando llego la hora de abandonar la lucha por el retiro de las Brigadas en Octubre de 1938, en los acantonamientos de Ripoll o Cardedeu, para su retirada final hacia Francia.

Varios cientos de argentinos fueron retirados de España, y la gran mayoría internados en los campos de concentración de Saint Cyprien, Gurs, Argeles Sur Mer, Collioure, Le Barcares.

Aquellos 94 brigadistas argentinos citados por el investigador Andreu Castells, han quedado muy lejos de la realidad y las diferentes investigaciones realizadas permiten contabilizar 740 voluntarios de Argentina, que son incluidos (una parte) en un apéndice de la nueva publicación editada en 2008 (Voluntarios de Argentina en la Guerra Civil Española) por el Centro Cultural de la Cooperación. Así mismo pensamos que una cifra razonable y que podría obtenerse con el acceso a diferentes archivos, seria de 800 a 1000 combatientes argentinos en la Guerra Civil Española, y de seguro con las futuras investigaciones nos acercaremos a dicha cantidad.

Al regreso en nuestro país en busca de un destino, muchos participaron de los Centros Republicanos, y en Sociedades Españoles regionales de diferentes lugares, continuando la lucha antifranquista por las décadas siguientes.

En fin, esta historia de lucha y solidaridad entre argentinos, cubanos y anglo-parlantes unidos en un mismo destino es muy poco conocida. La cantidad, importancia y otros factores hicieron que resalte mayoritariamente la participación de estos últimos, quedando casi en el olvido la sangre latina dentro de las Brigadas. La mayoría de los historiadores (A. Castells, S. Alvarez, C.Vidal, M. Nuñez Diaz-Balart, R. Skoutelsky), que estudiaron las Brigadas Internacionales continuaron esta línea de investigación y los nuevos abordajes no dieron mayor cabida a la participación latinoamericana en la Brigada XV y el Ejército, exceptuando el trabajo de Gino Baumann de 1997. [10]

Actualmente las investigaciones nos han traído no solo un incremento numérico a los estudios tradicionales, sino un nuevo marco de consideración en cuanto a la importancia y participación de los argentinos en las Brigadas Internacionales, y en particular en la XV; como así también un gran aporte para la historia social de nuestro país. Argentina fue el único país en todo el mundo que tuvo en las primeras décadas del siglo XX un 30% de población extranjera o inmigratoria, aun mayor que en Estados Unidos (15%).  [1]]

El debate sobre los orígenes nacionales de los contingentes de brigadistas debe tener en cuenta esta situación particular ocurrida tanto Estados Unidos como Argentina, al recibir millones de inmigrantes que aportaron y conformaron una nueva identidad en cada país.

En el Río de La Plata, los voluntarios marcaron una etapa de compromiso internacionalista y en Estados Unidos los brigadistas de la Lincoln fueron a contramano de una cultura individualista regeneradas durante el New Deal y en expansión con el Sueño Americano décadas después.

La lucha contra el fascismo por aquellos hombres y mujeres, rompió todos los telones generacionales y aún hoy perdura con un impacto considerable en la formación de la conciencia histórica de toda una generación de jóvenes.

Notas

[1] Voluntarios de Argentina en la Guerra Civil Española. L. Gonzalez, J. Boragina (coord), E. Sommaro, G.Dorado. Centro Cultural de la Cooperación, Buenos Aires, 2008.

[2] Uruguay en el mes de noviembre conmemoró oficialmente desde la Junta Departamental y la Intendencia Municipal de Montevideo a los más de 50 brigadistas uruguayos que participaron en España. Argentina con una cantidad mucho mayor todavía no lo ha hecho.

[3] Neruda y el barco de la esperanza. Garcedo, Diego. Madrid, Temas de Hoy, 2006.

[4] Base de datos de Voluntarios Argentinos en la Guerra Civil Española. Archivo Privado.

[5] Cuba y la Defensa de la República Española, 1936-39. Instituto de Historia del Movimiento Comunista y de la Revolución Socialista en Cuba, La Habana, Política, 1981.

[6] Otro voluntario de Wisconsin fue Clarence Kailin, herido en la Batalla del Ebro, sobrevivió a la guerra civil.

[7] Entrevista a hijo Marcos Iaffa en el 2006.

[8] Fichas individuales del Comisariado de Guerra de las Brigadas Internacionales de Antonio Arias Torre y Alfredo Borello. RGASPI, Archivo Militar del Estado Ruso de Historia Social y Política, en la

Federación de Asociaciones Gallegas, Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

[9] Brigadistas Árabes en la Guerra de España: Combatientes por la Republica. Salvador Bofarull. Revista Nación Árabe, Nª 52, Pág. 121, Agosto 2004, Madrid.

[10] Los Voluntarios Latinoamericanos. En las BI, las milicias, la retaguardia y el ejército republicano. Baumman Gino, San José de Costa Rica, Guayacán, 1997.

[11] Historia de la Inmigración en la Argentina. Devoto, Fernando. Buenos Aires, Sudamericana, 2003.

Fuentes y Bibliografía:

Base de datos de Voluntarios Argentinos en la Guerra Civil Española. Archivo Personal.

L. Gonzalez, J. Boragina (coord), E. Sommaro, G. Dorado, Voluntarios de Argentina en la Guerra Civil Española, Buenos Aires, Centro Cultural de la Cooperación, 2008.

Baumman, Gino. Los Voluntarios Latinoamericanos. En las BI, las milicias, la retaguardia y el ejercito republicano. San José de Costa Rica, Guayacán, 1997

Devoto, Fernando. Historia de la Inmigración en la Argentina, Buenos Aires, Sudamericana, 2003.

Kostelanetz, Richard. USA ¿Revolución Cultural?, Buenos Aires, Rodolfo Alonso Ediciones, 1972.

Clarence Kailin, Recordando a John Cookson, un Antifascista de Wisconsin en la Guerra Civil Española 1937-38. Universidad Castilla La Mancha, España, 2003.

López Trujillo, Fernando. Vidas en rojo y negro, Una historia del anarquismo en la «década infame, Letra Libre, La Plata, 2005.

Wallace, David. Historia de los Estados Unidos, Barcelona, Planeta, 1976

Cuba y la Defensa de la República Española, 1936-39. Instituto de Historia del Movimiento Comunista y de la Revolución Socialista en Cuba. La Habana, Política, 1981.

Biblioteca de la Federación Sociedades Gallegas

Biblioteca y Archivo Centro de Documentación e Investigación de la Cultura de Izquierdas.

Archivo CEDOBI (Centro Documentación de las Brigadas Internacionales) (España -Alicante)

Jerónimo E. Boragina nació el 26/05/1978 en La Plata. Licenciado en Historia de la Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Investigador de España Contemporánea y en particular Guerra Civil Española y la participación de los Voluntarios Argentinos. Coautor y coordinador de la publicación “Voluntarios de Argentina en la GCE”, autor de numerosos artículos sobre la participación argentina en la Guerra Civil publicados en revistas de Argentina, España, Alemania. Realizó la investigación histórica del documental “Esos mismos Hombres-Voluntarios Argentinos en la GCE”, realizado por el Grupo de Historia desde Abajo. Es investigador de la Federación de Sociedades Gallegas, del CEDOBI de España-Alicante (Centro Documentación de las Brigadas Internacionales), del Centro Cultural de la Cooperación y el Centro Cultural Español de Buenos Aires.

John Murra (1916-2006) claimed he made up his mind to go to Spain in 20 minutes. “[A recruiter asked me to go], I’d never been to Spain. It was a place I was interested in.” In February 1937, Murra put his plans to do graduate work in sociology on hold and set out for Spain. He’d just graduated from the University of Chicago, where he’d been sent by his parents, three years before, having barely escaped with his life from prison (for communist agitation) in his native Romania.

John Murra, Spain, May 1938 (Tamiment Library, NYU, 15th Brigade Photo Collection, 11-0221, #B597)

Shortly after arriving in Paris, Murra was instructed to catch an overnight train south to a town near the French-Spanish border. He remained there until April 1937, helping to hide and provision several thousand U.S., Canadian, Scandinavian, and other English-speaking volunteers in tiny villages like Arles-sur-Tech as they were smuggled over the Pyrenees into Spain. Murra marveled at the trust and responsibility thrust on him at age 19. “I’d be told where to meet four men with Luxembourgian passports who spoke no French or German. . . . .or I’d be told, ‘Meet a train at such and such an hour.’ [Someone would hand me a suitcase.] We were handling thousands of dollars in suitcases without any receipts.”

“We instructed the volunteers: Don’t shoot guns. Don’t get drunk. Stay in the barns [where they’d be billeted.]. But they were bored. It [would be] two, three, four weeks, sometimes, nothing happening.” Murra worked with Ferrer Mercelin, a French Canadian. Instructions came in Russian from someone at Communist party headquarters in the French border town of Perpignan.

One of Murra’s “housekeeping” responsibilities on the French border was outfitting International Brigade volunteers with alpargatas. Volunteers were issued the rope-soled sandals to climb icy stretches of the Pyrenees. “[But] the alpargatas [they sent us at first] were too small—four sizes too small. We had to write letters [to the workshops making the alpargatas] that these big American or Swedish types had very big feet. After a while they started making them bigger. We’d get a sack with 30 pairs.”

Murra was chosen to help the arriving Internationals because he was fluent in French, English, Russian, German, and Romanian, and spoke some Italian and Croatian, as well. Ironically, Spanish was one language Murra did not know, until he was finally allowed to cross the border himself into Spain in mid-April.

Murra never took a Spanish lesson and never bought a dictionary, but he quickly picked up the language. His first assignment in Spain was as translator and assistant to Bill Lawrence, commissar of the XVth (English-speaking) Brigade in Albacete. From May 1937 to February 1938 Murra translated for Bob Kerr in the Canadian office and Will Painter in the British office. He worked out of a 20′ x 15′ office. Nights he slept on the office couch. “French was the administrative language most in demand,” Murra recalled. Occasionally he heard Russian, as well, always spoken with an accent: “In two years in Spain, I never saw a Russian. Everybody says they saw Russians. All the Russians I saw were Bulgarians, Slovenes, Croats, Poles–10, 15 years earlier thrown by some revolution to Russia. People in the tank corps, or air corps saw Russians, because Russians wouldn’t let Internationals near tanks or planes.”

Occasionally, Murra corresponded with U.S. consular officials in Spain. He quickly adjusted to the Americans’ bureaucratic sensibilities. Murra referred to his boss, Commissar Bill Lawrence, as “Commissioner” Lawrence.

One of Murra’s duties at International Brigade headquarters at Albacete was choosing replacements for volunteers killed and wounded: “A troop train would come in from Valencia. I’d go to the bullring. [A new batch of international volunteers would] be standing there all tired. They’d just climbed the Pyrenees. I knew what shortages there were . . . for all these trucks and ambulances–we needed people all the time. . . . For a Pole or Norwegian to drive–that was a profession. [But] every American knew how to drive, even in ’37.” Murra found it hard to cajole Americans to volunteer for the Auto Park/ Regiment de Tren (transport unit). “They’d come to fight fascism.” He hit on a winning sales pitch, “You can be pretty assured of being bombed.”

Once a week, Murra delivered packages and letters to American volunteers, traveling in the back of an ambulance or on motorbike. “I used to go around remembering 2,000 addresses. . . . North Americans were the envy of other foreign brigades at mail call. Cigarettes piled up in the Albacete storeroom–hundreds, sometimes, of cartons of cigarettes addressed to American volunteers. Volunteers from other countries in Europe, especially those ruled by fascist governments, exiled from their home countries, [often] got no letters or packages at all. “You didn’t want to give one guy something and the guy next to him nothing. . . . I always tried to do it surreptitiously.” Occasionally brigade headquarters “equalized” the quantity of cigarettes each national group received from home. “Bill Lawrence would trade cigarettes for supplies. Cigarettes were currency.”

Attempting to deliver mail to the American volunteers, Murra had a devilishly hard time prying hometown newspapers loose from mail censors (who Murra remembered as: “grizzled old censors left over from the 1905 revolution . . .or who fought in 1923 on some barricade.) How do you explain to someone like that–this guy should get his Worcester Gazette?”

“Capitalist paper,” the censors would grumble. The censors would only let through the “national paper,” Murra recalled. “I told them, ‘There’s no national paper in [the U.S.]’ And I would speak to the guy in Russian. I wouldn’t inflict English on him. . . . ‘You know, comrade, it’s a different country.’ All papers were stopped. All you got was the Daily Worker or the Spanish equivalent, which was nothing to read, just sermons.”

“All the Wobblies’ letters had to be read. In our office we received stacks that the censors wouldn’t let out. All the ‘Dear John’ letters–censorship stopped [those] to prevent loss of morale. Battle issues, military secrets, complicated political judgment–they passed it to us.”

Because he was bearing letters and packages from home, most of the U.S. volunteers greeted Murra warmly. A few, however, taunted Murra for cowardice, as if he were shirking front-line duty with his rear-lines “delivery boy” duties. “Everyone thought I had a soft job. [But] people woke me up at 1 a.m. swearing to kill me, unless I came out and gave them a flop [lodgings for the night].” Twice Murra “deserted” to front-line positions only to be arrested for not having the proper papers. Even when he was transferred to Estado Mayor, military headquarters in Barcelona, as a translator, Murra yearned to prove himself at the front.

The headquarters duty Murra loathed most was translating speeches by American commissars to the Spanish recruits in their battalion. Murra found his commissars’ “god-awful” speeches insufferably clichéd, pontificating, and full of inanities. Murra admired military commanders Phil Detro, Hans Amlie, and Howard Goddard, but he had complimentary words for only one American commissar–Steve Nelson. Nelson sought out Murra with a humane procedure for dealing with the surprising large number of would-be deserters. Nelson advised Murra, “[being] a deserter isn’t a permanent condition. . . .Treat him like a human being. . . .Don’t talk to him about fighting fascism.” Nelson urged Murra to get deserters a 48-hour pass so they wouldn’t be arrested, and if possible a meal in a restaurant and a hot shower. Nelson predicted that “overwhelmingly these men would go back to fight.” Murra found they did just that.

The second time Murra “deserted to the front,” he was grudgingly allowed to stay. He served on the Aragon and Ebro fronts. Outside Gandesa, he was gravely wounded. The bullet hit his spine and filled a lung with blood. Murra would have bled to death in no man’s land, but Bill Wheeler and Jack Shafran braved enemy fire to drag him to Doc John Simon’s medical station.

Harry Fisher’s Comrades: Tales of a Brigadista in the Spanish Civil War reports that Murra’s spinal wound initially paralyzed him from the spine down. However, “a wonderful Latvian nurse [in his hospital in Barcelona] pressured him to get out of bed and on his feet. Slowly but surely he began to walk, though with a noticeable limp that he still has today.” His nurse had been one of thousands of volunteers Murra had helped cross the Pyrenees in 1937. They remembered each other because it took Murra an immense effort to persuade the smugglers to take a woman across the border.

Lacking a valid U.S. passport, Murra missed out on being repatriated by the League of Nations. He was still recuperating in a hospital in February 1939, when Franco’s forces approached Barcelona. Murra walked most of the way from Mataro, on the Catalonian coast to the border, then chanced to meet up with American volunteers Hy Tabb, Sid Kaufman, Conlon Nancarrow, and Stanley Postek. They only survived because a Yugoslav named Babin joined their party. At a military supply depot on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, Babin ordered Murra and his fellow Americans to load up a truck, one of many abandoned by the Spanish army, with 50-60 pound packages of dried beans, cocoa, sugar, and flour.

“What good will this do us?” griped the American volunteers.

“Fill up the truck,” ordered their wiser Yugoslav comrade Babin.

Expecting sanctuary, food, and shelter upon reaching France, Murra, his fellow Americans, and some 400,000 Spanish refugees, soldiers and civilians, were herded onto beaches near the Spanish border. Murra’s party were interned in a makeshift camp at the beach of Argeles-sûr-Mer. It was February and cold. Along with 72,000 others, they initially went without food, shelter, blankets, or latrines. Historians estimate 500 Spanish refugees died of malnutrition, exposure, and attendant diseases every week during the first months in the French internment camps.

Murra’s crew, however, were luckier than their fellow sufferers. Their panel truck provided rudimentary shelter for their wounded, a place to sleep out of the elements. They had dried food and canned goods, with sacks of food left over to barter.

Hope briefly flared when U.S. prisoners-of-war held by Franco in San Pedro de Cardeña jail were released in February 1939. Transiting France on their way back to the United States, these POWs were briefly detained by French officials near Murra’s stateless volunteers. Murra explained the predicament of the stateless American vets to the just-released American POWs. He claimed the San Pedro POWs voted overwhelmingly to issue a joint statement that none of them would return home until their stateless brothers were allowed to come back with them. The stateless internees wanted to be held in Ellis Island, where they could pursue their individual cases. But the next morning the San Pedro de Cardena POWs were gone. Murra surmised that orders came through from the Communist party headquarters in New York to “stop this shit” immediately, board their ship, and come home.

A month or two later, through the intervention of diplomat Noel Field and friends in Paris, Murra and his stateless comrades were transferred to an internment camp near the port city of Le Havre. Their material well-being improved. They now had cement floors, blankets, showers, and adequate food. But the 160 stateless American volunteers were racing against time to exit France. World War II was imminent.

Some of the internees lacked valid passports because they came to the U.S. as young children. Murra recalled individuals who’d lived 10 years or more in the U.S. Some had entered the country illegally with their parents. Others hadn’t filled out their naturalization paperwork properly, or seen it through to completion and were now trapped.

University of Chicago graduate, multilingual Murra was delegated by his 160 stateless comrades to represent them in negotiations with French authorities and named to a five-member executive committee of the stateless Americans. Murra worked individually with each of the 160, trying to scrape together a dossier to obtain a visa to return to the U.S. He frantically, repeatedly, cabled appeals to Communist Party headquarters in New York. Inexplicably, his cables went unanswered. Letters were written to comrades-in-arms back in the U.S. Murra recalled that Alvah Bessie and Edwin Rolfe championed their cause. But they, too, found the State Department unsympathetic. Many of the men interned with Murra had been active communists.

As the months dragged into 1939, Murra began individually to urge the 160 stateless internees to wrack their minds for the names of elected officials of their home state or hometown who could go to bat for them with the U.S. State Department. If that didn’t work, he pressed them to think of any middle-class citizens in whatever town they came from, who might through political or business connections spring them from internment in France. The countries of birth for many of the men had fascist governments. Deportation there would be a death sentence.

Murra hit upon a way to spring himself. He’d been born Isak Lipschitz in 1916, near Odessa (now part of the Ukraine, but at that time part of Russia). His mother had family there. Murra wired his mother in Romania to come to France with his birth certificate from Odessa. The immigration quota for Romania was filled many years into the future. But the Russian quota was much larger. Through that loophole, Murra got a visa to enter the United States in July 1939. Tragically, many of Murra’s fellow stateless internees were not so lucky. “We had abandoned over 100 men in France.”

Murra returned to the University of Chicago and switched to the study of anthropology. “Dr. Kohl saw me in a corridor, ‘Are you through with your missionary work?’ he asked.” Murra assured him he was. In 1941, Murra sailed to Ecuador to take part in an archaeological field survey. This first taste of Andean studies captured Murra for life. He ultimately earned his Ph.D., taught at Cornell University, and authored a path-breaking study on the Incas. His Spanish language skills, so artfully cultivated in wartime, would shape the remainder of his career.

Joe Doyle teaches history in a public high school in Queens, New York. He participated in ALBA’s first summer Teaching Institute for NYC high School teachers.

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