Alexander Sauermilch was one of more than seventy American volunteers who boarded the Ciudad de Barcelona (City of Barcelona) docked in port of Marseille, France on the night of May 30, 1937. The following afternoon as the Ciudad de Barcelona, hugged the coast approaching Malaga she was sighted by a Nationalist submarine. The General...
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Fred Williams in Spain Twenty-one-year old Fred Williams was living in St. Louis Missouri when he volunteered to serve in the International Brigades. He sailed for France on October 23, 1937 aboard the SS Champlain and crossed into Spain arriving in Figueres on November 5, 1937. Williams arrived in Tarazona the American training base...
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Shortly after the publication of the blog post Seven American Volunteers Refused Permission to Land in France, Paul Hofmann the son of volunteer Albert Hofmann, sent an email correcting and clarifying some of the information in the article. The most important correction was to the...
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The Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History records on U.S. and Canadian volunteers deepens the available insight into the organization and employment of the International Brigades (IB) during the Spanish Civil War. From these records, it is evident that the IB Command was interested in documenting the background of the volunteers. Two documents prepared...
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The flow of American volunteers to Spain during the first months of 1937, prompted the United States State Department (State Department) to request the assistance of the French government in dissuading American volunteers from crossing France and entering Spain. French efforts were somewhat half-hearted with officials often turning a blind eye to American travelers...
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Zoul, George. (Zoule); b. November 27, 1908, NYC, Czechoslovakian American; Father Vincent Zoul, Mother Mary Zoul; Divorced; Received passport# 355923 on December 4, 1936, address listed as 420 East 18th Street, NYC; Sailed December 26, 1936 aboard the Normandie; Served with the XV BDE, Lincoln BN, Served at Jarama (May have transferred into the...
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Saul Friedberg’s short piece on Raleigh Frohman provides crucial information regarding his fate. It figures prominently in Charles Antin’s search to understand his cousin’s disappearance. Together the two articles shed light on Frohman’s service in Spain. Chris Brooks, Notes from the Biographical Dictionary Project, 2017. Raleigh Frohman, by Saul Friedberg April 22, 1996...
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Notes from the Biographical Dictionary Project. Saul Freidberg provided several short biographical sketches on fellow veterans. The sketches provide insight into Friedberg as well. Murra is mentioned several time in Rolfe’s book The Lincoln Battalion and I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the references. I would however like to supplement what...
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Notes from the Biographical Dictionary Project. Saul Freidberg provided several short biographical sketches on fellow veterans. The sketches provide insight into Friedberg as well. While over the years I have always felt that my relations with Bill Titus were very important to me, my memories of him lack any real specificity, so that...
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Notes from the Biographical Dictionary Project. Saul Freidberg provided several short biographical sketches on fellow veterans. The sketches provide insight into Friedberg as well. by Saul Friedberg, April 23, 1996 Joe Gibbons Although Gibbons was a very close and dear friend, I don’t remember very much about him beyond that I knew him in...
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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 Volunteer for Liberty, V.2, No. 30, August 26, 1938 The special Brigade machine gun company came up to reinforce the 58th Battalion on July 28th. Saully Wellman its commissar had already been forced out of action by a shrapnel wound; and when on his very first day with the Lincolns the commander Capt....
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Information about the Iraqi volunteers was brought to light in the memoir of Flint water crisis whistleblower Mona Hanna-Attisha in her new book What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City (Random House 2018). She devotes a number of pages to the Iraqi volunteers, especially to her...
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At the age of 70, I gathered my courage and learned how to use the Internet. The first thing I wanted to do was find out anything I could about my father, Earl Frederick Vail. I began with Ancestry.com. Setting out on a journey that would take me I knew not where. I was...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 2, No. 3, January 29, 1938 SNOWMAN IN MADRID Franco, Franco, Generalissimo, The little kids are making you Of effigies in snow. Of you, Franco, Generalissimo! They’re making you and...
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Issue number 48 (2-2018) of ¡No Pasarán!, the magazine published by the International Brigades Memorial Trust (IBMT), magazine is now online and viewable in full color, here. The issue features interviews with Geoffrey Servante, almost certainly the last British International Brigade veteran, and eminent Spanish Civil War historian Paul Preston. The next issue of the magazine...
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On Beards –A Reply, By M. H. The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 2, No. 2, January 13, 1938 In a recent issue of “The Volunteer for Liberty” we find a scholarly article deriding the many beard wearers in the International Brigades. A very astute and interesting article –to the beardless. But to the man...
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What’s In A Beard? Unattributed The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 1, No. 28, December 27, 1937 Beards were introduced by Sampson an ingenious Easterner who put over the slogan “Hair for Strength” and made big money. Like other speculators he wrecked his career on a woman and ended his life in an orgy of...
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Look Pretty Please by Harry Randall, Brigade Chief Photographer The Volunteer for Liberty, V.2, No. 32, September 17, 1938 When the photographic section of the XVth International Brigade Commissariat was established, its tasks were seen as threefold: first, to make a photographic record of the XVth Brigade –where we have been, what we...
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![Aaron Lopoff by A. C. B. [Alvah Bessie]](http://www.albavolunteer.org/wp-content/themes/volunteer/thumb.php?src=http://www.albavolunteer.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Lopoff-Wolff-Watt-and-Brandt-300x184.jpg&h=50&w=50&zc=1&q=80)
Aaron Lopoff ~ Alvah Bessie The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 2, No. 33, October 6, 1938. During the days when we used to joke about withdrawal of the volunteers and wonder when the car was coming down the road with the...
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The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 1, No. 9, August 9, 1937. Lincoln Battalion Commissar by H. A. “Don’t let ‘em get Steve!” This is the word that travels like a flash of lightning through the Lincoln-Washington Battalion lines before and during the attack. Steve Nelson, Political Commissar of the Lincoln-Washington Battalion, tireless worker. At...
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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