the volunteer, december 2007

8/14/2019 The Volunteer, December 2007

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...and that government of the people,by the people, and for the people,shall not perish from the earth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The V olunteerJOURNAL OF THE VETERANS OF THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN BRIGADE

The V olunteer December 200

The Bay Area post was serenaded at their annual picnic by Bruce Barthol, Nayo Ulloa, and Heather Bridger, accompanied by vets(le t to right) Ted Velt ort, Hilda Roberts, Milt Wol (in back), Dave Smith, and Nate Thornton ( ar right). Photo by Richard Bermack.

INSIDEPufn Education Grant, inside cover.National Monument dedication March 30, page 1.Winner, National History Day Competition, page 2.Vandalism, Dark Side o Memory, page 3.Spanish Civil War Exhibits, page 4.

CP Archives, page 7. Journalists o the Spanish Civil War, page 9.Paul Robeson in Spain, Ch. 2, page 11.War Medicine, page 14.Book Reviews, page 19.


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Letter From the EditorThe long-dreamed plan or a national memorial to the

Abraham Lincoln Brigade is about to be realized. Manypeople deserve special appreciation or the long hours theyhave put into the project, but what has also emerged isamazing grassroots support, not only rom the usual sus-pects, but also rom people who have not been involved in

our activities. Contributions small and large have comerom unexpected sources.I think thats because this memorial looks in two direc-

tions: to the past and to the uture. It is not merelynostalgic, but also historical, and the process continues toun old.

The creators o the memorial, Ann Chamberlain andWalter Hood, make this point explicitly in the description otheir objectives: "To make active the process is perhaps whatis most di cult in art; to enable the viewing o a work to become an act o participation or o bearing witness."

Our challenge, they go on, is to create a memorythat actively engages and provokes the imagination othose who visit it. We want to inspire movement; to narrate,to motivate and to direct observers to listen, understand,and act. We want to create a theater o history in which anypeople could imagine themselves participating in the storyo Americans so impassioned by their belie s they gavetheir lives in the Spanish Civil War ghting ascism.

Some years ago, the last nationally elected o cers othe VALB drew up a legal agreement providing or ALBA

to become the sole entity to represent the veterans organi-zation beginning in 2008. With their numbersdwindlingthere are 43 vets alive at last countALBA is

poised to assume this solemn duty. The inauguration o thenational memorial in San Francisco this spring and a publicevent we are planning or next all will mark this sad butunavoidable transition. At these events, in the presence othe last remaining veterans o the Abraham LincolnBrigade, ALBA will rea rm its pledge to honor and per-

petuate their outstanding legacy.Peter N. Carroll

The V olunteer Journal of the

Veterans of theAbraham Lincoln Brigade

an ALBA publication799 Broadway, Suite 341

New York, NY 10003(212) 674-5398

Editorial BoardPeter N. Carroll Gina HerrmannFraser Ottanelli Abe Smorodin

Book Review EditorShirley Mangini

Art Director-Graphic DesignerRichard Bermack

Editorial AssistanceNancy Van Zwalenburg

Submission of ManuscriptsPlease send manuscripts by E-mail or on disk.

E-mail:[email protected]

In a dramatic gesture o support to ALBA, the orga-nizations most loyal and generous bene actor, ThePu n Foundation, Ltd. o Teaneck, New Jersey, hasannounced the creation o a special $1 million und to

urther the cultural and education policies set orth inALBAs mission statement.

According to the terms o the new grant, the und isto be used exclusively or ALBA cultural and educa-tional programs, relying primarily on the unds annualearnings to underwrite speci c projects.

Recognizing ALBAs remarkable expansion duringthe past decade, Pu n Foundation President Perry

Rosenstein, long a supporter o progressive arts, cul-tural, and educational projects throughout the country,stressed the importance o continuing the legacy oactivism and commitment o the Abraham LincolnBrigade as an inspiration or present and uturegenerations.

This is a tremendous boost to our organization,promising to continue our recent successes in promot-ing public awareness o the Abraham Lincoln Brigadethrough education and outreach programs, said thedelighted ALBA Chair Peter Carroll. This gi t

Puffin Foundation Gives $1 Million!

Continued next page


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THE VOLUNTEER December 2007 1

Seven years o committee meet-ings, another year o contractnegotiationsits all over but thesandblasting and the celebrations.March 30, 2008. Write it down!

Join us! Join this remarkable com-munity that put together an incrediblememorial to the Abraham LincolnBrigade: The Bay Area Veterans &Associates o the Abraham Lincoln

Brigade, the Abraham Lincoln BrigadeArchives, the San Francisco MayorsO ce, the Port Commission, the Arts

Commission, the City Attorney andour own pro bono counsel, our riendsand supporters who helped and sentin monetary contributions, and thetwo brilliant artistsAnnChamberlain and Walter Hoodwhodesigned our memorial with its visiono past and uture.

Come to San Francisco to pay trib-ute to the legacy o those 3,000 womenand men who went to Spain to con-

ront the terrors o ascism. Pay tributto the 800 who did not come back andto the others whose lives were oreverchanged by the experience o war.Honor the progressive tradition theyembodied. Carry on the legacy ocommitment to social justice anddemocracy.

We are still planning the daysevents, but count on seeing dignitaries

rom Spain, including Judge Baltasar

Garzn (who indicted Chiles dictatorPinochet), as well as home-growncelebrities, longtime allies, andupstarts youd like to know. Expectentertainment, but solemnity, too.

More details will ollow in mail-ings to all, but dont be shy abouttelling your riends.

As John Sayles has said, in aworld run by cynics, in a time whencaring about someone youve nevermet is seen as weakness or treachery,how much strength have we taken

rom the thought o them, how muchpride and com ort to be able to say,But what about the guys in theLincoln Brigade!

challenges us to do more thanweve ever done be ore.

For the past 15 years, the Pu nFoundation has encouraged andsupported nearly all o ALBAsprojects, including the exhibitionsShouts From the Wall: Posters othe Spanish Civil War, Aura othe Cause, They Still DrawPictures: Childrens Art inWartime, The Cultural Legacy othe Abraham Lincoln Brigade, andmost recently, Facing Fascism:New York & the Spanish CivilWar, which opens this month inSpain.

The Pu n Foundation has alsosupported the publication o exhibition catalogues and special issueso The Volunteer, as well as theALBA-Susman Lectures, the serial-ized graphic story Paul Robesonin Spain, and numerous symposia,panel discussions, and lmscreenings.

We are eager to carry thework orward, said Carroll, butclearly we could not do it withoutthe support o the progressive com-munity. We are very grate ul to Mr.Rosenstein and our supporters atthe Pu n Foundation.

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Memorial:Aiming or March Debut

The monument team: (l to r standing) Walter Hood, Judy Montell, Emily Lazarre, DaveSmith, Ann Chamberlain, and Alice Shaw; (seated) Chris Reed, Linda Lustig andMartha Olson-Jarocki. Photo by Peter Glazer.


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2 THE VOLUNTEER December 2007

This article is reprinted from the HolmenCourier (Wisconsin) with permission of the River Valley Newspaper Group.By Adam Bissen / LeeNewspapers

HOLMEN, Wis. As he sat in theUniversity o Marylands old basket- ball arena and heard the names o twoo the top nishers in the NationalHistory Day competition, HolmenHigh School junior Cody Haro didntthink he would be returning toWisconsin with a medal.

Yes, his project on American sol-

diers ghting in the Spanish Civil Warwas meticulously researched and took

rst place in the state nals. But a ter

seeing the museum-like displays ohis 107 competitors, Haro almosttuned out the emcee as he was aboutto announce the winner.

When my name wasnt in thethird or second places, I turned to my

dad and said, Its OK. We came andwe had un.

But when he heard the emcee say

Cody Haro, Holmen, Wis., rstplace, Haro said, I couldnt believe it.I ran down the steps o the stadium,and I almost ell. It was all a big blur,running down there and getting theaward.

For taking rst place in the seniorindividual exhibit division, theNational History Day organizationpresented Haro with a gold medal and$1,000 monetary award.

But the day o accolades didntend there. Near the end o the cere-mony, held June 14, the Universityo Minnesota presented Haro withan additional award: a $20,000scholarship.

According to Mary Nugent, HarosNational History Day adviser atHolmen High School, Haro is the rstWisconsin student to take rst at thenational nals.

When he began researching hisproject last summer, it was Haros goalto place at the national competition.He spent every weekend or vemonths with his nose in a book, thencreated a three-sided display withmatted photographs that was as big ascontest rules allowed.

His project was good enough towin the state nals in April, but a terarriving in Maryland on June 9, Harowasnt sure i his project would even

nish in the top 25.Some students presented projects

using mounted fat-screen monitorsand LCD systems. Other creationsresembled museum displays encasedin plastic. A ter shipping his board toMaryland, some o Haros text boxes

and black and white photos came outwrinkled by the humidity.

So we know Codys project didntwin on glitz, Nugent said. It won onthe story and his research and hisanalysis.

Haros project was on the

Abraham Lincoln battalion, a group oabout 3,000 American volunteers who

ought against ascism during theSpanish Civil War o 1936-39.

In addition to a mountain o books, periodicals, radio reports andpublished interview transcripts, whatlikely impressed the History Day

judges the most about Haros projectwas the extra e ort he put into gather-ing research. Haro drove to Madisonto interview a 92-year-old veteran othe battalion. Later, he few to SanFrancisco to interview the units nalcommander.

It was a pretty good investment, Iguess, fying out to Cali ornia to inter-view the captain. I spent a little money

Wisconsin Student Wins First Place inNational History Day Competition

Adam Bissen is a reporter with theHolmen Courier and Onalaska Community Li e. Continued on page


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By Angela Jackson

Research to recover the memory

o the civil war here in Spainhas many acets. Good aspectsgive victims o repression a voice a termany years o silence. Its good to betold repeatedly, in dozens o inter-views recorded with those whoexperienced the war at rst hand, thatthe International Brigaders alwaystreated local people with respect andwere renowned or their generosity.Bad memories remain almost over-

whelmingloss, persecution, exile.Recent attacks on the symbols o

memory and remembrance on Hill705two plaques honoring theInternational Brigaders were stolenand others de aced this summerstrike the beholder rst and oremostas abhorrently ugly. One o the miss-ing plaques was unveiled in 2005 byWelsh Brigader, Alun Menai Williams,to commemorate the British and Irish

who died in the Battle o the Ebro.It remains unclear whether the

vandalism was carried out by our orve kids rom another townnot poli-

ticians, as claimed by Pere Mart, themayor o the nearby village o Pinellde Brai, or by a more organized group.The slogan le t behind by the vandals,The Falange Continues the Fight, iscertainly a clear political statement insupport o ascism. It cant have beeneasy to remove the heavy steel plaque bolted to the wall, and ew young peo-ple today could spray paint the ancientsymbol o the Victor, adopted by

Franco as his personal emblem.Moreover, the use o a stencil to paintthe ascist symbol o yoke and arrows belies any suggestion that the perpe-trators acted on the spur o the

moment. As historian Paul Preston hascommented, Its a tribute to the roleplayed by the International Brigadesin the struggle or democracy in Spain

Guillermo Casa

The plaque to honor theInternational Brigades in theBenicssim cemetery was ound broken on October 21. It is not knownwho is responsible, but the possibilityo an accidental all has been rejected because the plaque was well astenedto the wall. The municipal govern-ment has ordered the police to openan investigation.

According to Ramn Garca, board member o the AssociaciRepublicana Gonzlez Chermatheorganization that promoted placing

the plaque in 2004a replacementmemorial will have improvements.They are thinking o erecting a monu-ment, instead o a plaque, with thename o the internationals who diedin this coastal town. For the inaugura-tion, they are also studying the idea oinviting veterans o the I.B., or theirrepresentatives, rom the countries othose buried here.

Although the vandalism washardly mentioned in the press (only thele tistLevante gave one page coverage),this memorial was an issue a ew

Second Case of Vandalism

The plaque on Hill , unveiled in to commemorate the British and Irish whodied in the Battle o the Ebro, has been stolen and gra iti le t in its place.

Continued on page

VANDALISMDark Side of Memory

Continued on page

Historian Angela Jackson is head o the Catalan organization No Jubilem laMemria, dedicated to preserving thehistory o the International Brigades.


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By Rob Snyder

The Spanish Civil Warwhoseheroism, destruction andwrenching political disputeswere documented by some o the best

photography o the 20th

centurystillsparks strong eelings in New YorkCity. Now a ne quartet o exhibits atthe International Center oPhotography recalls photographerswho gured prominently in the war(Gerda Taro and Robert Capa), visualmedia in the Republic, and the execu-tion o Republican civilians. I youthought the war was part o the past,you will be awakened by works like

the photo o an execution bullet, dugup rom a mass grave o Spanish

Republicans. (Francesc Torres, Dark

is the Room Where We Sleep, 2007,copyright Francesc Torres.)

Gerda Taro, o ten remembered asRobert Capas partner in love and business, emerges here as a photogra-pher in her own right. Born GertaPohorylle in Germany, where she wasa le tist activist, she fed to Paris toescape Nazi persecution. There she became the business agent o a youngHungarian photographer and devel-oped her own photography.Eventually they took the names underwhich they would be better known:

Gerda Taro and Robert Capa. The twowent to Spain together.

The exhibit presents more than 80o Taros photographs, along withmagazines that give visitors a valuable

sense o how her pictures appeared inEuropean publications. In this show,the rst major exhibit o Taros work,we get a good sense o the range oher work.

I her photos emphasizing theclenched- st salute o the PopularFront look like cliches o socialist real-ism, the bulk o her work is moreimpressive. Her photographs o a warorphan eating soup, a man and a

woman o the Republican militiarelaxing together, and a blood-stained

stretcher memorably depict the inte-

rior emotions o the war. The intimacyo her best work, 70 years later on, isstill impressive.

So is her courage. In July 1937, cov-ering Republicans retreat romBrunete, she jumped onto the running board o a car. She was killed whenthe car was sideswiped by a tank. InParis, tens o thousands mourned her.

While the Taro exhibit introducesan under-appreciated photographer,Other Weapons: Photography andPrint Culture During the SpanishCivil War explores the media cultureo Republican Spain in wartime.Displaying posters, photographs andmagazines, Other Weapons is avaluable integration o media history,political history and art history.

Equally strong is This is War!Robert Capa at Work, which takesTaros partner through Spain, his work

rom China, and his coverage oUnited States orces in Europe during

World War II. The exhibit devotes spe-cial attention to some o Capas mostamous works: the Falling Soldier

o the Spanish Civil War, the D-dayinvasion, and the deaths o G.I.s incombat during the nal days o thewar in Germany.

Just as Other Weapons situatesvisual media in the larger context othe war, This is War shows howCapas photos were reproduced in

major magazines, such as LIFE. Theresult is an exhibit that li ts Capaswork out o the narrow realms o artin which his photographs arepresented simply on their ownandpresents them in the context o themedia and culture o their time.

In contrast to these three exhibits,which use images to recover the worldo the 1930s and 1940s, Dark is theRoom Where We Sleep: A Project by

Francesc Torres introduces toAmericans the grim echoes o the civilwar in the Spanish present. In thisinstallation, Torres, a Barcelona artist,depicts the excavation o an unmarkedmass grave o 46 civilian supporterso the Republic killed by Francos

orces. The grave, outside the villageo Villamayor de los Montes in north-ern Spain, is one o many that date

rom the war. It is one o the ew,however, that has been uncoveredand documented.

The photographs depict every-thing rom the grave to survivingrelatives to volunteers in the excava-tion. But perhaps most moving is thecenterpiece o the nal room in the

In contrast to these three exhibits, which use images to recover the world o the 1930s and 1940s, Dark is the Room Where WeSleep, a Project by Francesc Torres introduces to Americans thegrim echoes o the civil war in the Spanish present.

Rob Snyder wrote about the local pressin Facing Fascism: New York and theSpanish Civil War . He teaches history atRutgers/Newark.

P hotos D ocument W ar s L egacy

Continued on page


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By Gina Herrmann

In conjunction with the InternationalCenter o Photographys exhibitionsthis all, ALBA and the King JuanCarlos I Center o NYU co-hosted asymposium about how the SpanishCivil War and the Franco dictatorshipare remembered and represented inphotography, autobiography, history books, and the classroom. The sympo-sium opened with a preview o ourrelated photographic exhibits at theICP, including Spanish Civil War pho-tos o Robert Capa and Gerda Taro.The exhibit o Taros photos is particu-

larly noteworthy since it is the rsttime this pioneering war photojour-nalist has had a show dedicatedexclusively to her work.

Artist and cultural critic FrancescTorres presented his new exhibit andcompanion book Dark is the RoomWhere We Sleep,a photographic itiner-ary o the opening o a Republicanmass grave in Spain. Other highlightso the symposium included the pre-

sentation o new historical studies:Angela Cenarros La sonrisa de laFalange, a study o Francoist emalesocial service organization la SeccinFemenina; and Soledad Foxs biography

o Constancia de la Mora, head o theRepublics oreign press o ce duringthe Civil War and a tireless advocate

or the Republican cause during heryears o exile. Presentations by NYUs Juan Salas and Jacques Lezra engaged

questions o memorial retrieval. Salasdelivered an extensive powerpointproject on veteran Harry Randall andhis team o photographers, who docu-mented the Spanish Civil War underthe auspices o the XV InternationalBrigade. Salass presentation remindsus how much o the mystique o theBrigades relies on images, and not sto-ries alone. Lezra delivered a personaland deeply poetic account o his owne orts to trace, through amily oralaccounts and in o cial archives, his

amilys experience with Francoismand exile.

The symposium concluded with around table discussion on approachesto teaching the Spanish Civil War based on the book Teaching

Representations of the Spanish Civil Waedited by Noel Valis. This provided aunique orum in which college anduniversity pro essors on the panel dis-cussed pedagogical and ideologicalissues surrounding the theme o thecivil war, US activism, and the legacyo the Lincolns with a group o highschool teachers in the audience.

Gina Herrmann teaches in the SpanishDepartment o the University o Oregon.

show: an illuminated pedestal thatdisplays a battered watch that belonged to one o the victims o theshooting. Its hands are missing, so itrecords no particular moment intimeand thereby it reminds us ohow the crimes o the past echo intothe present.

The exhibits will be up through January 6, 2008.

Spains Memory Wars

The exhibitions at ICP, which will beon display rom September 25, 2007,through January 6, 2008, are This isWar! Robert Capa at Work; Gerda Taro; Other Weapons: Photography

and Print Culture during the SpanishCivil War; and Dark is the RoomWhere We Sleep: A Project byFrancesc Torres.

Photo rom Dark is the Room Where We Sleep by Francesc Torres.

W ar ' s L egacy Continued rom page 4


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The popular musical duo JamieOReilly and Michael Smith

revived their production o Pasionesto honor Chicago area volunteers o the Spanish Civil War with two per-

ormances last September. The irstwas part o the Rhinoceros TheaterFestival, where the show had its

enthusiasticdebut 10 yearsago. The sec-ond was parto the ErnestHemingwayBig Book

Humanities Series held at theauthors home town Oak Park PublicLibrary.

The olk-cabaret weaves about20 songs with poetry and reminis-cences o the Spanish Civil War,ranging rom Andalusian olksongs,international anthems, labor songs, a

Yiddish lullaby, and a scene based onLorcas Five OClock in the A ternoon.

Per orming the show again,said the soprano Jamie OReilly, I seethe moral o Pasiones rings truer thanever now. Having met so manyBrigaders, and said good-bye tothem, I eel the responsibility to carrythe story. With the train bombings inMadrid, American civil libertiesthreatened, and, sadly, the Iraq warraging on, the Spanish Civil War andthe renowned e orts o those volun-teers who ought ascism and ordemocracy is a timely subject.

Chicago

Honors Vets

Bay Area Picnic They may have wthe battles, but w

all the good songsTom Leh

Photo by Iwona Biederman.

Photos by Richard Bermack.


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By Michael Nash

Most o the nearly 3,000 UnitedStates citizens who joined theAbraham Lincoln Brigadewere motivated by le t-politics, withthe majority ollowing the leadershipo the Communist Party. The CP andthe Young Communist League were

the primary recruiters or theInternational Brigades. On the home

ront, the party rallied support or theanti- ascist struggle, publicized atroci-ties committed by the Franco orces, brought world attention to the devas-tation caused by the German andItalian bombing, and raised unds orre ugee aid and war relie .

As one would expect, the Archiveso the Communist Party, USA, and theDaily Worker photo morgue acquired by New York Universitys TamimentLibrary last year are a rich source orSpanish Civil War history. Theseimages provide ascinating views oSpain at war and the role o the inter-national brigades in the ght against

ascism.

The Daily Worker photographs pro-vide a very di erent view o the war

rom the images in the AbrahamLincoln Brigade Archives, most owhich were taken by Harry Randalland the other photographers o the15th International Brigade. Randall

and his comrades captured the experi-ences o the volunteers and theirwartime activities, rom tedious rou-tine to ront-line heroics. The DailyWorker photographs allow us to expe-rience visually the impact o the war

on the civilian population. They depictthe solidarity, bravery and commit-ment o the Spanish people. Many othese images were published world-wide as part o the campaign to rallysupport or the Spanish Republic.

The photos on this page provide aglimpse into this wonder ully richarchive.

A number o these photographsare currently on view as part o a

Tamiment Library exhibition, Art andPolitics: Posters o the Spanish CivilWar. They can be seen at the NYUBobst Library, 70 Washington SquareSouth, in New York until January 31,2008.

Michael Nash is head o the TamimentLibrary at NYU.

Madrid, Spain: When a rebel plane bombards Madrid, the population rushes to thewreckage to salvage uel or winter.

The Lincoln Brigade in the CP Archives

July , , Spain, on the Aragon ront: Loyalist soldiers, one o them a woman, areshown operating a ield telephone.


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years ago. The previous conservative

municipal government ordered theplaque removed a ter a motion o cen-sure against the progressive politicalcoalition, and the new mayor placedone in honor o all the Spanish CivilWar dead. However, thanks to pres-sure rom the progressive parties,associations and the press, the plaquewas restored.

This town, once the site o an I.B.hospital, rendered a tr ibute to theinternationals in 1996 and installedthe plaque in one o its most beauti ulvillas, now a cultural center. A ewyears later, this plaque was also

ound broken on the ground, but itwas believed that it had allen acci-dentally. It was restored with a better

astening to the wall.

Second VandalisimContinued rom page

by Peter N. Carroll

Looking Back on the Spanish CivilWar, this years annual HispanicForum at the University o Vermont inBurlington, brought together an

interdisciplinary group o scholars toexplore various aspects o currentresearch. Organized by Gayle Nunley,the program emphasized connec-tions between the war in Spain andsimilar controversies o later times.

Focusing on the recent strikesand rebellions in Oaxaca, Mexico, themusicologist Alex Stewart discussedthematic links between the songs o the Spanish Civil War and contempo-rary radio broadcasts, drawingparallels between lyrics and musicalin uences. Similarly, Helen Scottexamined connections betweenOrwells Homage to Catalonia andKen Loachs lm, Land and Freedom .

Anthony Bradleys paper on Irish vol-unteers, including the poet CharlesDonnelly, who was killed at Jarama,

ocused on issues that related to Irishnationalism.

Anthony Geist and Peter Carrollpresented talks about the Lincoln vol-unteers, capped by a screening o Geists documentary, Souls without Borders. Another presentation byAntonio Gomez o DartmouthCollege preceded a screening o the

lm Pans Labyrinth .A quote rom historian Helen

Graham summarized the consensus:Spains Civil War, as a war o cultures,remains a parable or our times. Theparable remains, even though the

orms o our inhumanity to oneanother are each time diferently con-

gured.

VandalisimContinued rom page

that supporters o the Falange eel su -ciently insecure to take the trouble to

ascend a remote mountain track toattack the symbol o that role.

Nevertheless, there have been

many messages o support or the mon-ument, and the Catalan governmentprovided unds or a replacementplaque. A re-dedication ceremony wasplanned or November 10 as part o theannual weekend o events organized by the local association, No Jubilem laMemria, working together with theBritish group, the International BrigadeMemorial Trust. The veteran brigaderand president o the trust, Jack Jones,

unveiled the plaque, and Paul Prestonspoke at the ceremony. The eventshowed support or those who wish tohonor their dead in public remembrance and to turn an ugly incidentinto something more notable.

International Brigade veterans attended the ceremony to unveil the plaque in May .

Vermont Hosts SCW Forum


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By Paul Preston

At the end o the Spanish CivilWar, Frank Hanighen, whohad briefy served as a corre-spondent in Spain, edited thereminiscences o several o his com-panions. He commented, Almostevery journalist assigned to Spain became a di erent man sometime orother a ter he crossed the Pyrenees.A ter he had been there a while, thequeries o his editor in ar-o NewYork or London seemed like trivialinterruptions. For he had become aparticipant in, rather than an observer

o , the horror, tragedy and adventurewhich constitutes war. The well-trav-elled American correspondent LouisFischer similarly noted that [m]anyo the oreign correspondents who vis-ited the Franco zone became Loyalists, but practically all o the numerous journalists and other visitors whowent into Loyalist Spain became active

riends o the cause. Even the oreigndiplomats and military attachs

scarcely disguised their admiration.Only a soulless idiot could have ailedto understand and sympathize.

In the sense o becoming whatFischer called active riends o thecause, there is a link between manyo the writers and journalists whocame to Spain and the thousands o

men and women rom all around theworld who focked to Spain to join theInternational Brigades. Those volun-teers believed that to ght or the

Spanish Republic was to ght or thevery survival o democracy and civili-zation against the assault o ascism.Alongside the regular troops sent byHitler and Mussolini to supportFranco and the military rebels, asmaller number o volunteers alsowent to ght or what they perceivedas the cause o Catholicism and anti-Communism. A similar range, and breakdown, o sentiments could be

ound among the nearly 1,000 newspa-per correspondents who went toSpain. Along with the pro essionalwar correspondents, some hardenedveterans o Abyssinia, others still towin their spurs, came some o the

worlds most prominent literary g-ures: Ernest Hemingway, John DosPassos, Josephine Herbst and MarthaGellhorn rom the United States; W.H.Auden, Stephen Spender and GeorgeOrwell rom Britain; Andr Malrauxand Antoine de Saint Exupery romFrance. Some went as le tists, rather

ewer as rightists, and plenty o thosewho spent brie periods in Spain weresimply jobbing newspapermen.

However, as a result o what theysaw, even some o those who arrivedwithout commitment came to embracethe cause o the beleaguered Republic.

Underlying their conversion was adeep admiration or the stoicism withwhich the Republican populationresisted. In Madrid, Valencia and

Barcelona, the correspondents saw theovercrowding caused by the endlessfow o re ugees feeing rom FrancosA rican columns and rom the bomb-

ing o their homes. They saw themangled corpses o innocent civilians bombed and shelled by Francos Naziand Fascist allies. And they saw theheroism o ordinary people hasteningto take part in the struggle to de endtheir democratic Republic.

Observation became indignation,and sympathy became partisanship.As Louis Delapre, the correspondento Paris-Soir, wrote a mere eight days

be ore his death in December 1936:What ollows is not a set o prosecu-tors charges. It is an actuarys process.I number the ruins, I count the dead, Iweigh the blood spilt. All the images omartyred Madrid, which I will t ry to

put be ore your eyesand which mosto the time de y descriptionI haveseen them. I can be believed. I demandto be believed. I care nothing aboutpropaganda literature or the sweetenedreports o the Ministries. I do not ol-low any orders o parties or churches.And here you have my witness. Youwill draw your own conclusions.

It was not just a question o corres-pondents describing what theywitnessed. Many o them refected onthe implications or the rest o theworld o what was happening in Spain.What they saw and what they riskedwere perceived as harbingers o the

uture that aced the world i ascismwas not stopped in Spain.

Paul Preston is the author o many bookson the Spanish Civil War, including

Comrades! Portraits rom the Spanish Civil War , and Doves o War: Four Women and Spain, as well as biographies o Francoand Juan Carlos. His most recent book,on war correspondents, was published inSpain as Idealistas bajo las balas in and will appear in English in as WeSaw Spain Die. The present article drawson material rom that book.

Observation became indignation, and sympathy became partisanship.

Journalists o the Spanish Civil War

Continued on page


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Their experiences led them into a deeprustration and an impotent rage with

the blind complacency o the policy-makers o Britain, France and America.

They tried to convey what they saw asthe injustice o the Republic having been le t de enceless and orced intothe arms o the Soviet Union because othe Western Powers short-sightedadoption o a policy o non-interven-tion. They elt, in the words o MarthaGellhorn, that the Western democra-cies had two commanding obligations:they must save their honor by assis-ting a young, attacked ellow

democracy, and they must save theirskin, by ghting Hitler and Mussolini,at once, in Spain, instead o waitinguntil later, when the cost in humansu ering would be unimaginably gre-ater. Accordingly, many journalistswere driven by their indignation towrite in avor o the loyalist cause,some to lobby in their own countries,and in a ew cases to take up arms orthe Republic.

A small number o men came as journalists and ended up in theInternational Brigades. One such wasthe son o Ring Lardner, the Americannovelist. Jim Lardner came to report

or the New York Herald Tribune anddied ghting at the battle o the Ebro.Claud Cockburn, Hugh Slater andTom Wintringham, all o whomarrived with credentials rom theBritish Communist paper, the DailyWorker, abandoned journalistic workto join the International Brigades andtake part in the ghting. Louis Fischeralso joined the International Brigades.

Without going so ar, many o thecorrespondents who experienced thehorrors o the siege o Madrid and theinspiring popular spirit o resistance

became convinced o the justice o theRepublican cause. In some cases, suchas Ernest Hemingway, Jay Allen,Martha Gellhorn, Louis Fischer, and

George Steer, they became resolute par-tisans, to the extent o activism yet notto the detriment o the accuracy or hon-esty o their reporting. Indeed, some othe most committed correspondentsproduced some o the most accurateand lasting reportage o the war.

Like many others, Fischer oundhis emotions deeply engaged with thecause o the Republic. Comparing theimpact o the Russian revolution and

the Spanish Civil War, he wrote interms that echo writings by other pro-Republican correspondents:Bolshevism inspired vehement pas-sions in its oreign adherents but littleo the tenderness and intimacy whichLoyalist Spain evoked. The pro-Loyal-ists loved the Spanish people andparticipated pain ully in their ordeal by bullet, bomb and hunger. TheSoviet system elicited intellectual

approval, the Spanish struggle brought orth emotional identi cation.Loyalist Spain was always the weakerside, the loser, and its riends elt aconstant, tense concern lest itsstrength end. Only those who livedwith Spain through the thirty-threetragic months rom July 1936 to March1939 can ully understand the joy ovictory and the more requent pang ode eat which the ups and downs o thecivil war brought to its millions o dis-tant participants.

On both sides, correspondentsaced danger rom snipers, the bomb-

ing and stra ng o enemy aircra t. On both sides, there were di culties to beovercome with the censorship appara-tus, although what could be irksome

JournalistContinued rom page

The 2nd installment o

Paul Robeson inSpain

By Joshua Brown& Peter N. Carrol

about Paul Robesonsadv entures with the Abraham

Lincoln Brigade in 193

Supported in part by a granto The ALBA Arts & Letters Prog

rom The Pufn Foundation, Lt And created in collaboration wit

The Bay Area Paul Robeson Centenn

Committ

in the Republican zone was down-right li e-threatening in the rebelzone. In the Francoist zone, some,like Edmond Taylor, European

bureau chie o the Chicago DailyTribune, Bertrand de Jouvenal oParis-Soir, Hank Gorrell and WebbMiller o the United Press, andArthur Koestler and Dennis Weaver, both o the News Chronicle, wereamong those imprisoned and threat-ened with execution. More than 30 journalists were expelled rom therebel zone but only one by theRepublicans. The rebels shot at leastone, Guy de Traversay oLIntransigeant, and arrested, interro-gated and imprisoned about a dozenmore or periods ranging rom a ewdays to several months.

There was physical risk romshelling and bombardment in both

Continued on page


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16/28


By Dr. Sidney VogelEditors note: The following article isextracted from an unpublished manuscriptby Dr. Sidney Vogel, who served as a vol-unteer physician in the Spanish Civil War.

The complete manuscript is in the SteveNelson Papers of the ALBA collection[ALBA 008, Box 11, folder 33]. It is printed with permission of Lise Vogel.

P icture to yoursel the scene owar. Fields o dry stubble.Plumes o smoke in the distanceand the sporadic clatter o rife re. Inthe oreground the long wavering lineo a trench and in the trench, huddled

and weary, the vanguard o an army.The scene is dominated by inactivity.

And then comes an o ensive.Thousands o men fung against ashi ting wall o steel. Thousands omen moving through a barrage o leadand explosion, huddling or shelter,matching the rail mech anism o thehuman body against the inhumanityo gunpowder and metal.

And a ter the o ensivethe torn

and mutilated dead, the even moretorn and mutilated living. And thatmost silent and dangerous enemythe soil o the dry eld, the breedingground or poisonous germs whichpenetrate the wounded fesh, pene-trate the shattered bone carryingcontamination into the body.

Who picks up the wounded? Whogives them rst-aid? What does it con-sist o ? Where are they operatedupon? Who puts on the casts? Whogives blood trans usions? Why doesone man die rom and another survivethe same wound? In short what is themedical apparatus o an army thattakes the human debris o an o ensiveand repairs it or urther use, rebuildsit or the job o living a ter war?

Let me describe the system as itoperated in the Spanish Re publicanarmy during 1936-39. When the line o battle shi ted, and o ten during thevery heat o battle, stretcher-bearers

went out onto the eld and picked upthe wounded. The stretcher bearersorganized their work in relays. Onegroup would carry the wounded romthe eld to a prearranged point.Another group would carry them

rom there to a still urther point andso on until they arrived at the classi -cation post. I there was extensive bleeding the stretcher-bearer took careo it on the eld. A tourniquet takes

but a ew seconds to apply. I therewere bandages (and o ten there werenot) he applied them. Otherwise thewounded were not treated until theyreached the classi cation post. Here, adoctor examined them and classi edwounds according to the need orimmediate treatment....

From the classi cation post, thewounded were trans erred to the rsthospital behind the lines....This hospi-

tal...might be anywhere rom eight totwenty kilometers behind the lines,depending on the shi ts in the battleline. Sometimes the ront changed soquickly that the hospital was actuallyat the ront or just behind it....[But]wounded in the ront hospitals couldnot stay there permanently. They hadto be moved to make room or oth-ers....Only the most serious cases could be moved by stretcher ambulance. Themajority had to sit up through a tor-turing ride over bad roads. And thetorture o a wound was nothing com-pared to the torture o a helpless manriding in an ambulance over an openroad under an open sky, with enemyplanes zooming overhead; leavingdestruction in their wake....

And here is perhaps the appropri-ate place to pause and pay tribute to the

rst-aid man, the unpublicized but all-important cog in the mechanism that iswar medicine. During an o ensive a

wounded man may lie out in the elds,in the mud and cold anywhere romour hours to our days. It depends on

the rst-aid man. While he lies there, bacteria enter his wounds, cold andstarvation sap his resistance, pain andhemorrhage weaken him, until he is nolonger capable o ghting o the inevitable in ection. It is the rst-aid manand the stretcher-bearero ten the

ront-line doctorswho pick him up,

who immobilize ractures, who stophemorrhages, who o ten give anti-teta-nus injections. And less tangible thanthese but as important almost is thee ect o a good rst-aid man on soldiemorale. I a man knows he is not goingto be le t out on the eld to bleed todeath, i he can depend on the courageand e ciency o the rst-aid manthen he is likely to go into battle with

orti ed will....

Let us urther the picture o warmedicine. Any layman knows that aman who is shot in the belly is in avery critical condition....A bullet thatenters the abdomen may very likelystrike the gut, a large blood vessel, orit may penetrate one o the majororgans. There is a great deal o bleed-ing. The chances o survival are veryslim. Most o these cases die be orethey can be picked up and operatedupon. Belly wounds are common warwounds and the immediate mortalityis, as I have said, terri c. But even orthose who are picked up and trans-ported the scales are tipped inadvance. Abdominal wounds are asso-ciated with shock...which isaccentuated by exposure, hemorrhage,

War Medicine


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cold, privation, and the transportation by stretcher and ambulance over badroads. This presence o surgical shockmakes every abdominal case a pooropera tive risk. But worse than thisapenetrating wound o the abdomen isinevitably in ected. I the missile entersany part o the gastrointestinal tract...,

there is unleashed in the belly cavity averitable horde o bacteria which bringon the inevitable peritonitis.

The chances o survival in bellywounds are in inverse ratio to the timethat has elapsed since the wound wasreceived.... Many surgeons considereight hours the limit o exposure with-out treatment i the man is to be saved.I the surgeon does not get the patientuntil nine or ten hours a ter the

wound was received, the chances osaving his li e are very slim indeed. Inan o ensive, i the work is so heavy orthe number o surgeons so inadequatethat cases have to be chosen, the doc-tors will choose those cases that stillhave a chance, that have been exposedless than eight hours, and let the oth-ers wait. Because theyll die anyhow,with or without my operation, so givethem plenty o morphine. This may

sound callous but it is really uselesswasting valuable time helping to killsomeone when the same time might be spent saving another mans li e.Now i there were enough surgeons but in an o ensive there never are....

I have already spoken o shocksurgical shock. When a layman usesthe term shock he associates it withsomething sudden, quick, overwhelm-ing, with heavy overtones o ear, thewhole a ecting the nervous system....But to the doctor, shocksurgicalshockhas a very speci c meaning....Medically speaking, shock is a condi-tion o marked circulatory disturbance.The patient has a low blood pressure, arapid and thready pulse, breathes rap-idly or irregularly or both, is restless,

shows marked pallor, is thirsty, coldall evidences o the cir culatory

unction distorted or disturbed.Medical men have come to regard

shock almost as a symbol o the rav-ages o war on the human system.Surgically, shock is tremendously sig-ni cant, particularly in war where it is

so common. Shock o itsel can kill.But beyond this it is a surgical axiomthat a patient su ering rom shockshould not be operated upon. Theoperation only increases the shock.The conditions that bring on shockpain, privation, cold, hunger, thirst, bleedingare the everyday conditionso war. Shock becomes a reversal owhat civilization has achievedthrough the centuries. And to treat

shock, to cure it, becomes to the doctora symbol o the whole reason and pur-pose o war medicine. To treat shockwe reverse the process o privation,the everyday process o war. We sup-ply heat, blood by trans usion, we givecomplete rest and reedom rom pain(o ten by morphine), we prevent ur-ther aggravation o the original injury,we attempt to bring the body back tonormal. And to do this requires speed,

e ciency, organization. The treat-ments are simple. What can be done issimple to do. But the problem in war isto make it possible or the doctor to doit, make it possible or the wounded to be treated be ore shock has sapped the body o its resistance, be ore in ectionhas poisoned the human system.

I have said nothing o blood trans-usions because the Service o Blood

Trans usion at the Spanish Frontdeserves special emphasis, becomes aconcentrated example o what organi-zation in war medicine can do or thesaving o human li e.

Let me take you with me intoBarcelona during the last days o thewar. I was invited to visit the Serviceo Blood Trans usion or the Front.

I had only two weeks more inSpain. I made an appointment with thedoctor in charge o blood trans usion. Itwas only our blocks rom my hotel.

As I approached the building Iwas sure I had mistaken the address.Stretching rom the corner o thestreet to the entrance o the hospital

was a long line o workers, waiting. Itlooked very much like a ood line.Beyond the entrance, winding or

two fights up the stairs, the line con-tinued, ending be ore a large whitedoor.

I had seen many things in Spain,many magni cent examples o thepeoples heroism and courage that adoctor does not orget. But I had neverseen anything to equal the sight in

that room be yond the waiting line.It was a big room and bare. Four

tall windows fooded it with light. Onthe foor, arranged in two rows o our,were eight wooden tables draped withhospital sheets. And on each table laya pa tient. They were giving blood.

The scene had at once a theatricaland airy tale like quality. From eighthuman bodies the li e blood was fow-ing, with quiet and orderly precision,

into eight glass bottles, guided andcontrolled by eight white-robed assis-tants. And beyond them, running theshow, the doctor in charge, a white-gowned impresario.

Bottled blood or trans usions inwar time! We had used this blood inall our hospitals. We called it canned

blood. It was sent to us in re rigeratorcars and it was a great li e-saving con-tribution. In the heat and strain o warwe had little time to test donors andgive direct trans usions. Too manywere needed. There was too little time.We needed blood to save lives and weneeded it ast. We use[d] bottled bloodand saved thousands o lives. I hadused it but I had never seen it bottled.

Continued on page


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I stood there a littIe awed by thesight. The doctor in charge came over.Well, doctor he said, what do youthink o our system?

What do I think? I said. Its

amazing. Its like a Ford ac tory, like a blood actory with an assembly line.He was a Spanish doctor and he

was vastly pleased with the analogy.Oh, it is very simple, he said.

We take eight at a time. I alone insertthe needle. The assistants take care othe rest. By the time I am nishedwith the eighth table the rst table hasa new patient and the process repeatsitsel . Like a Ford actory, he said.

I looked around me. A new groupo donors was being admitted. Aseach one entered an assistant placed atourniquet around his arm. He wasthen turned over to another assistantwho placed him on the table, pre-pared his arm, and then called out,Pintor, Pintor.

For a moment I did not under-stand. Pintor, I said to mysel , thatmeans painter. And then a young el-

low came running with a bottle oiodine. It was his sole unction to swabthe arms o the donors with iodine be ore the needle was inserted. I dis-covered, later, that in civil li e, he had been an artist.

Again I expressed my admirationor the system. The doctor was

proud. It is nothing he said, I willshow you later.

Later, when the mornings workwas done, he showed me. I had notexaggerated when I said Ford actory.Up to January 1st, 1939, 26,000 donorswere led and indexed by name and blood types in Barcelona alone. Eacho these donors had been examined,had had his blood tested and grouped.Beside each name was the man or

womans place o work. Everything wasminutely worked out. Since the canned blood was good or only eighteen days,the Blood Service had calculated howmuch blood would be needed during

o ensives and how much during inac-tive periods. The Blood Service drewvery little more blood than was needed.The day o my visitthe period o thegreat Fascist o ensive386 bloodextractions were made.

The citizens o Barcelona, to aman, were blood donor conscious.Each actory, each hotel, each place owork or point o concentration had itsresponsable whose job it was to

round up the donors when they wereneeded. The doctor had merely to tele-phone the responsable in Factory Aand say Tomorrow morning we needso-and-so and so-and-so, naming thepeople rom the le. The workers allhad their instructions. They knew

they must not eat be ore a trans usion.And on the ollowing morning theywould be there waiting in line outsidethe hospital, ready to take their turn ingiving blood or the Spanish Republic.

It would serve no purpose here todiscuss the technical details involvedin the preparation o canned blood.But it is important to know that thetechnique grew out o the need. It isimportant to know that this was orga-nizational medicine at its best; that, inSpain, where surgeons worked ortyhours at a stretch, where men were

brought in bleeding rom the eld,where surgery was almost always

emergency surgery, nothing short osuch a technique could have savedhuman li e.

War kills, and the medical sta ,against terri c odds, does what it canto reduce the death toll.

War MedicineContinued rom page

on the plane ticket, but I guess the$20,000 scholarship to Minnesota payso , Haro said.

Prior to accepting the scholarship,Haro had been torn between attendingthe University o Minnesota and theUniversity o Wisconsin-Madison, butthe scholarship made him decide onMinnesota. He plans to study politicalscience and pre-law.

But or now, Haro has a summerand his senior year o high schoolahead o him. At a recent photo shoothe announced his latest goal will be tolead the schools Quiz Bowl team tothe national nals.

Hes a wonder ul person and hesgoing to do real well with his li e,Nugent said o Haro.

This proves what he can do, andI have no doubt that he is going to besomebody that we are going to behearing a lot about later on.

History DayContinued rom page

Cody Haro with Milt Wol .


19/28


zones, although the rebel superiorityin artillery and aircra t meant that itwas greater or those posted in theRepublic. Moreover, the close controlexercised over correspondents in

the rebel zone kept them away romdanger at the ront. Within the rebelzone, there were o course enthusiasts

or Franco and ascism, and not justamong the Nazi and Italian Fascistcontingent. Nonetheless, FrancisMcCullagh, Harold Cardozo, andCecil Gerahty among the British,and Theo Rogers, William P. Carney,Edward Knoblaugh, and HubertKnickerbocker among the Americans,

were in a minority. Many more othose who accompanied Francoscolumns were repelled by thesavagery that they witnessed with therebel columnsamong them JohnWhitaker, Webb Miller, and EdmondTaylor. Those in the rebel zone werekept under tight supervision andtheir published despatches werescoured to pick out any attempts to bypass the censorship. Transgressions

were punished by harassment,and sometimes imprisonment andexpulsion. Accordingly, they couldnot relate what they had seen in theirdaily despatches and did so onlya ter the war, in their memoirs.

The correspondents in theRepublican zone were given greater

reedom o movement, although theytoo had to deal with a censorshipmachinery, albeit a much less crudeand brutal one than its rebel equiva-lent. Nevertheless, given that the bulko the press in the democracies was inright-wing hands, pro-Republican cor-respondents ound publicizing theirviews o ten more di cult than mighthave been expected. It is ironic that ahigh proportion o the worlds best

journalists and writers supported theRepublic but o ten had di culty get-ting their material published aswritten. The power ul Hearst pressand several dailies, such as the Chicago

Daily Tribune, were already deeplyhostile to the democratic Republic. JayAllen, or instance, was red rom theChicago Daily Tribune because his arti-cles provoked so much sympathy orthe Republic. There were cases o theCatholic lobby using threats o boycottor the withdrawal o advertising tomake smaller newspapers alter theirstance on Spain.

Dr. Edward Lodge Curran, presi-

dent o the International CatholicTruth Society, boasted in December1936 that his control o a large sum inadvertising business permitted him tochange the policy o a Brooklyn daily

rom pro-Loyalist to pro-rebel. Othermore liberal newspapers were sub- jected to pressure to prevent thepublication o pro-loyalist news.Herbert L. Matthews, the meticulouslyhonest New York Times correspondent,

was constantly badgered with tele-grams accusing him o sendingpropaganda. In 1938, the RomanCatholic Archdiocese o Brooklynhelped organize a campaign speci -cally aimed against Matthews and hisreporting, which led to the paper los-ing readers. In Spain or the NorthAmerican Newspaper Alliance,Hemingway also had cause or re-quent complaint about his material being changed or simply not used. Heand others, including HerbertMatthews, Jay Allen, and GeorgeSeldes, believed that both the cabledesk and the night desk o the NewYork Times were manned by Catholicmilitants deeply hostile to theRepublican cause who edited or

omitted material deemed sympatheticto the loyalists.

The managing editor o the NewYork Times was the short, stick-totingVirginian Edwin L. Jimmy James

(nicknamed dressy James by DamonRunyon because o his brightly coloredsuits, which led others to compare himto a bookie). A keen bon viveur, Jameswas always keen to get o in the eve-ning and so cultivated an irresponsiblyhands-o management style that gaveenormous reedom to the night manag-ing editor, the deeply conservativePresbyterian, Raymond McCaw. Inturn, McCaw gave considerable ree-

dom to his deputy, Neil MacNeil, aercely partisan Catholic, and his assis-

tant, the equally anatical convertClarence Howell. These night editorscontrolled the group o desks known asthe bullpen, in the southeast cornero the newsroom. They had ree rein indeciding what stories would get promi-nence and in the editing thereo .

Matthews was convinced thatthese men treated his copy with sus-

picion, anger, and, at times, disbelie .They printed material rom William P.Carney, his counterpart in the rebelzone, despite knowing that it wasunashamedly partisan and sometimeseven aked. In contrast, they cutMatthewss articles, tampered with hiswording, and buried entire stories

because they were perceived to avorthe Republican side. McCaw issuedorders that whenever Matthews wroteabout the Italian troops who oughtwith the rebels, the phrase was to bereplaced by insurgent troops.Matthews had gone to Guadalajaraa ter the Italian de eat there. Hereported what Italian prisoners hadtold him and what he had

Continued on page



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seen o captured Italian weaponry anddocuments. McCaws device madenonsense o his despatches. Moreover,McCaw cabled Matthews, accusing

him o simply sending Republicanpropaganda handouts. In mid-Decem- ber 1937, with Se ton Delmer o theDaily Express, Hemingway, and RobertCapa, Matthews courageouslyreported on the Republican assault onTeruel. His art icles were ruthlessly cut,while William Carneys abricateddespatches about a triumphal recap-ture o the city by the rebels wereprinted. Hemingway was convinced

that this was deliberate sabotage.Matthews, in act, took enormous

pride in his work, and his personalethic demanded that he never wrote aword that he did not ervently believeto be true. In Spain, he would endurethe bitterness o seeing the side he sup-ported lose. Over 30 years later, heconcluded, All o us who lived theSpanish Civil War elt deeply emo-tional about it. . . I always elt the

alseness and hypocrisy o those whoclaimed to be unbiased and the oolish,i not rank stupidity o editors andreaders who demand objectivity orimpartiality o correspondents writingabout the war those o us who cham-pioned the cause o the Republicangovernment against the FrancoNationalists were right. It was, on bal-ance, the cause o justice, morality,decency. Matthews was savagelydenounced as a rabid Red partisan by the leading Catholic propagandistDr Joseph Thorning. Nevertheless, itdid not diminish his passionate com-mitment to writing the truth as he sawit: The war also taught me that thetruth will prevail in the long run. Journalism may seem to ail in its daily

task o providing the material or his-tory, but history will never ail so longas the newspaperman writes the truth.

Writing the truth meant, to quote

Martha Gellhorn again, explainingthat the Spanish Republic was neithera collection o blood-slathering Redsnor a cats-paw o Russia. She wouldhave no truck with what she calledall that objectivity shit, re using toadopt a morally repugnant neutralityequidistant between two very di er-ent sides. She elt, as did Hemingwayand Dos Passos, Geo rey Cox andWillie Forrest, Louis Fischer and Jay

Allen, Henry Buckley and GeorgeSteer, that those who ought and thosewho died in de ence o the SpanishRepublic, whatever their nationalityand whether they were Communists,anarchists, Socialists, poets, plumbers,middle-class pro essional men, or theone Abyssinian prince, were brave anddisinterested, as there were norewards in Spain. They were ghting

or us all, against the combined orce

o European ascism. They deservedour thanks and our respect and gotneither.

A ew who became loyalist parti-sans went urther than just writing thetruth, indeed well beyond their jour-nalistic duties. Hemingway gave anambulance and dispensed advice tomilitary commanders. Fischer helped both to organize the Republics pressservices and to repatriate woundedInternational Brigaders. Jay Allen lob- bied tirelessly or the Republic inAmerica, then went into Vichy Franceto help Spanish re ugees and impris-oned international brigaders. Inconsequence, he su ered incarcerationin a German prison. George Steercampaigned on behal o the Basque

government to get Britain to permitood supplies to get through to a

blockaded Bilbao. The RussianMikhail Koltsov wrote so enthusiasti-

cally about the revolutionary lan othe Spanish people that, in the atmo-sphere o the Soviet purges, he becamean embarrassment and was executed.

The body o work produced bywar correspondents during theSpanish confict, endlessly mined bysubsequent historians, was truly the

rst dra t o history. HerbertMatthews believed that a journalistwho writes truth ully what he sees

and knows on a given day is writingor posterity. The scepticism and criti-

cisms that I met in some quartersduring the Spanish confict made me

eel at times that I was working moreor the historical record than or the

daily reader.The story o the correspondents is

undamentally about the courage andthe skill o the men and women whowrote about what was happening in

Spain. It illustrates many o the di er-ences between the harsh ambience omilitary dictatorship in the rebel zoneand the act that, or all its di culties,the Republic tried to unction as ademocracy despite wartime conditions.

The rediscovery o the correspon-dents and their writings has a widersigni cance in the history o theSpanish Civil War. The act that somany o the correspondents wrote andcampaigned or the li ting o Non-Intervention underlines the extent towhich the Spanish Republic was

betrayed by the democraciesto theirown very real detriment. The act thatthe Western powers turned a blind eyewhile Franco destroyed the democratic


Continued on page


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Comrades and Commissars. The LincolnBattalion in the Spanish Civil War. By CecilEby. University Park, PA: PennsylvaniaState University Press, .

By Grover Furr

O n page 356 o this book, CecilEby recommends one accounto ALB Commander RobertMerrimans death as the most objec-tive. It is the only time Eby shows any

concern with objectivitythe care ulevaluation o o ten contradictory evi-dence. Elsewhere Eby ignores thewell-known canons o historianresearch. Absent a devotion to objec-tivity, any historians bias mustoverwhelm him, as Ebys does here.

Much o the text is taken romEbys 1969 book Between the Bulletand the Lie. Though the authorhas added much more material,

the basic ramework remains thesame. Un ortunately, so do theerrors o methodology and bias that

atally marred the earlier work.Eby sets out to write an explicitly

anticommunist work. He culls throughmany works, mainly memoir accounts,to select those that put the Soviets, theInternational Brigades, and commu-nists generally in a negative light.

But memoir accounts confict withone another. Furthermore, memoriesare not like photographs. With thepassage o time they change, recreatethemselves. O ten people come to believe they witnessed and experi-enced things that never happened.Eby relies heavily on the work oWilliam Herrick, whose book is ull o

alsehoods; on Ronald Radosh, whosecommentary o ten fagrantly contra-dicts the very evidence he cites; onRobert Gladnick, also a bitter anticom-munist. These and, in act, all accounts beg or critical scrutiny.

Eby also cites as act testimonyrom the Subversive Activities Control

Board, HUAC hearings, and Francoisthistorians. Such sourceslike all sourcescry out or critical assess-

ment. They get none here.When it suits his purposes, Eby

reports rumor and allegation as act.Apparently he did not nd enoughsuch rumors, or in addition he lardshis account with many cynicalremarks, sarcasm and cheap shots.

Whole pages have no citations atall, so generally we dont know whereEby got his assertions o act, let alonehow to assess their accuracy. This

leaves him ree to select those that bestt his own biases. Without objective

criteria, thats all thats le t.Here are a ew cases o outright

raud: On pages 189-190 Eby states,

without citation, that Lincoln Battalioncommander Oliver Law led his meninto ambushes. This assertion ismade only by Herrick, who claimedone o Hy Stones brothers was killedin one such ambush. This is impossi- ble, since neither brother was with theLincolns.

O course Eby knows this, or else-where he cites the sources thatdocument it. So why does he repeatthis alsehood? Out o loyalty toHerrick, a ellow anticommunist and

his close riend or 35 years? Whatevethe reason, its a good example o whyobjectivity is so vital to any historian.

Eby charges Peter Carroll withscholarly malpractice (p. 427), citing John Hayness and Harvey Klehrsclaim that the US government neverre erred to ALB vets as prematureanti-Fascists ( New Criterion, 09.02).But why doesnt he tell his readers oCarrolls response (with DanielBertwell) in The Volunteer o Decemb03, where a U.S. Congressman isquoted using the phrase on January 2,

1945? Because most readers will notknow about it?

Eby cites Gerald Howsonsremark that Joseph Stalin re erred tothe Comintern as a shop o cheapgoods (lavochka). But Howson citesno evidence or this assertion. Thistale has been traced to Soviet NKVDde ector Walter Krivitsky (PaulFlewers to H-RUSSIA July 20, 2000,http://tinyurl.com/378267 ) whose

book was heavily ghost-written bypro essional anticommunist publicistIsaac Don Levine (Gary Kern, A Deatin Washington ). Evidently Stalin neversaid it! But it makes the wholeinternationalist e ort, o which theALB was a part, look like a swindle.

I you dont try to discover thetruth rom the beginning, you are notgoing to stumble upon it by accidentalong the way. Ebys book will nodoubt be employed as a ount o anti-communist propaganda. But it isworthless as history. What a pityand what a waste!

Book Reviews

Grover Furr is an associate pro essor o English at Montclair State University inNew Jersey.

Rehashing the Lies


22/28


Book Reviews

By Shirley Mangini

The Complete Poetry. By Cesar Vallejo.Edited and translated by ClaytonEshleman. University o Cali orniaPress, .

This bilingual edition o Perusgreatest avant-garde poet is ospecial interest because oVallejos commitment to the Spanish

Republic. When the civil war began,the poet was living in Paris. Hequickly became an activist by joiningthe Committees in De ense o theSpanish Republic and participating inthe Second International Congress oAnti-Fascist Writers in De ense oCulture. Vallejo wrote one o the mostpoignant books o poetry about thecivil war, entitled Spain, Take This Cup from Me, be ore he died in 1938.

Published posthumously, the book is

ull o anguish and hope or theRepublic, as in this ragment rom thelong poem Hymn to the Volunteers

or the Republic.

Volunteers,

for life, for the good ones, kill

death, kill the evil ones!

Do it for the freedom of all,

of the exploited and the exploiter,

for a painless peaceI glimpse it

when I sleep at the foot of my forehead

and even more when I go aroundshouting

and do it, I keep saying,

for the illiterate to whom I write,

for the barefoot genius and his lamb,

for the fallen comrades,

their ashes clasped to the corpse of aroad!

Surrealism and the Spanish Civil War. ByRobin Adle Greeley. Yale UniversityPress, 6.

In this highly original study, Greeleydiscusses the juncture o art andpolitics through an analysis o

Spanish painters Joan Mir, SalvadorDal, Jos Caballero, and Pablo Picassoand the French artist Andr Massonand their surrealist representations othe civil war. She compares how theFrench Surrealists deployed the styleas a political tool, whilewith the

exception o Picassothe Spaniardsound it di cult to de ne their politi-

cal reactions to the war through theirvisual language.Greeley explains that while Mir

struggled to express his Catalonianidentity in some o his more surrealistwork that deals with the subject o thewar, Dal expresses his notion that as-cism was intimately tied to violenceand sexual perversion in his surrealpaintings o the period. According toGreeley, the lesser-known painter Jos

Caballerowho was closely alliedwith Federico Garca Lorca during theRepublican period and activelyworked with the poet on his govern-ment- unded project, the traveling LaBarraca theatre groupemployed anapolitical type o surrealism, ambigu-ous about his politics. The authortraces how Caballero uneasily dealtwith working or the Franco Regimea ter the war and how this impacted

his avant-garde style. Masson, likePicasso, used the theme o the bull-

ght as a way o portraying the brutalviolence o the civil war. But it wasPicasso, with Guernica, Greeleyexplains, who most brilliantly repre-sented the civil war through the

bodily expressions o his subjects. Theauthor states, It is a painting whichmanages to incorporate the elusivequality o memory into the work itsel ,and to bind that quality to an analysiso history.

Republic with the help o Hitler andMussolini has been indirectly justi ed by two recent trends. In Spain, a groupo pro-Franco propagandists, stylingthemselves as revisionists, and, inthe United States, a number o neo-conservatives have resuscitated theidea that the Republic was a Sovietsatellite. The story o the independent-minded American, British, and Frenchradicals who ought with their pensagainst non-intervention is a valuablecounterpoint to this narrow and ill-

ounded view.


Books in Brie

www.alba-valb.org


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Benjamin Lane(1916-2007)Benjamin Lane, who went to Spain

hoping to pilot planes in theRepublican air orces and insteadserved on the ground with theAbraham Lincoln Brigade, died opancreatic cancer on September 21,2007, in San Diego, Cali ornia.

Born on April 27, 1916, in St. Louis,

Missouri, to Leo and Sophie AzarchLevine, Ben studied at the Universityo Illinois, Champaign-Urbana or oneyear. He le t school to ollow his pas-sion or fying and worked in thenascent airplane industry in St. Louis.In 1937 he joined the Abraham LincolnBrigade in Spain and ought with theBrigade until 1939. He returned to LosAngeles, where he met SylviaEisenberg. Following a whirlwindcourtship, they were married in 1939.

During World War II, Ben servedin the U.S. Army Air Corps. A ter thewar, he graduated rom the Universityo Southern Cali ornia with a degreein mechanical engineering. He com-peted with the USC track team and became accomplished with the javelin.

One o Bens noteworthy engineer-ing accomplishments was designingthe tracks or rides in Disneyland,including the Peter Pan ride, the

Jungle Boat ride, and the Mark TwainSteamboat ride. These rides all openedin 1955. They have been enjoyed bychildren rom all over the world.

Ben migrated into the healthcareeld in the 1960s, managing health

care and nursing home acilities orover 30 years. He was elected a Fellowin the American College o NursingHome Administrators. He was a long-time advocate o better health care or

the aged. He was also instrumental indeveloping a role or nurse practitio-ners and other allied healthpro essionals in working with mentalhealth and elderly patients in both in-patient and out-patient acilities. Heopened a number o mental healthcare acilities in Cali ornia.

Ben was active in scouting inWhittier, Cali ornia, and helped torun the Air Explorer Troop 939A orseveral years.

Ben moved to northern Cali orniain 1970, where he requently par-ticipated in Bay Area Post events.In 1986, he traveled to Spain orthe 50th anniversary recognitiono the International Brigades.

Ben is survived by his wi e o 68years, Sylvia Lane, and his children,Leonard Lane o Corona del Mar,Reese Lane o Burbank, and NancyLane o Hillsborough, Cali ornia.

A ceremony celebrating Bens li ewas held on October 20 in San Diego.Another will be held in March in con-

junction with the unveiling o amonument to the Abraham LincolnBrigade on the San FranciscoEmbarcadero.

Nancy Lan

Added to Memorys Roster

IN LOVING MEMORYGideon Rosenbluth

1919 - 2007* * *

Courageous ghter or justiceUnion activist

Great riend to generationsLoving ather and grand ather

* * *He never stopped speaking out

against oppression and hypocrisy wherever he saw it.And he never hesitated to speak truth to power.

* * *He will be missed.

* * *The riends, comrades and amily o Gideon Rosenbluth


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ALBAS PLANNED GIVING PROGRAM

Tax Advantages for Charitable Gift Annuities

A Charitable Gift Annuity (CGA) is a contract between you and the Abraham Lincoln BrigadeArchives (ALBA). A CGA is one of the simplest, least expensive and most conservativecharitable planning tools available today.

A CGA is a wonderful way to increase your present monthly income and provide a charitablededuction in the tax year of the asset transfer. Simply make a gift to ALBA in either cash ormarketable securities (minimum $5,000) and in return, ALBA will pay you (or up to twoindividuals) an annuity beginning on a date you specify, on or after your 60th birthday.

Easy to design and establish , you decide how frequently payments will be made: quarterly,semi-annually or annually.

Cash gifts allow maximum tax-free income and gifts of securities enable you to minimize capitalgains taxes.

For further information on a customized proposal for your CGA, please contact

Anne Taibleson, Executive DirectorALBA799 Broadway New York, NY 10003212-674-5398

PUFFIN FOUNDATION LTD. ANNUAL GRANT SEARCH

Te Pu n Foundation encourages a continuing dialogue between . . . art and the lives o ordinary people. We are resolute in our support o those artists whose work, due to their genre and/or social philosophy, mighthave di culty in being aired. We especially encourage new artists to apply or a grant.

Grants are made in all felds o the creative arts, including music, dance, theater, documentaries,photography, fne arts, etc.

Applicants may apply or a year 2008 grant in writing prior to Dec. 30, 2007. Average grant awards range between $1,000.00to $2,500.00.SASE required.Pu n Foundation Ltd.20 Pu n Way ( ormerly East Oakdene Ave.)

eaneck, NJ 07666-4111


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

Aris Anagos in memory of CarolynAnagos The Czitrom Family inmemory of Leo Gordon, Joe Gordon

and Ben Barsky Marjorie Fasman Joan Junas Fisch in memory of Stanley Junas (a/k/a Matejunas) Peter Goodman Dr. and Mrs.Meyer S. Gunther in honor of Dr.Aaron Hilkevitch Lois Sontag inmemory of Dr. Edward Barsky

Friend ($500 - $999)

Gerold Gino Baumann Lotti

Tobler-Berenson in memory of MitchBerenson Roger Lowenstein in mem -ory of Moe Fishman Chic Wolk

Associate ($100 - $499)

Catherine S. Abbe Shirley Amsbury in memory of Clifton H. Amsbury Pearl G. Baley in honor of BarneyBaley Michael C. Batinski Giovanna Benadusi and Fraser Ottanelli in memory of Moe Fishman RuthBennett Ulrich Bodek The Borodofsky Family in memory of Joseph Siegel Suzanne and David Canein memory of Lawrence Cane Claire Carsman in memory of Sam Carsman Paul Cox Ruth Goldway inmemory of Steve Nelson Annette Halpern in memory of Joseph Isaac Siegel Susan A. Hammer in memo -ry of Esther Silverstein Blanc Robert Harrison in memory of Esther Silverstein Blanc Casey Kasem RheaK. Kish in memory of Leslie Kish Emily Lazarre and Mickey Bloom in memory of Bill Lawrence Lazarre Ruth Levitan in memory of Esther Silverstein Blanc Jane Lewenthal Peter and June Luskutoff in honor of Hank Rubin Paulina K. Marks Bruce F. McClintic Kevin McKinnon Jay and Judy Nadel in memoryof Esther Silverstein Blanc Diane Newman in memory of Esther Silverstein Blanc Milton Okin in memo -ry of Moe Fishman Char Prieto Fred W. Rohl Kathie Sheldon and Steve Tarzinski Roberta Silversteinin memory of Esther Silverstein Blanc, my great aunt and a great woman! Patricia Tanttila Nancy andLen Tsou in memory of Dong Hong Yick, Chi Chang and Jack Shirai Noel Valis Douglas Wheeler

Donor ($1 - $99)

Leonard R. Bacich in memory of Moe Fishman David and Samara Balfour Terence Bayes LawrenceBendoski Edith Bluestone Myrna Brier Fred B. Chase in memory of Homer B. Chase Ken Cloke inmemory of Richard Cloke Martin Comack Sally Connolly Charles and Alice Dekker Phyllis and AlanEntin in memory of Moe Fishman Nadine Etkes Brian Ferris Martin Fishgold in memory of Irving Fishgold Richard Flacks Rory Flanagan Noel W. Folson Virginia Franco and Herbert Shore Joseph Friedman inmemory of Karl Amatniek Paul L. Gittelson Eugene and Madeline Goodwin Tim Grier Saul Halpert Henry Horowitz Robert Inget John L. Kailin Marian Kroon in memory of Freddie Martin and Moe Fishman

Continued on page

BECAUSE OF YOU, our incredibly loyal supporters and riends,the construction and installation o the San Francisco NATIONALMONUMENT honoring the courageous volunteers o the Abraham

Lincoln Brigade is paid or!And the unds required or the 20-year maintenance und to theCity o San Francisco are practically there only $60,000 more to go!The ALBA dream is coming true, BECAUSE OF YOU .

The National Memorial dedication ceremony in conjunction withthe Bay Area Annual Reunion will be a major San Francisco event inthe spring o 2008. Participating will be local and national celebritiesand political and civic leaders. There will be abulous musical enter-tainment. Please check our website or updates (www.alba-valb.org)or contact Anne Taibleson, ALBAs Executive Director, at 212-674-5398,[email protected].

See you in the springtime!

National Monument Contributions


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Sponsor ($5,000 and above) Jesse Crawford

Associate ($100 - $499) The Boston Foundation in memory of Hy Tabb Louis H. Blumengarten in memory of Moe Fishman PeterCarroll and Jeannette Ferrary in memory of Moe Fishman, Ben Lane and Hy Tabb Wendy Chavkin MartiCopleman Jim Fernandez and Marisa Carrasco in memory of Moe Fishman Ilana Heller in memory of Hy Tabb Barbara Kass and Dr. John Price in honor of Judy and Jay Greenfield's 50th Anniversary and Jay's 75th Birthday Jack Lerman in honor of Norman Berkowitz Fred and Claire Lisker in honor of William Sennett ElizabethLiss and Marjorie Liss in memory of Sylvia Liss Milton Okin in memory of Moe Fishman Charlotte PomerantzMarzani to the shining memory of Moe Fishman H. David Prensky in memory of Leo Kaufman Suzanne andAlan Jay Rom in memory of Samuel Schiff and Moe Fishman Rita Schwartz in honor of Judy and Jay Greenfields50th Anniversary and Jays 75th Birthday Helene Susman in loving memory of Bill Anne Taibleson in memory of Moe Fishman, Ben Lane and Hy Tabb Wellman & MacGregor Peg Yorkin

Donor ($1 - $99) Beverly Adelstein in memory of Harry Haberman Cora Carlis in memory of my uncle Hy Tabb Sally Connolly Alan G. Deale Anne and Sidney Emerman in honor of Manny and Sadie Klein Marjorie Feldman Willard C.Frank, Jr. in memory of Robert G. Colodny Amy Freeman David C. Friedman Linda Grant Paul L. Gittelson Fred Hirsch Dale C. Hopper in memory of Albert John Baumler, Harold Edward Dahl and Salter Traker Institute of Social Medicine and Community Health Arnold Krammer Marian Kroon in memory of Moe Fishman Sharmila Mujamdar in memory of Ben Lane Betsy Blair Reisz Eric D. Richert Leonard J. Rosenfeld in honorof Thomas Sarbaugh Sandra and Martin Rosencrans in honor of Jay Greenfields 75th Birthday Edith Ziefert

We welcome contributions to speci c ALBA programs, such as our website education modules, traveling art exhibi-tions, publications and administrative o ce operations.

The above donations were made from August 1 through November 1, 2007. All donations made after November 1 will appearthe March 2008 issue of The Volunteer.

We are grate ul or your continued support.

Jose Alejandro LaLuz Leo Lang Jeanne Lassen Lorinda Lassen in memory of Esther Silverstein Blanc P. Herbert Lieberman Miriam and Victor Ludwig remembering Herman Gabby Rosenstein Linden P.Martineau Shaun OConnell Mike and Brendan OConnor Geoffrey R. Paul Rosemary and Ray Porter Vicki C. Rhea Joseph Scherr Peter Selz Florine and James Sikking Albert Silverstein in memory of

Esther Silverstein Blanc Luise Stone Guy Stuart Ann Weissman in honor of Irving Weissman AndrewWhitman Ruth and Norman Williams Ed Yelin and Abby Snay in memory of Esther Silverstein Blanc

National Monument Contributionscontinued from page 23

General Contributions


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Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archive


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Support the National Monument!

Getting ready or the unveiling, Chris Reed andAlice Shaw display a tile rom the monument.Photo by Peter Glazer.

The Volunteerc/o Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives

Broadway, Suite 4New York, NY

NON PROFIT ORGUS POSTAGE

PAIDSAN FRANCISCO, CA

PERMIT NO. 1577

www.alba-valb.org

SAVE THE DATES

March 30, 2008Unveiling o the Abraham LincolnBrigade National Monumentand Bay Area Annual Reunion,San Francisco

April 27, 2008New York Annual Reunion,Skirball Center or the Per orming Arts,New York University

the volunteer, december 2007

Documents