the volunteer, december 2008

8/14/2019 The Volunteer, December 2008

1/28

Sidewalk Views of the Monument, p. 4

Despedida Celebrations, p. 5

Susman Lecture: Border Crossings, p. 10

Paul Robeson in Spain, p. 11

Book Reviews, p. 7

FOUNDED BY THE VETERANS OF THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN BRIGADE

Vol. XXV, No. 4 December 20

Lincoln Brigade vets and their families attend events commemorating

th anniversary of Despedida (International Brigades departure from

Spain) in Barcelona. Clockwise from left, vets George Sossenko, Jack

Shafran, and Matti Mattson, and Josie Yurek, daughter of vet Steve

Nelson. Photos by Jeannette Ferrary. See page


2/28

Teaching Teachers: UpdateALBAs key education initiative, which began last sum-

mer with a summer institute or New York area teachers at

New York University, will continue next year in New York

and in other parts o the country. Its too early to announcethe details, but new programs are in the planning stages

or New York City and Tampa, Florida.

In Tampa, ALBA is cooperating with the Department o

History and the Department o Social Foundations at the

University o South Florida to create a program or June

2009. Titled La Retaguardia de Tampa: The Spanish Civil

War and Its Impact on Florida and U.S. History, this sum-

mer institute will ocus on the strong support or the

Spanish Republic among the citys Cuban, Spanish and

Italian communities. A selected group o high school teach-

ers will work with original documents drawn rom the

ALBA archives and rom the Spanish Civil War collection

at the University o South Florida, which contains inorma-

tion on the 26 Tampeos who volunteered to ght in Spain.

Other documents, including original documentaries, ocus

on pro-loyalist activities in the citys working-class enclave

o Ybor City.

On the west coast, a key curriculum oce is expressing

interest in developing similar programs. In November,

ALBA Chair Peter Carroll participated in a roundtable dis

cussion at the Caliornia World History Association

conerence in San Francisco ocusing on how the subject o

the Spanish Civil War (which can be taught in 10th grade

social studies) can be related to U.S. history courses (taug

in 11th grade) by examining the role o the Abraham

Lincoln Brigade. In this way, U.S. history directly connect

to world history.

We hope to make urther announcements ater theNew Year.

ALBAsNewExecutiveDirector

Jeanne Houck, an

experienced public historian,has been appointed

ALBAs Executive Director,

becoming the organizations

chie administrative ocer.

A native o Maryland,

Houck earned her bachelors

degree rom George Washington University and a PhD

in history at New York University. She was ounder and

president o History Works, a New York City-based public

history consulting and production company. Most recently,

she served as development associate at the Intrepid Sea,Air, and Space Museum. She is also executive producer o

the NEH-sponsored lm project No Job or a Woman: The

Women Who Fought to Report World War II. She can be

reached at [email protected]; (212) 674-5398.

TheVolunteerfounded by the

Veterans of the

Abraham Lincoln Brigadean ALBA publication

799 Broadway, Suite 341New York, NY 10003

(212) 674-5398

Editorial BoardPeter N. Carroll Gina Herrmann

Fraser Ottanelli

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]

Vets Can Be Spanish Citizens

A recent revision of Spanish law provides that veterans of

the International Brigades can receive full Spanish citizen-

ship without renouncing their existing citizenship and

without traveling to Spain to obtain it. According to

Spanish officials who addressed the Brigadistas at the 0thanniversary ceremonies in Barcelona in October, veterans

should make formal inquiries at the nearest Spanish

consulate.


3/28

December 2008 THE VOLUNTEER

By Peter N. CarrollPhotos by Jeannette Ferrary

The great speech by Dolores

IbarruriLa Pasionaria o the

Spanish Republicat the are-

well parade o the International

Brigades in 1938 was quoted repeat-

edly in Barcelona during the 70th

anniversary commemoration o the

Farewell to the International

Brigadistas last October.

Ibarruri's vibrant words spoke o

the past and prophesized the presentmoment. On October 28, 1938, as tens

o thousands o Barcelonans crowded

the Gran Via to bid arewell to the

International survivors who were

going home or, in some cases, into

exile because their home countries

would not allow them to return, she

said:We shall not forget you;

and, when the olive tree of

peace is in flower, entwinedwith the victory laurels of theRepublic of Spaincomeback!

Come back to our sidefor here you will find a home-landthose who have nocountry or friends, who mustlive deprived of friendshipall,all will have the affection and

gratitude of the Spanish peoplewho today and tomorrow will

shout with enthusiasmLong live the heroes of the

International Brigades!

This year, on the anniversary o

that historic moment, some o those

heroes did come back, but in num-

bers that showed the steady toll

o time and the sotening o

public memory o their hero-

ism. They came rom Mexico,

Cuba, and the United States; rom

Russia, Bulgaria, and Rumania; romBritain, Ireland, Germany, and Italy

and many o their amily members

came as well: children, grandchildren,

nieces and nephews. Pasionaria's

daughter was there, and she reminded

the Internationals how her mother had

long praised their heroism and their

sacrices or the cause o Spains

reedom.

The Americans were represented

by Matti Mattson, onetime ambulance

driver; Jack Sharan, soldado rom

Brooklyn; and George Sossenko,

French-born anarchist volunteer and

resident o Atlanta.

There were many speeches and

ceremonial tributes, laying o wreaths,

Continued on page

Barcelona, 1938-2008


4/28

2 THE VOLUNTEER December 2008

hoisted glasses o wine and cava to

honor both those who were present

and those who are long gone.

On Friday, October 25, at the small

beachside town o Sitges, hal an hour

south o Barcelona, where most o thevisitors were hosted, the city inaugu-

rated New York and the Spanish

Civil War. The exhibit, originally cre-

ated by ALBA and the Museum o the

City o New York, unded by the

Pun Foundation and the Cervantes

Institute, is now traveling to various

sites in Spain. This was the rst ver-

sion o the exhibition that was

translated into Catalan, and more

towns are on its itinerary in the north-east province o Spain.

A small brass band led a column

o Brigadistas and their riends

through the winding streets o Sitges

to the City Hall. The crowd, too large

or the accommodations, spilled into

the hallway, but an ocial delegation

o government ocers welcomed the

group. The mayor and various cultural

ocials, including Salvador Clotas,

head o the Fundacion Pablo Iglesias,

spoke with sincerity about the oppor-

tunity to thank the surviving

volunteers. Indeed, as one ocial

spoke about his grandathers memory

o ghting beside the Internationals,

the translator wept openly.The next day, the veterans jour-

neyed by bus to Barcelona or a

ceremonial event at the monument to

the International Brigades made by

U.S. sculptor Roy Shirin on the

Rambla del Carmel. An exuberant

crowd applauded speeches by public

ocials and by Brigadistas, including

George Sossenko. Then the contingent

moved to the haunting cemetery on

Montjuic, where several memorialshonor the victims o Francos

executions as well as the dead o

World War II. Ater a ceremonial lay-

ing o a wreath, the guests were

treated to a sumptuous dinner at the

Pedralbes Palace, sponsored by the

Catalan Ministry o Home Aairs.Historian Paul Preston presented the

keynote speech, and a lively outdoor

musical presentation was perormed

by the Brossa Quartet.

The ocial events, both solemn

and emotionally moving, refected th

growing importance in contemporar

Spain o overcoming the pact o

silence about the Spanish Civil War

and protecting the historical memory

o those who lost the war. On a priva

scale, these eelings seemed even mo

intense, as the old men and women

who came rom around the world

embraced each other, signaling the

passing o the generations and the

inevitable sense o loss. For three ul

days, the warm Spanish sun mellow

those darker thoughts.Amaya Ibarruri, daughter of DoloresIbarruri

Gloria Bodeln Alonso, from Ministry o

Justice, speaking to crowd about Spain

offer of citizenship to IB vets.

Historian Paul Preston

Ana Perez, head of the Association of

Amigos of the International Brigades

BarcelonaContinued from page 1


5/28


Clockwise from upper left corner: Universo Lipiz (Cuba); Victor

Lovsky; daughter o Russian volunteer holding photo oather; Yury Turzhanskiy (Russia).


6/28


By Teresa Huhle

On a sunny Sunday aternoon

in August I spent our hours

beside the Abraham Lincoln

Brigade monument in San Francisco. I

wanted to talk to everyone who

stopped and looked at the monument.

When they were about to leave, I intro-

duced mysel and asked, Why did

you stop? What is the monument

about? Do you like it? O course ourhours isnt enough time to take a sta-

tistical survey. It's a snap-shot. Ten

voices.

The Justin Herman Plaza was

quiet that Sunday. People who came

by came with time. Only one couple

was rom San Francisco. Others came

rom Switzerland, Canada, Spain,

New York, Seattle, San Diego, Marin

County and the Bay Area. Some I

missed while talking to others. To

some I spoke a minute, to others 10.

Some only answered my questions

and continued on their way. Others

started interviewing me ater I inter-

viewed them.

I want to share with readers o The

Volunteer what I was told.

Two young tourists fromSwitzerland

We were just trying to fgure out

what dictator this is about. Franco, right?

But i that's Franco, wasnt there also a

dictator in 73? They told me they hadgured it was about Spain, but they

had never heard o the Abraham

Lincoln Brigade.So I asked who they

thought the monument was or. Well,

we thought probably some Americans

helped to fght against Franco. It wouldn't

make sense i it was or Spanish reedom

fghters.

Canadian tourist with his

-year-old sonHe knew about the war and the

Lincoln Brigade. He said the monu-

ment is one that makes you think, and

he had stopped because it was some-

thing to share with my son, sort o explain

a little bit more about politics and ascism

and so orth.

Two 2-year-old men from SeattI saw them reading the Pablo

Neruda poems very careully. They

told me they didn't know what the

monument was ordidnt really pay

attention to itbut they were study-

ing Spanish and liked Neruda. We

were trying to translate and didnt notice

the translation was right next to it, the

said laughing.

Young woman from San DiegoI saw her taking pictures o

Dolores Ibarruri and Harry Bridges

quotes. But when I asked her about it

she didnt know what the monument

was or and didnt want to know. She

just said, I liked the words.

Two women from San FranciscI could tell it had a strong impac

on them. They had nished shoppin

and or them the monument was a

reminder to wait a minute, pay atten-

tion, think about why we go to war. Who

are we fghting i not our brothers. Just to

have a conversation with somebody is be

ter than shooting him.

Continued next pa

Teresa Huhle is writing her thesis, about

the San Francisco monument, at the

University of Cologne.

Sidewalk Views of theMonument


7/28

The anniversary of the Despedida was celebrated in San

Francisco and New York with dramatic readings of veterans

letters describing the parade and the screening of rare footage of

the event. The program was written and arranged by Bruce Barthol, with

visuals by Richard Bermack, Judy Montell, and Peter Glazer. Clockwise,

from upper left: Tessa Koning-Martnez (SF); Lisa Asher and Peter Glazer

(NY); Linda Lustig (SF); Elizabeth Martnez (SF); Arthur Holden, Bruce

Barthol, and Heather Bridger (SF).


Tourist from San DiegoI am hal through with For Whom

the Bell Tolls. She didnt know about

Americans in the Spanish Civil War

beore she started the book. But she

knew Paul Robeson and admired

Langston Hughes. It seemed as i a

puzzle started to make sense to her.

She was touched by Robert Colodnys

words: The Vietnam War, thats the

war that has shaped me.

Photographer from theBay Area

My neighbor, who is a history bu

and a history teacher, told me that i I

come to the Ferry Building I should come

see it. And she was happy she had

come. I really think this is beautiul art

work. This really improves the citys

beauty.

23-year-old exchange studentfrom Madrid

He was the only one who didnt talk

o a monument about Spain, but said,

It's really interesting that they have a mon-

ument about the Republic. He knew

about the International Brigades, but not

about the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. His

amily hadn't ought in the war, he said.

In Spain there are no monuments o the

Civil War. It's really good to see it here. An

American riend who was with him

thought he knew o the war, but said, I

hadn't realized we'd sent a brigade.

History student from New YorkI think this history is pretty well

known. I could tell he knew lots abou

it. I'm not a very good judge o architec-

ture and monuments. I think I would have

liked it better i there actually was like a

statue o Abraham Lincoln.

Older man from Marin County

I'm well aware how the people who

ought against Franco have not been

treated very well by many people, espe-

cially in this country. I frmly believe in

the things that are written here. People

who ought against ascism deserve our

thanks. It's very touching to see this. He

had tears in his eyes.

Despedida Celebrations


8/28


Editors Note: This newly ound letter was

read at commemorative events held in San

Francisco and New York last November.

Oct. 29 1938

Hospital 101SDear Lil and Bernie,

Yesterday I was witness and partici-

pant in a demonstration that I am

determined never to orget.

It was the day when the people o

Spain went to say good-bye to the

internationals.

At the hospital there was tremen-

dous excitement about going to

Barcelona. All wanted to be included

in the small delegation to be chosen.There couldnt have been more eager-

ness and enthusiasm had it been

known that a boat lay at wait or us in

the harbor to take us home. At one

oclock the group chosen (thank heav-

ens it included me, I dont know why)

was nally placed in a large open

ambulance. I sat there nervously

chewing the remnants o my nails and

hoping we would leave quickly. I was

sure that my being chosen was somekind o an error and they would dis-

cover and rectiy it beore I could get

saely away. However my doubts were

eased as the motor roared and we

drew away rom the hospital and the

envious looks o the not-going.

The day was the rst taste o a

coming winter. The sun, warm when

you stood still in its shine became a

useless glare as the truck pressed

against a cold mountain wind. Along

the shores o the Med[iterranean] were

isolated shermen or boys casting

lines into the rothing sea. The sun lit

deep into the water glaring back with

a deep blue light.

We passed small towns some

empty o people, others with small

groups lined at a corner waiting or a

bus, or perhaps ood rations.

Soon we had hit the outskirts o

Barcelona. Already, we were being

picked out as Int[ernationals] and

salutes and vivas greeted us as we toredown the avenues. As we drove

deeper into the heart o town, estival

signs became more apparent. Here a

huge banner fapping madly in the

wind, here a group o blue clad sailors,

marching along with that certain

Spanish swing as their drums rolled a

ast rhythm. Then we tore down the

long drive. People lined the curb, wait-

ing or the parade to deluge down

upon them. Here group[s] o soldierscorrectly uniormed waited impa-

tiently on the ride.

Motorcycles tore up and down

with their usual appearance o tre-

mendous urgency. We nally arrived

at a point at the end o the avenue. As

our ambulance stopped a roar burst

out overhead. Six Spanish ghting

planes, choteaus [chatos] theyre

called, burst out rom somewhere and

were suddenly roaring across the topso trees, close enough or us to distin-

guish the helmeted pilots. High above

them larger bi-planes circled, a stream

o glittering paper, conetti or leafets

fowing rom their wake.

Then we suddenly ound ourselves

in the midst o the Internationals.

Here the Garabaldi [sic] Brigade in

their usual red scars, hung around

their necks. The Franco Gelge group

all wearing sti black leather jackets

and khaki pants. Ahead, the Mac-Paps

dressed the same as they had been at

the ront. Pants torn or dirty, shirts a

mixture o earth and little remaining

original color. All had their blankets

over their necks and their mess kits

and kanteens hanging rom their belt.

Somewhere ahead were the boys o

the Lin[coln]-Wash[ington].

We waited there, exchanging

excited comments with riends

thought dead, asking about all those

who werent present.Perhaps an hour passed, perhaps

more as we waited or the parade to

begin. While we stood there the little

fying planes continued to dart in an

out o the sky passing quickly by wit

their throttling roars.

Far ahead I could see a long blac

car speeding down the cleared lane.

As it drew nearer I could make out it

occupants. Seated in the back with

hand raised in salute was Dr. NegrinWe raised our hands in answer and

excited whisper ran about as his car

disappeared.

The signal came or the lines to

begin their orward movement. The

troops quickly ormed ranks and

exclaiming the orders o their leader

were soon pouring down the avenue

Seated on the top o the ambu-

lance, directly over the motor I could

see all about me.The soldiers marching ahead, th

little whippet tanks, batteries o anti

aircrat and motor squads behind. Th

huge lines o people on either side

waiting or us to come by.

And as we came by they went

mad. Vivas and salutes burst in upon

us like rife re. Flowers hurtled out

the crowd to all amongst, women

with tears streaming down their ace

rushed to embrace the passing men.

Girls dressed in long overalls hysteri

cally danced about and nally

conquering inhibitions rushed to kis

the marching internationals. The roa

o cheering was continuous. It was li

a wave that never broke, but poured

on with our progression. Our voices

938: Milton Robertson Writes Hom


9/28


grew hoarse and broke with our

answering vivas and our arms grew

tired and aching rom long upheld

salutes. But the pain o an arm, the

weakness o a voice didnt matter,nothing mattered. It was a goodbye o

goodbyes. A never to be orgotten

sight. Then we passed the reviewing

stand. We grew still, proud and erect

as our hand rose in salute. There stood

Dr Negrin and by his side President

Azaa o Spain. Then onward again to

the continued cheers o the

Barcelonians. Oh it was mad but won-

derully so. They rushed out o their

waiting lines, reaching up to touch

our hands, hurling kisses to us rom

the curb, liting babies up to see us.

One moment more supreme to me

than the whole combination o wildenthusiasm. A little boy, nine or ten

years old, stood on the corner. Tears

streaked a dirty l ine down his ace.

He saw our truck bearing down, saw

the bandages fash about. He dashed

out, met the truck and clambered up

the side. Tears still streaming down

his ace, he thrust his arms about me

and kissed me on both cheeks. I

kissed him tasting his tears on his

ace. He rushed down to the street

again, his hand raised in salute, tears

still coursing. For perhaps another

hour we passed along in parade,

always wild, always cheering.At last we reached the end o the

line. It was all over now. We were

wrung out. Nothing remained but

senses battered by the import o the

tremendous goodbye we had been

given. Our truck rushed us back to th

hospital. We huddled together, cold,

silent but burning inside with a neve

to be orgotten memory.

Now as I write to you I thrill aga

to the experience. I eel a newer, morvaluable person. I have gained some-

thing worth more than just a visual

experience. I have seen a brave peop

how brave youll never understand

until you have elt bombs, shaking

your homes, heard explosions tearin

against your eardrums, seen your

loved ones lying torn in pieces. I hav

seen these people saying goodbye to

us and in their goodbye the promise

o a ght continued to a victory. A vitory over ascism in Spain and the

world over.

To begin to write about mysel

now seems kind o silly.

I couldnt tell you anything impo

tant or worthwhile.

Havent heard rom you in some

time. But I suppose it doesnt matter

this late stage. Marie o course is com

pletely silent. It hurts like the very

devil, but I suppose its a justied

devil.

So goodbye until my next letter o

until maybe you see me. Give hellos

around.

Love to you both

Milton

Describing the Despedida


10/28


The prestigious Library Journal editors

picked James Neugasss book or special

attention in pre-publication reviews this

all. Ofcially published in November

2008, War is Beautiul is eatured this

all in bookstores in Palo Alto, SanFrancisco, and Berkeley, Caliornia;

Portland, Oregon; and Seattle,

Washington. Encouraged by this early

praise, The New Press upped the print run

to 7,500 copies. Below are extracts rom

some other early reviews.

Library Journal

Pick o the Month

September 1, 2008

Real HeroicsI it were not or my eyes, I might

be in the inantry, wrote James

Neugass in the journal that became

War Is Beautiul: An American

Ambulance Driver in the Spanish Civil

War. In late 1937, Neugass began serv-

ing in Spain with the American

Medical Bureau, which operated light

maneuverable hospital units built to

serve the International Brigades orces

supporting the Loyalist cause againstFrancos ascist Nationalist rebels. Im

still ashamed o driving an ambu-

lance, he continued. I dont like the

literary, intellectual, here-to-be-

revolted-by-the-horror-o-war,

later-to-write-a-book...mock heroism

tradition that lies behind my job.

The 32-year-old native o New

Orleans had led a privileged lie, ol-

lowed, ater the stock market crash, by

work that included selling shoes,

union organizing, and teaching enc-

ing, as well as some early success as a

poet. In Spain he soon came to recog-

nize his value as a driver. He called

his car my sweetheart. It accepted

olive oil or its motor and dirt or cam-

oufage, with only a oot diameter o

the windshield let clear. For men like

Neugass, road conditions delivered

the pulse o the war better than any

bulletin.

In his journal, Neugass explained

grim realitiesNo sense sewing up aguys chest i theres a hole in the liver.

Since livers will hold no stitches,

almost all boys nicked in this organ

dieand memorialized the dead. O

a ormer Childs Restaurant counter-

man he wrote, Some o him lies

buried in the grave dug ree o charge

by a ascist bomb. Within a mere ve

months, he ceased reerring to the

World War that was behind and won-

dered about the one to come. Ever asel-conscious writer, he repeatedly

asked himsel Why did I come to

Spain?

Neugass returned home in April

1938, the leather journal with him. He

married, had two sons, and lived in

New York, working chiefy as a cabi-

netmaker (though he had declared in

his diary, When I get back...Im going

to drive a taxi or a carriage. Ill wait...

in ront o the Metropolitan OperaHouse and drive society couples

slowly through Central Park on spring

nights). He wrote some short stories

and spent years on his rst novel, Rain

o Ashes, published in 1949. That year

he suered a heart attack and died.

Over 50 years later, Neugasss

typescript was discovered among

what were likely the papers o socialist

critic Max Eastmanevidently

Neugasss submission to consider or

publication. Save or a couple o

excerpts that appeared in a 1938 pam-

phlet on the Spanish Civil War,

Neugasss journal is now published or

the rst time.

Since the Spanish confict

included relatively ew Americans, we

now pay it little mind compared with

the larger one that ollowed. But the

pulse o war delivered by Spains

roads to Neugass is here delivered to

us. His narrative conveys the awul

alchemy o waras he put it, some-thing big and something terribly

human. Pity and terror, mercy and

pain, all between drawn lipsyet

also speaks o the writer himsel and

his own powers o alchemy. There w

no mock heroism in his work in aid

o the anti-Fascist cause, nor in his

aith in himsel as a writer.

One day, near the ront at Teruel

Neugass was lling in a shell hole

[when] a small limousine came tearindown the road.... Thats Hemingway

said someone pointing at the vanish-

ing cloud o dust.... Hes a writer and

Im a writer, I thought, and went bac

to work. Did Hemingway really leav

James Neugass in the dust? Dont be

so sure.Margaret Heilbrun

Kirkus Reviews

September 15, 2008

Fluent memoir by a veteran o awar that ended 70 years ago and is

switly being orgotten. . . .Neugass

writes careully o the soldiers with

whom he served, such as a Finnish

driver who habitually called Francisc

Franco a shon o a bits and another

ambulance crew that kept the dried

head o a dead enemy as a kind o

mascot. He also has a sense o the big

ger picture, o Spain as a proxy war

ought between the Axis powers and

the Soviet Union. Sometimes tele-

graphic (Fascists have big eet. Kille

three, ve, eight o them. One with

knie, others with bombs. At night.

May have to kill more.), sometimes

lyrical, Neugass depicts war rom a

worms-eye view. It is most certainly

War is Beautiful: Early Praise


11/28


not pretty, but occasionally humorous.A complement to the memoirs o

George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway,

as well as Javier Cercass novel Soldiers

o Salamis (2004)not quite in their

league, but not ar rom it.

Library Journal

September 1, 2008

Elegant prose, brutal description,

and a wry sense o humor character-

ize this journal by a poet and aspiringction writer during his months as

a Spanish civil war volunteer in the

Abraham Lincoln Brigade. . . .Neugass

records his observations with pre-

science and an eye to posterity. Ater

returning rom Spain, he sought to

have his journal published but ailed

to do so beore his untimely death

in 1949. The typescript, only recently

ound, has been edited and anno-

tated by two board members o the

Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives.

They ll in details about Neugasss

comrades and add notes that put his

remarks in context. . . .This valuable

addition to Spanish civil war his-

tory also attests to the timelessness

o a soldiers wartime emotionsthe

boredom, excitement, ear, pain, andloss. Published in time or the 70th

anniversary o the Great Retreats o the

Republican orces, this work is highly

recommended or academic libraries

and libraries with Spanish civil war

collections.Maria C. Bagshaw

Booklist

November 15, 2008

Tens o thousands ought in the

International Brigades on theRepublican side in Spains tragedy o

1936-39. One o them was the writer o

this newly discovered memoir, which

had been, according to its editors, in

the papers o Max Eastman, a leading

American Trotskyite o the 1930s.

Neugass journal reveals the quotidi

aspects o his military experience as

driver during the wars decisive cam

paign. . . Perhaps literary aspirations

vied with politics, but setting aside h

reasons or going, Neugass produced

a signicant rst-person account o t

Abraham Lincoln Brigade, in whose

medical department he served.

Continuing popular interest in the

Lincoln Brigade supports the orderin

o this vivid eyewitness. Gilbert

Taylor

Lincoln Vet Artistson Display

An exhibition of the art of Irving

Norman (906-989), a veteran of the

Abraham Lincoln Brigade, will be on

display at the Michael Rosenfeld

Gallery in New York (24 West th

Street, th floor opening) from

October 30 to December 20.

As the exhibition catalogue

explains, Norman is noted for large

surrealist paintings that stand as

detailed critiques of contemporary

life, a dark vision at once personal

and prophetic. He believed that by

pointing out the inequities, horrors,

and foibles of human behavior he

might somehow cause people toconsider the consequences of their

actions and ultimately, change.

For more information about the

purchase of his work, go to www.

michaelrosenfeldart.com.

The family of painter Anthony

Toney, another Lincoln vet who

painted a large number of canvases

over eight decades, has created a

website to display many of his works.

His works can be found at www.mesart.com/anthonytoney.

(l-r) Peter Carroll, Diane Wachtell, Peter Glazer, and the authors son Jim Neugass at

the Cervantes Institute reading in NY. Photo by Anne Sullivan.

Readers can purchase War is

Beautifuldirectly from ALBA for$26.9 plus $3.00 shipping by calling

22-64-398.

The book can also be bought online

through ALBAs website, www.alba-

valb.org.

Thank you for your support!


12/28


By Helen Graham

Editors Note: On October 10, 2008, the

British historian Helen Graham presented

the annual ALBA/Bill Susman Lecture atthe King Juan Carlos I Center o New York

University. What ollows is an abridge-

ment o that talk.

Iwant to oer some thoughts about

how we might rame the social and

cultural history o the International

Brigaders. Above all, I see them repre-

senting hybridity and heterodoxy:

they embodied it; they oten ought or

it, in Spain and elsewhere; and they

requently suered or itthose whosurvived the battleelds o Spain.

What the Brigaders were about, con-

sciously or unconsciously, was

crossing the lines, which is, I

think, as good a denition as

one can nd o how social

change happens.

Among the approximately

35,000 international volunteers

who ought or the Republic

against Franco and his as-cist backers, there were

individuals rom all over

the world. But most,

even in the two North

American contingents,

had their origins in Europe. A high

proportion o these European

migrants were already political exiles.

Not only Germans, Italians and

Austrians, but also those rom other

European countries dominated by

right-wing nationalist dictatorships,

autocratic monarchies, and the radical

(ascist) rightincluding Hungary,

Yugoslavia, Romania, Poland and

Finland. The brigaders were part o a

mass migration o people, mainly

rom the urban working classes, who

had let their countries o birth just

beore or ater World War I, either or

economic reasons or to fee political

repressionand requently both.In ghting ascism in Spain, these

exiles and migrants were explicitly

taking up unnished business that

went back at least as ar as the 1914-18

war. Its dislocations had brutalized

politics, induc-

ing the

birth o

the

anti-

demo-cratic

nationalisms that had physically dis-

placed them. In a sense, here Im

identiying in the Brigades the border-

crossing revolutionary spirit o an

earlier age: the ghosts o 1848 i you

like. Ater the ailure o the 1848 revo-

lution, the national idea in Europe was

increasingly co-opted into outright

conservative, state-building agendas.

But the idea o travelling hopeully, o

bearing change across borders, lived

on into the Brigades. I think we can

see this clearly i we explore the

border or line-crossing potentia

in terms o social change related to

race, gender and sexuality. Politically

the Brigaders own times (1918-45)were running against them. It was a

world that, ar rom opening up to

hybridity, was closing down ethni-

cally, culturally and nationallyhen

the reason the Brigaders would

remain in some ways political/existe

tial outsiders wherever they resided,

East or West.

The Brigaders were not only poli

ical soldiers. For this European civil

war was, like Spains own, also a cul-ture war. And as a European civil wa

o culture, it was also a race war.

This was not simply about

German Nazism: so many o

the European regimes

rom which brigader-

exiles had fed ater 1918

developed orms o poli

tics/desired national

order based on ethni

segregation and puricationaimed at bot

racial and other kind

o minorities. In the

traditional, rural-dom

inated societies that

were still the norm in east Europe,

these minorities included the urban

lets.

In Germany, the trade union

movement that was the Nazis rst

target cannot be described as a mino

ity; it was a mass social orce. But its

also true that the rst German con-

centration camps set up in 1933 did

incarcerate and persecute German ou

siders, the dierent, the marginal, th

hybrid, the heterodox (that culturally

Border Crossings: The InternationalBrigaders Before and After Spain

Continued on page

Bill Aalto


13/28



14/28



15/28



16/28


hybrid Germany represented so

magnicently, or example, in the pho-

tography o August Sander). And the

German international brigaders took

to Spain at least one songPeat BogSoldiers (Moorsoldaten)written by

inmates o the rst Nazi camps.

And while these rst Nazi camps

inside Germany didnt target Jews as

Jews, nevertheless many Jewish people

were among the incarcerated, and

once they were conned, then their

treatment was always among the

worst. That there were so many Jewish

volunteers in the Brigadesaround a

quarter o the totalis unsurprising ione considers rst the long history o

anti-semitism in Europe and the way

in which it was directly shaping the

puricatory and social Darwinist

politics o the European right ater

1918which by the 1930s was explic-

itly maniesting itsel in Spain, too (in

the Spanish rights resolutely anti-

semitic discourse o the

judeo-masonic-bolshevik conspiracy

against eternal Christian Spain). Andsecond, one has also to compute the

longstanding and strong radical politi-

cal tradition among Jewish migrant

communities who had fed pogroms

and endemic discrimination in Russia

and east Europesuch as was the

case o Bill Susmans own amily,

many members o which (including

his ather and mother) made the jour-

ney rom Russia to Connecticut.

Among the Polish brigaders in

Spain, too, a high proportion were

Jewish, and a specically Jewish com-

pany was ormed within the Polish

battalion, where it attracted an inter-

national membership, including Jews

rom various European countries and

Palestine, but also others, including a

Greek, two Palestinian Arabs, and a

German who, ater deserting rom the

Nazi army, insisted on serving with

this Jewish unit. Its members would

later ght (along with so many otherInternational Brigade veterans) in the

French Resistance and in other parti-

san conficts o World War II. Most

Jewish brigaders in Spain, however,

did not ght in this Jewish company,

and many saw their antiascism as a

more important mark o personal

identity than their Jewishness (which

in a sense is anyway probably better

dened as their Yiddish cultural iden-

tity, since it was inseparable rom their

secular internationalism, Zionism

being too close to the other orms o

nationalism they eschewed).

In racial and cultural as well as

political terms, then, the heterogeneity

o the Brigades made them a living

orm o opposition to the principles o

purication and brutal categorization

espoused by ascism and, above all, b

Nazism. Nor was this just about doinbattle with European demons. The

Abraham Lincoln Brigade, in which

around 90 Arican Americans ought

was the rst non-segregated Americ

military unit to exist, the U.S. Army

continuing to operate segregation

throughout World War II. Viewed

through this optic, what the

International Brigades symbolized is

spirit o uture possibility.

This same story o hybridity and

dierence as a orm o social change

in action was also played out in resi

tance movements inside Europe.

Indeed the French urban-based MOI

(Main doeuvre immigre, or migran

Rudolf Michaels

Border CrossingsContinued from page 10


17/28


labor ront) traced its origins to

International Brigade veterans

mainly escapees rom the prison camp

o Gurs. Along with French and

Spanish Republican ghters, MOIincluded Italians, Rumanians,

Armenians, Poles, Austrians, Czechs

and Hungarians.

In the MOI perhaps more than

hal were Jewish. This prole put MOI

under greater psychological pressure

than any other resistance organiza-

tion. A majority o its members were

on the wanted list three times over: as

letists, oreigners, and Jews.

In February 1944 in Paris, theoccupying orces executed 23 MOI

ghters rom a group led by the

Armenian poet Missak Manouchian.

(Among the executed were several IB

vets and a Republican Spaniard.) The

Nazis then plastered the walls o the

city with the amous Red poster. It

was an attempt to delegitimize the

Resistance through an appeal to

French chauvinism (which, o course,

would certainly have ound anapproving resonance in France).

For the Nazis war against

hybridity wasnt waged against the

European grain at all. Though Hitler

certainly ran with it, ethnic homoge-

neity as political coherence (and

psychological integrity) was an idea

shared by many people in Europe,

east, south, west and north. Indeed,

the myth o the ethnically homoge-

nous European nation state had been

most powerully represented by the

western peacemakers o 1918-19. For

the message underlying all the elabo-

rate and ultimately unworkable

machinery o minority protection was

that normality and assuring a con-

fict-ree condition required ethnic

homogeneity. Certainly in 1944, the

French Communist party understood

the social and cultural currency o the

Red poster and, in a bid to build a

national coalition around theResistance, played up its antiascism

but played down its multi-ethnic

composition.

Race also threads through the cul-

tural border/line-crossing among

North American Brigaders. Irv Go,

who ought in the Republican guer-

rilla, was in the late 1940s a reedom

rider avant la lettre, when as CPUSA

district organizer in New Orleans, in

his work to encourage black voter reg-istration, he jeopardized his lie on

more than one occasion by ignoring

southern racial customs. Go was a

disciplined party operative, but thats

not the whole story o his line cross-

ing/risk taking.

These things are intrinsically tied

up with the experience o Spain, a per-

ect illustration o which comes in

another episode/event involving both

Go and his comrade in theRepublican guerrilla, Bill Aalto, a

working-class Finnish-American rom

the Bronx, tough, intelligent, street-

wise, who became a guerrilla captain

and came out o Spain with the high-

est commendation o any awarded by

the Comintern authorities to the

Lincoln brigaders. One day, in the

spring o 1940, while Go and Aalto

were on an agitprop tour o U.S. col-

lege campuses (speaking on behal o

Republican Spain/Republican prison-

ers and reugees), they were parked in

a car near the campus o Ohio State,

and, quite suddenly, Bill tells Go hes

gay. That he should tell Go, with

whom he had a close bond rom the

war in Spain, perhaps doesnt seem

too surprising to an audience in 2008

But remember, this is 1940 (nearly 30

years beore Stonewall), and Bill was

revealing something that made him

vulnerable, not because o how he eabout being gay (which was basically

OK), but because it made him illegal

So the revelation has to be a kind o

dare or challenge: Bill reusing to pla

by the rules, reusing to accept the

need to compartmentalize his lie an

more. And why this timing? It was, I

think, pretty conclusively related to

his experience o the war.

Let me try to rehearse this,

because it applies not only to Bill, bualso more widely to the Brigaders. Fo

the war theyd ought to have mean-

ing, then lie had to change. It had to

go beyond the sterility, colorlessness,

inauthenticity, not only o the politic

status quo, but also o social conven-

tion. Ohio State is a kind o crossove

or Bill Aalto. For the rest o his lie,

his chiding rerain to riends would

always be, You see lie steady, but

you see it small. Ater Spain, he wasdetermined not to.

And this story also serves to

remind us more generally that gende

and sexuality was one variety o bor

der crossing that the old let o the

1930s generally balked at: a rontier/

line-crossing too ar. Look at what

happened when Evelyn Hutchins

applied to be sent to Spain as an

ambulance driver. She came up

against entrenched prejudice. The

political let, though keen to urther

racial equality, could conceive o

recruiting women to Spain only as

nurses or support sta. In the end

Hutchins won. But hers was an isolate

victory. And when Hutchins applied

Continued on page


18/28


during World War II to serve in the

Oce o Strategic Services, she was

turned down fat. In the world order

that emerged ater 1945, the Brigaders

ound their heterodoxy/dierence tobe, once again, surplus to the require-

ments o the new Cold War political

and social order, West and East.

In the West, the Spanish vets were

viewed, either implicitly or explicitly,

as restless subversives, politically

untrustworthy/malcontent, unpa-

triotic, potentially traitorousthe

antithesis o the authorities ideal o

a settled, demobilized, compliant

population rom which they weresilenced and excluded in various

ways. In the Eastern bloc, too, despite

the apparent dierences, things were

startlingly similar or many veterans.

The ght against ascism became

the oundational myth o the new

socialist order by 1949. But it was a

controlled and pared-down political

narrative, rigorously policed by the

state. So many Brigaders didnt t its

requirements. Ironically, we get inEast Germany the obsessive surveil-

ling o the vets (the Spanienkmper),

the very group which was supposedly

the antiascist aristocracy o the DDR.

They were closely observed as they

wrote, and rewrote, to order, their o-

cial biographies, destined or public

consumption/edication.

This death by editorialization, the

bid to reduce every Spanienkmper

to a two-dimensional Socialist Realist

hero, was another means o silencing

them. It led to hal a lietime o limbo

or one prickly, dicult, and rather

wonderul dissenting Spanienkmper,

Rudol Michaelis. An anarchist, whose

original proession was as an archaeo-

logical restorer at the Berlin state

museum, Rudols lie was traduced

by every state. First he was conned

in Nazi preventive custody. He got out

by the skin o his teeth and went into

exile in Spain, where he later joinedthe anarchist columns to ght against

Franco. Involved in the anti-state May

Days rebellion o anarchists and dis-

sident communists in Barcelona in

1937, he was imprisoned in a Spanish

Republican state jail. Released rom

there, and having taken Spanish

citizenship, Rudol ought on in the

Republican army until 1939, when

he crossed the rontier to join the

Resistance in France. Later he crossedback into Spain, where he was caught

and imprisoned in a Francoist jail or

over ve years, suering torture and

nally being repatriated to Germany

in 1946, where he ended up back with

his amily in Berlin.

Rudol Michaelis made a peace o

sorts with the new state order o the

DDR. Where else could he have gone?

Though in joining the DDRs ocial

state party, SED, he was cut dead byhis anarchist comrades in the West.

Later he was expelled rom the SED in

1951 as just too politically heterodox.

Nevertheless, the DDR still aorded

Rudol a liveable lie, both in material

terms, and, crucially, it still oered

him a means o participating in a col-

lective memory o what Spain had

signied, which, while very reductive,

was not a lie. Nor did he suer trial or

imprisonment in the DDR, though

some East German dissident vets

would do in the late 1950s.

But inevitably Rudol was con-

ned to the margins. His lie could not

be represented, indeed was literally

unspeakable within either the state

Spanienkmper script or the western

Cold war narrative o eastern victim

o Stalinism. Rudols memoirs were

eventually published under a pseud-

onym in West Germany, but not unti

1980. And in East Germany, it wasonly in the late 1970s and 1980s that h

was able to begin speaking about his

experiences o the multiplicity o ant

ascist traditionsalbeit in private

talks onlyas non-ocial, semi-pub

lic spaces or debate began to appear

Elsewhere in the Eastern bloc,

the whi o cosmopolitanism that

adhered to Spain was a death sen-

tence, very oten literally. So many o

those who were consumed in the tri-als and purgesabove all in Hungary

(1949) and Czechoslovakia (1952)ha

been in Spain, and the very act o

having been there opened them up to

charges o being, well, restless sub-

versives, politically untrustworthy/

malcontent, unpatriotic, potentially

traitorous... In Czechoslovakia in

November 1952, the Slansky trial

ocused on communists who had bee

Western emigrants, many o themInternational Brigaders. Artur Londo

the Spain vet whod been through

Mauthausen was, when arraigned,

the Czech under-secretary or oreign

aairs. In his account On Trial, what

emerges with crystal clarity is the link

between border-crossing and con-

tamination. (The state authorities

were obsessively concerned that exile

communists had been turned

by everyone, so it seemed, Gestapo,

French and U.S. intelligence services.)

Just what had they really been up to

in the cities o western exile or in the

camps o France and Arica? The MO

(Main douevre emigr) was uniorm

seen as contaminated/compromised


Continued on page


19/28


Renegades: Canadians in the Spanish

Civil War. By Michael Petrou. Vancouver:

University of British Columbia Press,

.

By Shirley Mangini

The title o Michael Petrous

ground-breaking book on the

Canadian volunteers in the

Spanish Civil War is telling. The

underlying text o this book reveals

why the men who went to Spain romCanada were truly renegades, con-

sidered as such by their government,

their countrymen, and even by some

o their military superiors in Spain.

In Renegades, Petrou weaves

human interest anecdotes gleaned

rom interviews with volunteers with

excellent historical research. He

reveals the volunteers double source

o inspiration to go to Spain to ght

ascism. The volunteers, who camerom every corner o Canada, were

largely working class men, mostly

poor and unemployed, yet politically

aware o social injustice, given that

they had suered through the

Depression. Some 80 percent o them

were also immigrants, and many lived

in relie camps, where they did public

work or pennies a day.

Petrou brings to lie the despera-

tion that characterized Canada in the

1930s and how many o the volunteers

saw the war in Spain as a way to retal-

iate against those who had oppressed

them in Canada and in their countries

o origin. The volunteers were encour-

aged and recruited by the Communist

Party o Canada and, although the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police triedto prevent them rom going to Spain,

the men went anyway. The author also

detly illuminates the act that when

they returned rom Spain, they were

unairly treated by the Canadian

government.

When the independent-minded

Canadians arrived in Spain, they were

viewed as unstructured and unruly

and, especially, politically ambivalent.

Because o this, ew were given posi-tions o authority. At rst many joined

the Abraham Lincoln Battalion and

the George Washington Battalion.

However, in the summer o 1937, the

Canadian Mackenzie-Papineau

Battalionnamed ater the two lead-

ers who led the Canadian rebellion

against British imperialists in 1837

was ormed at Albacete under the

command o Edward Cecil-Smith, a

journalist rom Toronto.The Mac-Paps ought bravely in

the Fuentes del Ebro oensive, as well

as in the erocious battle at Teruel, but

German and Italian intervention

caused the retreat o the surviving

Lincolns and Mac-Paps in the spring

o 1938. When they tried to regroup at

the Ebro River in the villages o Mar

and Falset, morale was deteriorating,

and many o the volunteers wanted to

return home. Their nal brave attempt

to reverse the grim reality, once the

Franco orces had succeeded in divid-

ing Spain in two, was disastrous, and

by September 1938, the Republican

government decided to send the

International troops home. Some

Canadians were accused o being

Troskyites and, in some cases, they

were punished or imprisoned.

In the nal chapters, Petrou dis-

cusses the activities o severalvolunteers. The most ascinating stor

is that o Dr. Norman Bethune, who

well known or setting up the rst

mobile blood transusion unit in

Spain. Petrou praises Bethunes work

in Spain, while at the same time

attempting to clariy the controversie

surrounding him.

Petrou concludes his study with

an analysis o the unair treatment o

the Canadian volunteers in their owncountry ater the civil war. Not only

were they considered subversives,

but they were also seen as suspect

when they tried to enlist or active

duty in World War II. This treatment

continued into the 1970s, when the

remaining Mac-Pap vets tried to app

or non-prot status. The governmen

reused their request, according to

the author, because it was araid to

oend the eneebled GeneralssimoFranco. In act, the Canadian govern

ment has never ocially recognized

the Mac-Paps or their war eorts.

The author poignantly ends his

book with his visit to a dying vet,

Maurice Constant. Constant struggles

describe the bitter-sweet reality o wha

the Canadian volunteers had attempte

to do in Spain. Petrous intention here,

describe the motivations o the volun-

teers and their ironic ate, is carried ou

masterully, in spite o the act that

much o the history o those who per-

ishedover 400 out o the 1,700 who

oughtis still a mystery.

Shirley Mangini is author ofMemories

of Resistance: Womens Voices from the

Spanish Civil War.

Book Reviews

Canadian Volunteers


20/28


Book Reviews

Anglo-American Hispanists and the

Spanish Civil War. Hispanophilia,Commitment, and Discipline.By

Sebastiaan Faber. New York: Palgrave

Macmillan, .

By Nol Valis

Aclearly written and solidly doc-

umented book,Anglo-American

Hispanists and the Spanish Civil

War is o interest to both Hispanists

and non-Hispanists. In a well-articu-lated, largely even-handed argument,

Faber pursues a double goal: outlin-

ing, through the institutional history

and individual case studies, the

complicated relation between Anglo-

American Hispanists and the Spanish

Civil War, and explaining the role that

relation played in the development o

Hispanism in the English-speaking

world. While the rst goal will prob-

ably attract readers o The Volunteermore than the second, both parts o

his argument are noteworthy or illus-

trating yet another ramication o the

Spanish Civil War, the eect it had on

literary critics and historians whose

main ocus o study was Spain. Thus,

this book is as much about Hispanism

as it is about the Hispanist relation-

ship to the civil war. It is also about

how hard it is at times to separate

proessionalized Hispanism rom

Hispanophilia, the love or things

Spanish that rst spilled over in thebooks o enthusiastic amateurs.

Faber argues that within the

academic community, politics and

scholarship tended to be compart-

mentalized in the 1930s and 40s.

When the war erupted in July 1936,

Hispanists were torn between an ideal

o scholarly objectivity and moral-polit-

ical convictions, intensied by the love

that initially inspired them to dedicate

their proessional lives to Spain, its lit-erature, culture and history.

Faber concentrates rst on the

institutional reaction o such organs as

the American Association o Teachers

o Spanish (Portuguese was added

later), as seen in the pages o its

journal,Hispania, though I missed

seeing the same attention paid to the

institutional case o historians. How

did teachers o Spanish literature react

to the war? They were pretty muchdivided within the organization, but

remained by and large silent in public.

In contrast, British Hispanists were

more vocal.

The extent to which Hispanists

spoke up depended in part on whether

they were aliated with an institution

o higher learning. A reelance

historian like Herbert Southworth dove

head rst into the political-ideological

ray in books such as the ground-

breaking Guernica! Guernica! A Study o

Journalism, Diplomacy, Propaganda, and

History (1977). The Anglo-Irish Gerald

Brenan also went his own way with the

classic Spanish Labyrinth (1943), which

mostly steered clear o national and

cultural stereotyping, ocusing instead

on the historical, economic, political,

and religious actors that shaped

modern Spain.Faber explores the aective and

intellectual lives o our Hispanists t

demonstrate the tensions between

scholarly pursuit and political com-

mitment: Herbert Southworth, Paul

Patrick Rogers, E. Allison Peers, and

Gerald Brenan. Their complicated li

trajectories and relation to Spain mak

or stimulating reading. Southworth

and Rogers leaned letward, while

Brenan was more moderate and Peerwas a deeply religious (Church o

England) conservative.

Both Brenan and Peers shited

ideologically ater the war. As Faber

notes, Peers, the premier Hispanist o

British academia, was never a ully-

blown Francoist, though many

considered him one, and he became

increasingly disillusioned with the

Franco regimes repressive policies an

support o the Nazis. Brenans positiotowards Franco became more ambigu

ous ater he returned to Spain in 1953

Southworth remained constant t

his political views and his devotion t

Spain and the Republic.

Rogers, a proessor o Spanish at

Oberlin College, who wrote a diary o

his short visit to Spain during the wa

and stumped or the Republic, grew

silent in the atermath o the Cold W

era. We know he was trailed by the

FBI between 1943 and the late 1960s,

his travels to Mexico arousing suspi-

cions. His later trajectory also points

to the growing trend towards Pan

Americanism and the study o Latin

America within U.S. Hispanism.

For Love of Spain

Nol Valis, professor of Spanish at Yale

University, is the editor ofTeaching

Representations of the Spanish Civil War

() and the author of the forthcoming

book, Sacred Realism. Religion and the

Imagination in Modern Spanish Narrative.Continued on page


21/28


Book Reviews

We Saw Spain Die. Foreign

Correspondents in the Spanish Civil

War.By Paul Preston. London, Constable

& Robinson, .

By Angela Jackson

Paul Preston, highly regarded as

the author o many outstanding

books about the Spanish Civil

War, now brings his encyclopedicknowledge to bear on a dierent

aspect o the confict: the oreign cor-

respondents who risked their lives

and sometimes damage to their pro-

essional careers to report on what

they saw in Spain. With his customary

skill, Preston weaves together the his-

torical context, the work o the

correspondents, and their human sto-

ries behind the news.

Determined detective work hasunearthed new material that enriches

the content in 12 wide-ranging chap-

ters. The great tragedies o the war are

conveyed through the wonderul writ-

ings o correspondents such as Jay

Allen, who reported on the massacre

at Badajoz, and George Steer, who

shocked the world with his descrip-

tion o the bombing o Guernica.

There is political intrigue aplenty as,

or example, in chapters dedicated to

evaluating the evidence in the case o

the disappearance o Jos Robles and

on the role o Mikhail Koltsov in

Spain.

Especially moving are the

accounts o the struggles the corre-

spondents aced to get their stories

out. Ater overcoming the problems o

censorship in Spain, they requently

had to convince their own newspaper

editors that the reports on Nationalist

bombings and reprisals were not wild

exaggerations but unpalatable truths.

The last communication rom Louis

Delapre beore he was killed on a

fight rom Spain to Paris was an

indictment o the policy being imple-

mented by his employer, Paris-Soir.Hal o Delapres reports had not

been published, thereby leaving room

or extensive coverage on the love lie

o Edward VIII and the abdication cri-

sis in England. You have made me

work or the wastepaper basket, he

wrote. I shall send nothing more

The massacre o a hundred Spanish

children is less interesting than a sigh

rom Mrs. Simpson.

Prestons chapter on the rebel zonereveals the heavy restrictions imposed

by Franco to prevent correspondents

rom seeing what was happening or

themselves, leaving them eeling, as

one journalist wrote, like a bunch o

schoolgirls under the guidance o a

schoolmistress. Not only was censor-

ship much more tightly enorced by

the Nationalists than by the Loyalists,

but the reporters also suered a

greater degree o mistreatment i they

stepped out o line.

One o the great strengths inherent

in Prestons writing is his ability to por-

tray the characters in historic dramas

with wit and vitality. Idiosyncratic per-

sonalities leap rom the pages to

engage the reader. Hugh Slaters white

Rolls Royce is dreadully noticeable o

the battleeld. Ernest Hemingway

treats all and sundry with splurging

magnicence at the Hotel Florida.Thwarted in love, the dissolute Basil

Murray acquires an ape. Gonzlez

Aguilera, a Nationalist press ocer,

believes the war was caused by the

introduction o modern sewers or the

masses.

But it is the humanity o the corr

spondents that gives the book its

warmth. Most were deeply aected b

their experiences in Spain, rom

Martha Gelhorn, who would have notruck with what she called all that

objectivity shit, to Arthur Koestler,

who wrote, Anyone who has lived

through the hell o Madrid with his

eyes, his nerves, his heart and his

stomachand then pretends to be

objective, is a liar. However, as Paul

Preston demonstrates, it was possible

to combine high proessional stan-

dards with a passionate belie in the

Spanish Republic, though this beliebrought much sadness in its wake.

We let our hearts there, wrote

Herbert Matthews.

Paul Preston has written a book

that will be valuable not only as a ke

work o reerence, but also as a mov-

ing testimony to those who had the

courage to bring Spains story to the

world.

Angela Jackson, a British historian and

author of several books on the civil war

lives in Catalonia, where she is presiden

of the historical association No Jubilem

la Memria (nojubilemlamemoria.cat).

Political Intrigue, Censorship,

and Humanity


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(because o its contact with OSS), and

thus its surviving veteran ghters

were seen as suspect. While this was at

some level about tangible ears born o

a sense o political vulnerability, thereis also something else here, an echo o

social Darwinism; a ear o change/

dierence/complexity. Things which

challenged the stability o the ocial

state, by the challenge posed to social

uniormity/ homogeneity, all o which

was expressed as a ear o contamina-

tion. As a crucial element o this we

must also note the anti-semitism

which inhabited much o the onslaught

against communist exiles and Brigadeveterans during the purges and trials

Jews being seen in the ocial Soviet

optic as the epitome o untrustworthy,

heterodox communists (i.e. untrust-

worthy because heterodox).

Thus state agendas sought to

exclude/silence/pathologize the sel-

same progressive, questioning

dynamic that inhabited the

International Brigadersthe very

thing that had taken them to Spain. Asthe German writer and ormer Brigade

commander, Ludwig Renn, com-

mented in utter perplexity in the DDR

in 1952: It seems that everything con-

nected with [Spain] is cancelled.

Supposedly this is happening because

there were too many traitors there. I

dont understand such points o view.

McCarthyism itsel was not as

deadly as the east European trials

though it did certainly cause deaths,

including some suicides. But state

repression always takes its orm

according to local political culture.

And there are many ways o killing

people without physically executing

them or putting them in gulags. That

is to say, you can kill someones spirit

without physically liquidating them,

by making them totally unemploy-

able, or else unemployable in anything

remotely approaching what they eel

called to do by virtue o their talents.Reducing people to poverty, making

lie unliveable, getting them thrown

out o their homes and thus indirectly

breaking up their amilies and their

personal relationships, all o which

did ollow, as we know only too well,

rom McCarthyisms legal repressive

practices.

Mexico, while it in some ways pro-

vided a reuge (though not a haven)

or persecuted American radicals, alsoposed many undamental existential

problems, especially or the cultural

workers who loomed large among this

particular exile. The writer Howard

Fast, son o a Russian migrant, and

who himsel served a prison term in

1947 as part o the Lincoln vets

Spanish reugee relie committee that

reused to reveal to the Un-American

Activities Committee the names and

addresses o its donors and supporters,wrote luminously about the signi-

cance o the Lincolns leave-taking o

Spain in his exquisite short story

Departures, which captures that cen-

tral eeling that so many vets the world

over sharednamely that eeling o

being burned by Spain, or transgured,

but never being the same, or sure, and

not being able to t again, anywhere,

everanother kind o exile, to add to

the territorial and political.

In Fasts superb autobiography,

Being Red (1990), he relates his encoun-

ter with his riend the screenwriter

Albert Maltz, one o the Hollywood

Ten (the lm workers indicted or con-

tempt during the late 1940s witch-hunt

in Hollywood). Fast meets him in

Mexico where, in spite o deep eelin

o cultural alienation, Maltz has

resolved to remain, so terried is he

the potential eects o the draconian

Communist Control Act o 1954. Ihave no roots here, he tells Fast. Ou

lives are our language. But Maltz ha

been so seared by his experience o

prison that he just cant risk it again:

have to live, I have to nd love. I have

books that I must write.

Spain haunted Maltz and Fast, as

haunted them all, because it was a sit

o possibility, o becoming. And that

why it haunts us still. For all the blea

ness o its atermath, it stands as areminder o the possibility o becom-

ing; o a journey without maps; o

the great Spanish poet Antonio

Machados reminder that the road do

not exist, we make it by walking, by

crossing bordersthat doing so hurt

but that its also necessary.

Helen Grahams most recent boo

isA Very Short Introduction to the

Spanish Civil War (2005).

Faber is acutely aware that the

our individuals presented here, thei

outspokenness and willingness to

take a public stand, are not necessari

representative o the larger commu-

nity o Anglo-American Hispanists,

the silence he perceives as especially

indicative o U.S. Hispanism overall

is indeed the case. But their enduring

passion or Spain is shared among th

greater community o Hispanists.

This is an excellent study that is

itsel Fabers own labor o love.

FaberContinued from page 18



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Added to Memorys Roster

Aaron Hilkevitch(1912-2008)

Aaron Hilkevitch, who served

as a medical doctor in the Spanish

Republican Army during the civil

war and was the last surviving

Illinois member o the Abraham

Lincoln Brigade, died in Chicago

on October 4. He was 96.Specializing in psychiatry, Aaron

practiced in Chicago or over 50 years,

merging his proessional work with a

distinctly let political point o view.

Dr. Hilkevitch saw psychoanalysis as

a route to personal reedom and integ-

rity, said a ormer colleague, Dr.

Robert Galatzer-Levy. During the

Vietnam War, he was sympathetic to

drat-age men seeking deerments,

provided ree services or poor

patients, and was arrested at a protest

demonstration supporting a ree local

clinic.

Aaron was born in Odessa, Russia,

but he let his homeland with his am-

ily when the Bolsheviks rose to power

in the 1917 revolution. Eventually

settling in Chicago, he joined the

Young Communist League and

received a bachelors degree rom the

University o Chicago and a medical

degree rom the University o Illinois.In Spain, Aaron provided surgical

services or wounded soldiers. During

World War II, he enlisted in the U.S.

Army and worked as a chie o psychi-

atry stateside.

Dr. Hilkevitch also taught and

worked with residents at the

University o Chicago Hospitals or

many years. While his successul prac-

tice allowed him to lead a comortable

lie, aversion to capitalism guidedalmost all o his actions. Not a penny

in the stock market, his daughter

Victoria remembered.

He is survived by his wie, Joyce,

three daughters and two step-

children.

Jack Shafran(1917-2008)

Jack Sharan, one o the youngest

volunteers in the Lincoln Brigade, died

on November 15 at a rehabilitation

center in Connecticut. He had su-

ered a stroke shortly ater returning

rom the October reunion o the

International Brigades in Catalonia.

He was born in New York on

Christmas day, 1917. As a teenager,

he became involved in union orga-nizing during the Depression and

was co-ounder o Local 1250 o the

Department Store Workers union. A

dozen members o that local served i

Spain, including Jack, who ought in

1937 and 1938 as a member o the 15t

Brigade.

Jack enlisted in the U.S. Army in

1940, prior to the invasion o the Sov

Union. Ater the war he began a suc-

cessul career in the constructionindustry.

During the postwar anti-commu

nist campaign, Jack did not escape

government harassment. Starting in

the 1950s, the IRS invited him or an

audit o his income tax returnor 2

years straight. They never ound a

dime out o place, he said.

Jack was denied a passport or

more than three decades. The govern

ment nally relented. In 1986 Jacktraveled to Spain to ulll a pledge h

had made to himsel while ghting i

the Aragon.

One o Jacks rst stops during

that visit was at El Valle de los Caido

the military monument near Madrid

where ascist leader Francisco Franco

is buried. Jack had bought a small vi

at a pharmacy, and at his hotel that

morning he had lled it with his own

urine. As he stood atop El Caudillos

grave he opened the vial and emptie

its contents.

A memorial service will be held

on December 6 at the Douglaston Clu

in Douglaston, Long Island.

Steve Dinnen

Memorys Roster continued on page


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John RujevcicGerlach

(1915-2008)

John R. Gerlach, ormer

Intelligence Ocer o the 15th Brigade,which included the Abraham Lincoln

Battalion, died on August 12 at the age

o 93 in Camarillo, Caliornia.

Born Ivan Rujevcic in Vurota,

Croatia, where he lived until the age

o 13, John came to the U.S. in 1928. In

Detroit he reunited with his mother,

Maritza Rujevcic, and his stepather,

Anthony Gerlach, then a labor union

organizer and a national Croatian

political leader as well as Secretary

o the International Workers Order.

Under the guidance o his stepather,

John became a union organizer him-

sel at the age o 20, and he organized

the restaurant workers on Greek

Street in Detroit. Soon ater, he trav-

eled to Moscow with a scholarship

to study at Moscows University o

the National Minorities o the West

in 1935 and 1936, where he gained

skills in engineering and political

science, encompassing Marxism andLeninismskills that would perma-

nently and dramatically inorm and

alter his lie.

In December 1936, back in New

York City, John R. Gerlach was

recruited by his ormer Moscow pro-

essor, Mirko Markovic, to serve in the

International Brigades deending the

Spanish Republic. In Spain, John was

immediately named Lieutenant and

Intelligence Ocer responsible orEnglish-speaking and South-Slav-

speaking Aairs, working at the

International Brigade base in Albacete.

Using the nom de guerre o Ivan, he

later served as 15th Brigade Sta

Ocer and Head o Intelligence and

Counter-Intelligence at the ront,

where he personally took Ernest

Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn and

Herbert Matthews to the ront lines in

his sta car.John is listed and pictured in his-

tory books alongside prominent

Lincoln Brigade ocers Major Robert

Merriman and Commissar Dave

Doran. He is cited in many books or

his heroic role in leading a column o

some 100 top Americans out o a as-

cist encirclement toward the Ebro

River, which many o them lived to

cross. At that time, John also guided

two Americans to the banks o the

Ebro, where he spotted a canoe and

rowed them across the swollen river at

dawn, only to be greeted by oreign

correspondents Hemingway and

Vincent Sheean. Hemingway recorded

Johns account in the New York Times,

citing the Scout Ocer Ivan as his

source o inormation. John is also

described as a Croatian Hero in a his

torical work by the Croatian historia

Juro Gajdek. His war memoir, Behin

Enemy Lines, was published in theVALB anthology, Our Fight.

John leaves behind his wie,

Sonya, o Oxnard Shores and our

sons and their respective amilies. H

is dearly remembered or his satirica

wit, earthy charm, winning smile an

zesty passion or riends and amily,

as well as or his wide love o world

literature.Quentin Guerlain

Max Gerchik(1911-2008)

Max Gerchik, who served in the

medical units during the Spanish Civ

War, died in southern Caliornia on

September 21.

Max was born in Brooklyn, New

York, on January 16, 1911. He attende

schools in New York and enrolled inmedical school at the University o

Berne in Switzerland. When civil war

began in Spain, he immediately

dropped out o medical school (tempo

rarily), and he had joined the

Republican orces on the Zaragoza Fro

by day two o the war. The times he

spent ghting Franco and the rise o a

cism in Europe were among the

proudest moments o his lie, and time

he talked about right until the end.

He is survived by his wie, Reca,

and their children.

Added to Memorys Roster

From Quentin Guerlain Collection

www.alba-valb


25/28


GENERAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Supporter ($1,000 - $4,999) Charles Chatfield-Taylor Carmen De Zulueta Greenebaum

Friend ($500 - $999) Robert Leedy

Patron ($100 - $499) Peter N. Carroll in memory of Aaron Hilkevitch Henry and Judy Jacobs Marvin Lee in honor of WayneA. Bowers Fred and Claire Lisker in memory of Bill Sennett Jay Nadel in memory of Paul Blane, MD EllynPolshek Eileen and Ted Rowland in memory of Steve and Margaret Nelson Leonore Veltfort in memory of TedVeltfort Sydney T. Wright in memory of Aaron Hilkevitch

Donor ($1 - $99) Joshua Barnett Jose Emilie Benjamin Tobyanne Berenberg Rosemary Blieszner in memory of AaronHilkevitch Jonathon Brauer in memory of Aaron Hilkevitch Alan Bromberg and Myrna Brier in memory ofMorris Brier Kevin Cathcart Darlene Ceremello Wendy Chavkin Alice Correll Abe Cotton De Gofffamily in memory of David Smith Dydia Delyser Genevieve Dishotsky Noel and Catherine Folsom Paul

E. Gottlieb Linda Grant Louise Graziani Linda Grossman in memory of Aaron Hilkevitch Victor Grossman Elyne Handler Earl Harju Dale Hopper in memory of Albert John Baumler, Harold Edward Dahl, and FrankGlasgow Tinker, Jr. Robert Inget Gabriel Jackson Shirley Katz-Cohen in memory of Ben Barsky Lisa Keinerin memory of Max Katz Frederic La Croix Jo Labanyi Betty Levitin in memory of Margaret McMurray Consuelo Lopez-Morillas in memory of Aaron Hilkevitch Gerri Matusewitch Bess and Phyllis Meisler in memoof Alice Blaustein Benjamin Nahman in memory of Sara Nahman Blaustein Stanley Ofseuit Roberta Oliff inmemory of Aaron Hilkevitch Ann and Vittorio Ottanelli Fraser Ottanelli in memory of Bob Thompson Adeleand Henry Pollard Morris and Matilda Rosen in memory of Abe Osheroff William L. Rukeyser in memory ofFrank Tinker Mark Samara in memory of Alice Blaustein Rose and Carl Silverman in memory of Max Silverman Richard Simmons Ada Solodkin in memory of Leo Solodkin Jean Sowa William D. Strong Michael Tanze Murray Underwood Carol Wells and Ted Hajjar Janet Zampieri in memory of Ted Veltfort

MONUMENT MAINTENANCE FUND CONTRIBUTIONS

Donors Pearl G. Baley Darlene Ceremello Dydia Delyser Thomas Graff Rafael Inigo Jo Labanyi BettyLevitin in memory of Margaret McMurray Cecilia London Lois Lowenstein Ruth Maguire Shaun OConnellAnn and Vittorio Ottanelli Ellyn Polshek August and Joanne Ricca Marie Runyon Luise S. Stone Patricia RTanttila Gloria Waldman Vivian Weinstein

The above donations were made from August 1 through October 31, 2008. All donations made after October 31will appear in the March 2009 issue ofThe Volunteer.

Your continued support of ALBA and its important projects is so appreciated!


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Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives


28/28

New York and the Spanish Civil War exhibition inBarcelona. Photograph by Jeannette Ferrary.

Hilda Roberts, one of the few surviving vets, at

the San Francisco Bay Area Despedida event.

See page . Photograph by Richard Bermack.

The Volunteerc/o Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives

Broadway, Suite

New York, NY

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