vol. xxv1, no.1 march 2004 patriots act!

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��Vol. XXV1, No.1 March 2004

Patriots Act!

Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn.org. The organization was honored by the Lincoln vets at the San Francisco Bay Areareunion for its patriotic acts in battling the Bush administration on the frontlines of cyberspace.

"What is it to be a patriot? To wrapyourself in the flag, or really stand up for what it represents? To trample ondemocratic rights, or defend them?”

from Patriots Act!This year’s San Francisco Bay Area reunion featured Patriots Act,written and directed by Peter Glazer with musical direction byBruce Barthol. The show was performed by members of the SanFrancisco Mime Troupe on February 29 and included a stellarperformance by veteran folk singer Barbara Dane. Don’t missthe New York performance on May 2. See back page for details.

More photos of the SF reunion on page 3. PHOTOS BY RICHARD BERMACK

From Madrid to Cyberspace

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Dear Editor,My trip to Spain of October 27-November 2 (with son

John Kailin and daughter Julie Kailin and Member of theWisconsin Friends of the Lincoln Brigade, Judith Klehr)was personally very rewarding because it was the occasionfor the release of the Spanish translation of my 1992manuscript of the letters of, and testimonials to JohnCookson, “Recordando a John Cookson un antifastica deWisconsin en la guerra civil española, 1937-1938” [“TheMemories of John W. Cookson, a Wisconsin Anti-Fascist in theSpanish Civil War”].

In Albacete, Antonio Roncero, the Vice-Chancellor ofthe University of Castilla-La Mancha, which published thebook, held a press conference announcing the publication,where the book was first released to the public in the pres-ence of a host of TV cameras and broadcast and printjournalists. This was covered on the local TV news. Severallocal residents and employees of the Europa Hotel wherewe were staying who saw the conference report, stoppedme and gave very warm congratulations.

Two daily papers, La Tribuna de Albacete and El Pueblode Albacete featured stories of the press conference and the

book’s release. The same evening I spoke to a class of 55college students in the class of History Professor ManuelRequena Gallego, who had arranged for the University topublish the book.

At 11:00 p.m. that night I was on Albacete TV (Ch.TVA) with my friend and translator of the book, JuanMaria Gómez Ortiz and Manuel Requena. We appearedlive on a 20 minute segment of a magazine-format showhosted by the popular TV anchor Raquel Haro, a delightfulperson who asked many insightful questions.

The next day, October 31 we drove to Marçà [“marr-

2 THE VOLUNTEER March 2004

The VolunteerJournal of the

Veterans of theAbraham Lincoln Brigade

an ALBA publication

799 Broadway, Rm. 227New York, NY 10003

(212) 674-5398

Editorial BoardPeter Carroll • Leonard LevensonGina Herrmann • Fraser Ottanelli

Abe Smorodin

Book Review EditorShirley Mangini

Design ProductionRichard Bermack

Editorial AssistanceCarla Healy-London

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

E-mail: [email protected]

Letters SAH”] where I returned to John Cookson’s grave. Therewe laid a wreath of laurel leaves, joining over a hundredpeople in a solemn remembrance. They were part of a tourof important sites where the Internationals last marched inMarçà just before the famous repatriation march inBarcelona in 1938. Two other brigadistas joined us here:Harry Randall, Lincoln Brigade photographer whose warphotos were on display in a local gallery; and MiltonWolff, the Lincolns’ last commander. I later spoke brieflyabout Cookson and the Spanish edition of the book at theCity Hall to an audience of several hundred.

We also participated in a special session of a confer-ence held at the City Hall. This was an interviewconducted by two of my kids who joined me on the tripwith two highly respected Spaniards, Leandro Saun andCarmen Casas. They had briefly and accidentally met Johnand Julie at the 1996 Homenage in Barcelona, and we hadall since connected and become friends. Leandro foughtwith the Republican army. He and I have almost identicalshrapnel wounds in our arms, mine at the Ebro from Hill666, and his from very nearby. After the war both Leandroand Carmen became important leaders in the Resistance inFrance, and in later years in the underground of FrancoSpain, where he led the organization of the CommunistParty in three provinces. Leandro and Carmen were both

SUBSCRIPTIONSBeginning with the next issue, annualsubscriptions to The Volunteer will be availableto libraries and other institutions. The Volunteeris published four times a year, in March, June,September, and December. Library rates: $40 (4 issues)Individual rates: $30 (4 issues)Back issues (when available): $10Make checks payable to ALBA and send to:ALBA799 Broadway, Rm 227New York, NY 10003

Continued on page 19

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In the 1930s taking a stand meant picking up a gun andfighting fascism in Spain. Today the internet has replaced thegun, and MoveOn.org, the vets’ honoree, is on the frontlines,using the internet to fight the war-mongering agenda of theneo-cons and the Bush administration. MoveOn.org has forged anationwide network of more than 1.7 million activists and hasraised millions of dollars for key congressional campaigns. Tofind out more, visit them at www.moveon.org.

THE VOLUNTEER March 2004 3

Patriots Act!“I am a revolutionary in the sense that I understand the word. I don’t find it athreatening word. It’s a nice word, it’s a good word. It’s an honorable word.And people who are revolutionaries are honorable people....Some of themhave even emerged as national heroes, like Benjamin Franklin and ThomasJefferson.” Saul Wellman from Patriots Act!, VALB reunion program

Abe Osheroff and folk singer Barbara Dane had theirown reunion at the event. "The last time I saw Abewas in 1964. He was hammering nails on a roof,building a community center in Mississippi," Danerecalled, noting their involvement in the civil rightsmovement during Freedom Summer.

The vets take the stage(top); Hilda Roberts(above left); activistMedea Benjamin, whointroduced Joan Blades,and vet Nate Thornton(above right); JoanBlades (right). Photos byRichard Bermack.

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By Jamie O’Reilly

On a frigid January afternoon inChicago, a loyal audience offamily, friends, teachers, and

neighborhood youth braved theweather to attend a performance of“play/dead jugar/muerte, a shout outfrom the Spanish Civil War for thefreedom of the world.” The house waspacked in the intimate third floor FreeStreet Theater on Chicago’s Northside.

Written and performed by a 10person multi-ethnic ensemble ofChicago area high school and collegestudents and directed by JennyMagnus, with myself, Jamie O’Reilly,acting as musical director,“play/dead” energetically exploredthe events of the Spanish Civil Warand its meaning for today’s genera-tion. Inspired by songs, texts, andpersonal histories from the AbrahamLincoln Brigade Archives, the pro-gram also made an emotionalstatement from the urban youth whopresented a frank and entertaining per-spective on today’s political climate.

The original script consists ofsongs integrated with short scenes,many based on theater games.“’Play/Dead’ or, in Spanish,juega/muerte (as in to play a game),tocar/muerte (as in to play an instru-ment), obra de teatro/muerte, (a play,obra means ‘it builds,’ so it’s literally‘to build a theater’); all these meaningswere important to the student/cre-ators of this performance,” saidDirector Jenny Magnus.

“In learning, mostly for the firsttime, about the Spanish Civil War andthe Abraham Lincoln Brigade, theystruggled with the enormous com-plexity of the history, and were struckby the role of women, the racial equal-ity, and the uneasy parallels to ourcurrent situation in the world. Theirconfrontation with the historical mate-rial inspired them to design acollective collage of their own impres-sions, fears, jokes, and challenges.

These actor/creators undertook a risk;the risk that all creativity, and particu-larly collaboration, is a force for socialchange, inherently positive and con-structive in the face of so muchdestruction.”

The music and songs emboldenthe piece, contributing both a sense ofhistory through the performance ofthe best-loved songs of the War, and asense of the present. The originalmusic: a folkdance, an anthem (basedon a Langston Hughes poem), and a bitof hip-hop, exhibit the composer-actors’ability to honor the stories and interpretthem in a contemporary voice.

“Now that I know what I know, Iwant everybody to know about it!”said Columbia College Theater stu-dent and cast member David Watkins,21, in a stirring post show discussion,when asked what struck him aboutthe project.

“I didn’t expect it to be so interest-ing,” said Keisha Hill, 19, a Free StreetEnsemble member, who chose the let-ters of Salaria Kea for one of herscenes.

For Abram Rabinowitz 27, animprov actor and writer of theExecution Game Show scene, it wasthe reality that in Nazi concentrationcamps Jewish prisoners dug their owngraves and participated in their ownexecutions that struck him.

What affected the ensemble mostoccurred early in the creative process,when they viewed the film The GoodFight and then heard from Lincoln vetCharles Hall and his wife Bobby. Itwas Chuck’s story of courage anddetermination, they said, that madethem want to tell the story.

Background of the ProjectIn 2002, I agreed to help Chicago

Friends of the Lincoln Brigade find acontext to pass on to young people thehistory that can inform and inspirecurrent generations to make a commit-ment to peace and justice in their time.I turned to Free Street, an award-win-ning community arts organization thatcreates original theater with youth.With the help of former directorDavid Schein and Special ProjectsDirector Bryn Magnus, we were ableto form a unique collaborationbetween Columbia College TheaterDepartment, Music TheatreWorkshop, Free Street Programs,Proyecto hACE, Urban MissionsProgram of the Office of CommunityArts Partnerships, Columbia CollegeChicago (OCAP), and Chicago Friendsof the Lincoln Brigade, ALBAAssociates.

Funds came in large part fromOCAP, with additional gifts from the

“Play/Dead”: Chicago Youth ShowSpanish Civil War


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By Shirley Mangini

When hundreds of thousandsof Spaniards fled for theirlives into France in 1939, they

languished in concentration camps—cold, hungry and often ill andwounded. Fascism was quickly tak-ing over France; the Spaniards were inthe midst of a second apocalypse.Thousands died along with the Jewsin German death camps. Yet for themore fortunate, sympathy came fromthe post-revolutionary Mexican gov-ernment of Lázaro Cárdenas(l934-l940), the only Latin Americanleader who supported the Alliedforces during World War II.

The day after the end of theSpanish Civil War, April 2, l939,aware of the imminence of the Naziinvasion of France, Mexico signed atreaty with the Vichy government toprotect the Spanish exiles. Thousandsof Spaniards began to arrive at theport of Veracruz that year; some twen-ty to thirty thousand would reachMexican shores in the early l940s.

Among the Spanish exiles, therewere hundreds of prominent intellectu-als who were invited to take refuge inMexico. Most of them made their wayto Mexico City and rapidly becameengaged in a cooperative effort withthe Mexican intellectuals who hadsupported and welcomed them. Theymade a mark in pedagogy, philosophi-cal thought, literary and artisticendeavors, and publishing. Some,including Octavio Paz, think they pro-voked the turning point for thecreation of Mexico City as one of thetwo greatest cultural centers of theAmericas (the other was Buenos Aires).

Recently, the descendents ofSpanish exiles formed the Asociaciónde Descendientes del Exilio Español.As their first activity on April l4, 2003,they paid homage to Lázaro Cárdenas.The commemoration of a monumentin his honor took place in the ParqueNorte in Madrid, erected there when

democracy was restored after thedeath of Franco. The Association isnow planning to request that theMadrid government place a commem-orative plaque at the base of themonument with the words of states-man Alvaro de Albornoz who in l940expressed gratitude for Cárdenas’support of the Aid to SpanishRepublicans Group (J.A.R.E.).

The plaque will read: “Foreigner,stop and remove your hat: This is thePresident of Mexico, Lázaro Cárdenas,the father of the Spaniards without acountry and without rights, persecut-ed by tyranny and disinheritedbecause of hate.”

Alvaro de Albornoz had promisedthat when democracy was restored in

Spain, there would be a monument toCárdenas with a granite base from theGuadarrama Mountains with thisinscribed statement. Since onlyCardenas’ name and biographical datesare stated at present, unfortunately,most people do not know who he wasand how he saved so many Spanishexiles from the fate of those who couldnot find shelter from Nazism.

Lázaro Cárdenas’ son, CuauhtémocCárdenas Batel, recently reaffirmed hisinterest in having Albornoz’ words ofgratitude inscribed at the base of thestatue. The Association invites any-one who wishes to support them orhas any ideas about how to achievetheir goal to contact: [email protected]

Spanish Exiles Pay Homage to Lázaro Cárdenas

By Miguel Ángel Nieto

The year 2003 ended in Spain withan historic and heartfelt homageto those who fought for freedom

and those who were victims of Franco,not just during the Civil War of 1936-39, but also to those who sufferedunder four decades of dictatorship.They had to wait more than sixtyyears until the end of the war, andmore than twenty-five until the deathof the dictator, for the political partiesto reach a consensus that the flag ofthe Republic should finally fly in theCongress of Deputies, borne by 350aged antifascists who filled the seatsof the Cortés.

There were more than 60 movingstatements in which each speaker madespecific reference to those who sufferedexile, those who languished in jails andconcentration camps, to theInternational Brigades who left theiryouth in that distant war, and of course,to the fallen, many of whom still lie inunmarked common graves. There werecheers for the Republic as the politicians

praised those present, telling them:“You are the voice and the face of thosewho cannot be here today.”

And everything would have beenperfect, splendid and historic, if theruling party of Spain, José MaríaAznar’s Popular Party, had also sup-ported this long awaited act ofnational reconciliation. This act sonecessary for its symbolic significance,an act that the country had awaitedfor so long. But no. The PP’sspokesman to Congress, Luis deGrandes, rather than offering a ges-ture of respect for those whodefended the Republic, publicly repu-diated the event, calling it a “mothballrevival” orchestrated by people“intent on paying homage to Godknows who.”

The fact is that they, the rightwing, don’t know who. They do notrecognize the thousands who sufferedFranco’s reprisals and still have noright to compensation, who receive nopension or recompense for their suf-

Dispatch from MadridA Mothball Revival


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By Elyse Pineau An enlarged slide of a drawing by

Miguel Ercano Garcia, age 12, is project-ed, like a backdrop, for the duration of thetalk. The drawing tells a story of a manheld captive while a soldier on horsebackcharges down a woman flinging herselffrom a cliff. The central characters—asoldier and falling woman—are duplicat-ed in a series of ghostly palimpsests,barely visible on the paper.

When I was invited to con-tribute to an interdisciplinarypanel on the children’s

wartime art exhibit, “They Still DrawPictures,” I committed to the projectdespite feeling cowed by the stakes. Inthe course of spending time amongstthese children and their extraordinarydrawings, I have come to appreciatethe provocative ambiguity of myassignment: “From the perspective ofyour discipline, speak as the spiritmoves you.”

As a performance artist in speechcommunication, my work centers onautobiographical narratives andmethodologies of embodiment. I aminterested in the ways people storytheir lives in artful ways and what canbe learned from engaging these narra-tives empathetically, in and throughthe medium of an articulate perform-ing body. It is from this disciplinarystance that the spirit moves me to tellyou a story of attending to one child’sdrawing —just one child and onedrawing out of hundreds in thisexhibit— attending to it closely andcarefully, and struggling to embody,as artfully as I can, what I discoveredthrough the encounter.

This is a tale about witnessing,about bearing witness to a story byMiguel Ercano Garcia, age 12, draw-ing somewhere, sometime, from an“unidentified locale” during theSpanish Civil War. And it is a taleabout trying to maintain a disciplinedperspective when the spirit moves youto the edge of an interpretive cliff anddemands a leap of faith.

But all stories rest upon other sto-

ries for their significance, and this onebegins sometime, somewhere else, in achance encounter with a tree one dayand a story it told me about childrenand the artfulness of their traumatizedbodies.

A Narrative FrameIn the backwoods of Giant City

State Park, tucked into a ravine—clinging, really, to the side of a small

cliff—there is a tree. It catches youreye immediately, this tree rooted intothe side of a cliff, because even from adistance you can see that is just a tan-gle of roots around an odd, squat baseand then, quite wondrously, two sepa-rate trunks rising up like leafless armsand reaching out and away from theedge of the cliff until they break fromthe shadow of the overhang andburst into leaf, suddenly, against theclear blue sky. From a distance, andnot a very great distance, not unlikethe distance that separates you fromme, or any of us from this image, thetree appears to be normal. It is a tadidiosyncratic, perhaps, but a healthytree nonetheless. A tree happilygoing on about its tree life, like all the

others in the forest, arms reachingtoward the sun.

So step closer. Look carefully. There is more to this tree than is

apparent from a distance. And it isworthy of your attention.

Many years ago, say 40 or more,this tree was struck by lightning.Many years ago, when it was “kneehigh” so to speak, a bolt of lightning

shot down from the sky, snaked downout of the clear blue sky one day andcracked this tree in two. With anexplosion of fire and a crash, I imag-ine, that could be heard from a greatdistance, a bolt of lightning cleft thisyoung tree at its foundation, leavingthere in the heart of its small body, agreat hole, black and burning andsmelling of death. But cleft and coredthough it was, this tree did not die.This tree survived its trial by fire andcontinued to grow, because that iswhat trees do, when they survive. Upand over the hole in its center, thetrunk grew back, grew over in knots &whorls shaded in with the residue of


A Eulogy for Innocence: Meditation

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ash that the lightning had seared intoits flesh. And from this gnarled scar ofburnt bark, two trunks like armsreaching, tall and slender and perfect-ly parallel to one another likeconjoined twins held in equipoise,each giving balance and symmetry tothe other.

Now you might be tempted to saythat this tree simply grew past its cata-clysmic brush with death, that thistree got beyond it, got over it, resolvedand refigured itself, integrated thishole in its body and left that death-dealing-blow-in-the-dust on its way tobecoming a tree, healthy like all theothers, rooted on the edge of a cliff,arms reaching. And in many impor-tant ways you would be right. But thistree will never not be a tree struck bylightning. This tree will never not smelldeath on its body when the wind isright. This tree will never not be a dou-ble of itself, its “self” doubled by thiscleaving. Because such splitting andgrowing on, growing double is a char-acteristic of trauma, when traumastrikes your foundation, when traumastrikes you knee-high, and leaves youwith a hole in your center and the taskof surviving.

Post traumatic stress disorder islike the residue from a bolt of light-ning. When a cataclysmic blow strikesto the core of your being with suchforce that you face death and live on...your body is permanently cleft. It’s assimple as that. Your entire sensory,sense-making system is shocked to itscore and rewired, hotwired somewould say, to accommodate the nowomnipresent fragility of your exis-tence. For some, some struck whenthey’re young, surviving such a blowenables a doubling of the body into adialectic of past and present both,half-and-whole both, like death anddefiance both. In every breath bothheld in balance, held in animatingequipoise, like two arms around ahole where wholeness used to be.What trauma kills, when it kills, is thenonchalance of daily living, that

grounding presumption that onebreath will follow another, that one’sbody breathing now, is the same bodyof breath you were earlier. What trau-ma strikes is the illusion that living ordying come naturally, like breathing,when in fact, we are all, we are all ofus, always, just making it up. Withevery breath, we are making it up aswe go along, as carefully and artfullyas we can in the aftermath of thingsthat strike us.

I know this about PTSD because Ihave been reading, from a disciplinaryperspective, about the relationshipbetween trauma and bodies of memo-

ry and the stories they tell. But Iattend to it carefully for reasons lessdisciplined or distant. As you mighthave surmised at this point in mystory, I too was struck by lightning.Many years ago, say 40 or more whenI was “knee high,” a storm came tolive in my house, in my home. And for5 years this storm raged and raineddown on me daily with great jaggedbolts of lightning that could snake outof the clear blue sky and mark mybody with mortality, until I couldsmell it, when the wind was right.And the years of that storm cleft me in


“They Still Draw Pictures:Children’s Art in Wartimefrom the Spanish Civil

War to Kosovo” appears at NewYork’s AXA Gallery (787 SeventhAvenue at 51st Street) from February19-April 3.

Gallery hours are Mondaythrough Friday, 11am - 6pm, andSaturday, noon to 5pm. The Galleryis closed on Sundays. Admission isfree.

Curated by ALBA’s Tony Geistand Peter Carroll, the show presents78 drawings made by Spanish chil-dren whose parents had sent them togovernment-supported colonias tospare them the hardships of the war.In these colonies, the young refugees- many of them orphaned or sent bytheir parents to safety - receivedschooling and medical care, kepteach other company, and producedthe thousands of drawings that serveas a moving, collective testimony ofthe experience of being a child inwartime.

Coinciding with the exhibit’sopening, ALBA also hosted a one-

day symposium on “Children inWar” at NYU’s King Juan Carlos I ofSpain Center on February 21. Amorning panel of surviving childrenincluded Angela Giral, MarysaNavarro, Oriol Pi-Sunyer, and SolSender, each of whom spoke of theirexperiences and the legacy ofuprooting. The afternoon panelbrought together several scholarswho have studied the effects ofwartime trauma on children’s lives.These included J. Lawrence Aberand Robin Goodman of NYU andElyse Pineau of Southern IllinoisUniversity/Carbondale. Tony Geistof the University of Washingtongave the keynote talk. The sympo-sium was co-sponsored by the KingJuan Carlos I of Spain Center (NYU),the Consulate General of Spain inNew York, and the Division ofHumanities, College of Arts andSciences, University of Washington.

The Juan Carlos Center is alsopresenting a series of Spanish filmsdealing with children of the civil waron Thursday nights.

Children’s Exhibit atNY’s AXA Gallery

ns on Art and the Traumatized Child

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half and left me with a twin of myself.Not a shadow, or a double, or an alter;nothing so dramatic as that. Just animage of myself, like a ‘palimpsest-self,’ looking forward and back, overmy own shoulder through time.

This capacity for doubling inspace and time that trauma bestowson the body, that trauma hotwires intothe body, becomes over time as natu-ral as breathing. I have come tobelieve that this is both the cost andthe gift of surviving. What trauma cre-ates, when it creates, is the ability toslip the bonds of the singular, natural-ized body and inhabit an alternatespace, a liminal space where ‘real’ and‘imagined’ get curdled, where timefolds in on itself and the electrifiedbody tells a tale of its own. This is theground of self-constitution writ large,the ground so easily obscured in thenonchalance of daily living, of livingat a privileged distance from trauma.But life after lightning is never noncha-lant. In the wake of mortal traumacomes awareness that if mortality is theground of being human, then survival isan art with high stakes. What traumailluminates—like a bolt of epistemiclightning—is that the agency one hasover life, sometimes the only agencyone can wrest from one’s life, is thecontinuous, careful, artful construc-tion of a self who lives on.

I know this from experience. But Iknow it also from a disciplinary per-spective and a professional life spentattending to the artfulness of autobio-graphical memory. As a teacher andan artist, I double my body daily inorder to imaginatively inhabit a char-acter’s or a student’s perspective. Iattend to life stories told in the bloodand the bones of articulate bodies andI write my own tales in and aroundothers’ in poems and public perfor-mance. In my discipline, we call this“generative autobiographical perfor-mance;” it describes a poetic,intertextual history woven from theplaces where lives correspond. This“narrative reciprocity,” if you will,gives homage and testament both; it is

a way of attending to another’s lifestory that cannot be achieved from adistance. For me, it was the onlyresponse I could ethically make whenI encountered, one day, a group ofsmall children lined up on the wall,each with a story to tell.

And so that is why I have takensuch a long and circuitous routetoward the object of our collectiveattention this evening: this story byMiguel Ercano Garcia, age 12, a childof war whose world was struck bylightning, but who lived to draw thetale. I wanted you to know what gen-erates my response, what roots anddirects my attention—person and pro-fession both—on an exhibit ofdrawings by traumatized childrenfrom another space and time whoseart may be all that survives of theirbodies.

A Performative ReadingStanding stark and isolated on a

barren cliff, this tree in the drawing byMiguel Ercano Garcia, age 12, bearswitness to a drama of human brutalitythat is eerily archetypal in its familiari-ty. I have seen this image before. Weall have seen or heard this imagebefore in the gruesome folklore thataccompanies every war: a captive manwatches as a soldier on horsebackcharges down a woman flinging her-self from the edge of a cliff. And whilethis is just one out of a hundred otherdrawings in the exhibit, just one of 600other drawings by children in the col-lection of wartime art, this is thedrawing that called me by name. Thisis the one that haunted me, thathaunts me still, the one I’ve asked youto witness for some time now as abackdrop while I attended to otherstories.

See how easy it is to look withoutattending? To look intermittently? Doyou see how easy it is to let your eyessweep across an image of a mancaught, and a soldier charging, and awoman leaping——just sweep left toright and assume you have seen it?And having grasped the drawing with

a glance, do you see how easy it is tolook away, as if in the presence ofsuch a tale, such a tale, you should befree to attend to other things? I haveasked you to witness this drawingwithout reference for a long time now,because I wanted to underscore howeasily such a story can fade into thebackground, how a story can becomeso folkloric and familiar that it ceasesto hold your attention at all. Becausethat too is the nature of trauma if youwitness it from a distance. A distancenot unlike that which separates usfrom this. Just enough of a safe dis-tance to afford us the privilege ofattending or not. As the spirit moves.

The first time I encountered thisdrawing I was spending several hoursby myself in the gallery. I neededsome extended private time to getacquainted with the exhibit overall,you know, to just get the feel of thewhole and the ways it might speak tome. We’re all familiar with the drill,I’m sure; there’s a set museum proce-dure for engaging art framed on awall. One walks in linear fashion, leftto right, one frame to another, con-structing a story about of how eachpicture relates or how they evolve, lin-gering, perhaps, for a moment beforemoving along, moving down the line.The reading guides that frame thisparticular exhibit exemplify for me,this serial engagement. Begin withimages of “Before” they counsel onbrochure and poster, then move on to“Displacement,” “War,” “Life in theColonies” and “Peace”—that ubiqui-tously uplifting finale that I suppose“art on exhibit” is supposed to conjurefor you, that the reading guides on thewall recommend for you. But even as Imoved from picture to picture, oneafter another down the walls in theorder instructed, this drawing byMiguel Ercano Garcia, age 12, followedme like a shadow, like a double, like aghost staring after me, calling out tome, just over my shoulder.

And so I did what I do in myclassroom and rehearsal hall when Ineed to really focus on what is play-

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ing out before me. I hunkered downthere on the floor in the middle of thatempty gallery and I gave this drawingmy full attention.

And instantly, I find myself castinto the heart of this drama from thevery location, the precise geographicalvantage point of the invisible witness.Crouched in the low right hand cor-ner, just outside of the picture’s frame,Miguel Ercano Garcia and I stare up . . .and up. . .and up. . .so impossibly highup the face of a cliff where a soldiercharges and a woman makes her leap.From this vantage point, the storyunfolds chronologically, but right toleft, against the grain of the usual readas if the passage of time were at warwith itself in the drawing. A facelessman is caught and bound to a tree bya rope? a whip? Too small to seeclearly. The foot soldier who hasbound him is bent double by theeffort, his body caught somewherebetween reaching out and pullingback, holding taut against his cap-tive’s struggle. In the center of thedrawing, a soldier on horseback—aStormtrooper with insignia likecrossed lightning—charges down on awoman poised at the cliff’s edge. Twoarms lifted, reaching out and beyondthe edge of the cliff, the woman hasjust left the earth in a leap of faith, Iimagine, that crashing down on therocks is a better fate than remaining toweather the approaching storm. In thelow left hand corner of the drawing,just on the horizon of sea and sky, thesun sits—setting or rising I cannot say.Nor need to, I think, for “time” seems aparadox this drawing arrests in its‘freeze-frame’ of charging and leaping.

Sitting here, gazing intently up atthe drawing, it is easy for me to imag-ine what my students might say, orsome colleagues might say: “Did thatreally happen? Could a child reallysee from the shore up a cliff to a treein the background? Do you think hegot caught? Who told him to drawthis? And is this a true story?” And Iknow that these are legitimate ques-tions, but as they are not the questions

staring me in the face right now as I sitand gaze upward through a child’seyes, I cannot fathom why they askthem. Why is a story outside of thestory the one they are drawn to, theone they can see? Why are they soquick on their feet when this is a timefor sitting still, a time for looking andlistening? But as I am a teacher accus-tomed to the literalism of students,and as I am an academic accustomedto the cynicism of colleagues, and as Iam an artist accustomed to seeing dif-ferently, and as I am a performertrained to look through another’s eyes,and as I am a child who has seen whatothers dare not face. . .I like to I imag-ine that I would swallow myimpatience and simply remind themthat, in the absence of Miguel ErcanoGarcia, age 12, all we have is his story.All that we have is an invitation tolook and to listen to the story he hasdrawn. And sometimes, when you’reinvited to a story, it can be wise to justtake a leap of faith and see where itleads you.

And so then I imagine that isexactly what we do.

The remainder of my presentationwas improvised around “reading” thedrawing by performing my body’s engage-ment with it. Replicating the poses andpositions of each figure, I would thinkaloud about my felt sense of a man caughtor a soldier charging or a woman leaping.I’ve tried to write up, as best as I can, boththe method and its running commentary.

“Can you see this man by thetree?” I might ask, bending doubleand reaching out with one arm like awhip, reaching out as if armed with awhip that can bind a man to a tree.Can you see, can you feel the forcethat it takes to snake out a whip andencircle a body? Can you see, can youfeel how taut a rope need be to hold aman motionless? Can you feel, do yousee the price of such binding? The waythat it bends a body double, how itbears down with a weight that cancripple? Attend to this. Attend to theway roping and whipping and bind-ing can bend a body double, can

cripple the binder until one wonders ifa body could ever again standupright, could ever recover, couldever be other than one who hasthrown his weight to bind up another.

Do you see this man bound to atree? This man faceless, withoutmotion, volition to do other thanstand still and witness. This man isforced to witness the motion of others:the one who is binding, the one who ischarging, the one who is leaping. Anenigma, this man with no face, with noactive place in the drama unfolding,this everyman tied to a tree while timerushes by on the pounding of hoofs.

And the Stormtrooper, so straightand controlled, mounted there on hischarger. Yet the stiff, upright bodyseems to rein in the horse even as theyrush toward the edge where a womanis choosing her death with defiance.The soldier’s double, sketched as afaint, diminutive palimpsest of him-self, appears just ahead of the mainfigure, replicated in intricate and accu-rate detail down to the reins andinsignia. And this is no mistake by theartist. This drawing is too careful, toometiculous to feature an error, as if incorrective afterthought, the artist hadsimply drawn the figure over andneglected to cover his tracks. I like toimagine that Manuel Ercano Garciawas careful and meticulous when heerased and retraced his antagonist. Ilike to imagine that this young boy,age 12, was using his drawing to stealback time, to reach out and rein in theinevitable, to arrest the charge ofdeath and stop a horse dead in itstracks. And I know that this childunderstands, in some way I can onlyimagine, that death can diminish, thatdeath makes us hollow when we arethe charger, when we are death’sharbinger, charging a woman to leapfrom a cliff. But what I imagine canwait, for there is more of this story totell, and it begs my attention.

Stepping forward, I arrive at theheart of the drawing, face to face with


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By Michael Nash

James Bernard (Bunny) Rucker(1912 – 1992) was one of theeighty-three known African

American volunteers who fought withthe Abraham Lincoln Brigade duringthe Spanish Civil War. In December1936, Rucker sailed for Spain viaFrance. Arriving in Paris, he wasassigned to the American sector of thePrimer Regimiento de Tren, the front-line transport regiment attached to theSpanish Republican Fifth Army.During the long siege of Madrid, hetransported supplies from behind theFascist lines into the city, often drivingat night without lights, unable to useany of the major roads because of thecontinuous Fascist bombing.

In Spain, Bunny met LangstonHughes, who was there as a journal-ist-observer for the African Americanpress. Bunny frequently droveHughes through the Fascist lines dur-ing the siege of Madrid. Theydeveloped a friendship and corre-sponded for many years after the war.Some of these letters are included inthe collection along with typescripts ofthree poems: “Airplane Factory,”“Too Bad not True,” “Explain itPlease,” and an essay, “Simple in theUnited Nations.”

Bunny left Spain when theInternational Brigades were with-drawn, by crossing the Pyrenees intoFrance. In May 1942 he was inductedinto the United States Army. Likemany Lincoln Brigade veterans he wasdiscriminated against because of hisSpanish Civil War record. He was ini-tially assigned to a garbage pick-updetail of black soldiers in Fort Bragg,North Carolina. Even though hepassed the test for Officers CandidateSchool, Rucker was denied admission.Finally, in 1944 he volunteered to gooverseas and was sent to Italy with the92nd Infantry Division where he wasassigned to a Medical Division. Hesubsequently volunteered for combatservice and saw action in the Rome-

Arno, Northern Apendines, and PoValley campaigns. Rucker waswounded in action in April 1945 andhospitalized until August 1947. Hereceived the bronze and silver stars aswell as three battlefield citations.

Following his release from thehospital with 100% disability, Ruckerremained involved in left-wing poli-tics. He was active in Henry Wallace’s1948 campaign for President. The nextyear he ran for New York CityCouncil on the American Labor Party

ticket headed by the legendaryCongressman Vito Marcantonio.

In 1952 Rucker enrolled inColumbia University where hereceived a BA and a Masters degree inLibrary Service. Upon graduation hetried to get a job as a librarian in NewYork City, but refused to sign the loy-alty oath that was required for publicemployment. He then moved to EastOrange, New Jersey with his familywhere he served as principal librarian

Tamiment Library AcquiresBunny Rucker Papers


James Rucker (left), with the President of the United Negro and Allied Veterans,laying a wreath at the Eternal Light in New York City, Decoration Day 1947.

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By Fraser Ottanelli

The story of African Americanvolunteers in the Spanish CivilWar is now on the World Wide

Web as part of ALBA’s websitewww.alba-valb.org .

As part of its ongoing web-basededucational series “For Your Libertyand Ours,” ALBA has just released anew multimedia educational tool onAfrican Americans in the SpanishCivil War.

Co-authored by William Katz,Fraser Ottanelli, and Chris Brooks,“African Americans in the SpanishCivil War” traces the experience ofthis group of US volunteers, fromtheir involvement in the political andsocial struggles of the 1920s and early1930s to their decision to pursue theirstruggle against exploitation andracism on the battlefields in Spain. Afinal section traces their continuedactivism through the 1990s.

Of particular interest to educatorsand students are the short biographies(most of them with accompanyingphotographs) of every African

American volunteer, the list of sug-gested readings for additionalresearch, and the special section “Askthe Experts” linked to hundred of

scholars of the Spanish Civil War. Inaddition, “African Americans in theSpanish Civil War” makes availablefor the first time a complete (anddownloadable) copy of WalterGarland’s FBI file: www.alba-valb.org/curriculum/index.php?module=2&page=P004.

This remarkable resource has beenmade possible through a generousgrant from Alfred Knobler and theEstate of Isabel Johnson Hiss.

Fraser Ottanelli is chief editor of the web-site series “For Your Liberty and Ours.”

New Website History of AfricanAmericans in Spain

for the City of East Orange for morethan twenty years. During this periodRucker was active in the civil rightsmovement and worked hard for pro-gressive social change.

The Bunny Rucker correspon-dence, which is now part of theAbraham Lincoln Brigade Archives, isprimarily comprised of letters writtento his wife Helen during World War IIand in the years between 1945 and1947 when he was in veteran’s hospi-tals in Halloran, Virginia and StatenIsland, N.Y. These letters chronicleRucker’s three years of military ser-vice and describe his experiencesserving in a segregated army.

Bunny often acted as a mentor to

young African American soldiersfrom the rural south. He helped themwrite letters home and tried to act as abuffer between them and the whitesouthern officers under whom theyserved. In his letters home, Ruckerexpresses his political idealism, com-mitment to fighting fascism, and toadvancing the struggle for civil rightsand radical political change. He oftentold the young African Americans inhis unit that they “could never winfreedom and democratic rights as longas Fascist thinking prevailed.”

Michael Nash is Director of New YorkUniversity’s Tamiment Library.

Rucker PapersContinued from page 10

The History of African Americans in Spain:http://www.alba-valb.org/curriculum/index.php?module=2.

Walter Garland’s FBI file:www.alba-valb.org/curriculum/index.php?module=2&page=P004.

See you on the World Wide Web!

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By Daniel Czitrom

Among the offerings at the 2003Edinburgh Fringe Festival lastsummer was “Red Bessie,” a

new play with music inspired by theletters, lives, and experiences of Joeand Leo Gordon, two well-knownmembers of the Lincoln Brigade. “RedBessie” ran for 25 performances inAugust, receiving glowing reviewsfrom critics and enthusiastic responsesfrom audiences. Writing in the TimesLiterary Supplement (London), KeithMiller described “Red Bessie” as“clear-headed and humane, notunaware of the hurt that political ide-alism can cause, and more fun thanmight be expected of such a high-minded project.” Ron Nissin, in theLondon magazine Three Weeks, hailedit as “extremely appealing…A brilliant-ly illuminating, frequently hilariouspolitical show.” And Neil Ingram inthe Edinburgh Guide called the play “atelling story of how youthful idealismmoves toward mature disillusion-ment. But it is also a view of whatordinary people can sometimes do ifthey stand together, whatever theirgovernment may think.”

Joe and Leo Gordon (neeMendelowitz) grew up on the roughstreets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn andlike so many others who volunteeredto defend the Spanish Republic, theysaw their fight with fascism abroad asdirectly linked to their radicalactivism at home. Both Joe and Leowere veterans of picket line confronta-tions, unemployment demonstrations,and organizing drives against JimCrow in Depression-era America, andboth were active members of theCommunist Party. In December 1936Joe Gordon set sail from New Yorkwith the first group of volunteers tomake the arduous journey to Spain.He was wounded at Jarama, losing aneye, and suffered a leg wound in theBrunete offensive before being repatri-ated home. Leo Gordon arrived inSpain in the summer of 1937, becom-ing a lieutenant in command of a

machine company. After seeing heavyaction at Fuentes de Ebro and atTeruel (where he was wounded in theface by shrapnel splinters), LeoGordon was killed in March 1938while helping to cover the evacuationof the Mac-Pap battalion from Azuara.His brother Joe returned to Spain yetagain in a vain attempt to find him.Joe Gordon himself perished in 1942when, working as a merchant seamanin the Murmansk run, his ship wastorpedoed in the North Atlantic.

Some years ago my aunt GussieMoskowitz gave me a collection of let-

ters that her cousins Joe and Leo hadwritten to her during the 1930s. Theletters document their fascinatingodyssey, including the teen-age broth-ers’ cross-country travels, stints in theCivilian Conservation Corps, andaccounts of the CP-led organizingdrive among cannery workers inCalifornia. The letters written fromSpain were particularly interesting tome for the picture they gave of boththe political and military conflict inSpain, and the more private strugglesaccompanying them. Leo’s decision to

Abe Osheroff Tops the News“I’ve been a social activist from

the age of 15 without interruption,”Abe Osheroff told reporter GregoryRoberts of the Seattle Post-Intelligencerin a front-page story about the lifetimeactivist that ran on January 13, 2004 inthe city’s largest circulation newspa-per. Roberts described the SpanishCivil War vet speaking “in a still-vig-orous baritone tinged with the accentsof his native New York.” As Osheroffput it, “If you went to Mississippi in1964, you’d find Abe Osheroff work-ing there. If you went to Nicaragua in1985, you’d find me building a villagethere…As my mother would say, ifthere’s trouble, that’s where he’ll be.”

For the full article, visit the website address:http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/156359_osheroff13.html

Jarama Museum OpensA new museum dedicated to pre-

serving the history of the battle ofJarama opened on February 14 inMorata de Tajuña, a small town veryclose to Madrid. Exhibits include bat-tlefield remains: maps, texts, photos,audio, and video. The museum is inMesón del Cid, inside the village.

Reporting the Spanish Civil War“We knew, we just knew,” says

Martha Gellhorn in the documentaryfilm Reporting America at War, “thatSpain was the place to stop fascism.”With vivid footage of the SpanishCivil War, including clips from theALBA collection, filmmakers AmandaPollak and Stephen Ives carefully inte-grated stories of Spain into themultipart documentary that wasbroadcast on many public televisionstations last November. The four-hourvideo, written by Michelle Ferrari,tells the story of American war report-ing from the Spanish American Warthrough the Persian Gulf. Gellhorn’sappearance is particularly moving,including her unsentimental epitaphfor the Republican cause: “All thatbravery and suffering for nothing.”

The video may be ordered fromInsignia Films, 41 Bond Street, #400,New York, NY 10012; 212-979-5350.

SCW Film Wins Prize The Spanish Academy of Motion

Picture Arts and Sciences has giventhis year’s Best Cinematographyaward to Soldados de Salamina(Soldiers of Salamina), a film about theSpanish Civil War.


In Brief

“Red Bessie” Takes the Stage

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leave his pregnant wife to go to Spain(she later had an abortion) embodiedthe sometimes tragic tensions betweenradical political commitment and thedemands of family life. (I publishedthese letters, with an introduction, as“Volunteers For Liberty,”Massachusetts Review, Autumn 1984).

The idea of using these letters as astarting point for writing a play camefrom Jack Gilhooley, an alum of theNew Dramatists in New York and awidely produced playwright based inSarasota, Florida. Jack and I had col-laborated previously on an historicaldrama centered on the disastrousTriangle Shirtwaist fire of 1911 (“BigTim and Fanny”), and we teamed upfor “Red Bessie,” a two-character, two-act play with songs. Jack invented thelead character of Bessie Markowitz, aradical folk singer with two cousins inthe Lincoln Brigade. Act One is set in1938 at an event that is both afundraiser for the Lincolns and amemorial for her cousin Leo, recentlykilled in action. Bessie reads lettersfrom Leo, describes how she and hercousins became radicals, and alter-nately hectors her audience andinspires them with songs. The othercharacter is Martin Franklin, Bessie’sbrand new guitarist, and her tempera-mental opposite. Martin is a Yale grad,a soft-spoken WASP, and a pacifist, instark contrast to Bessie, a brash, confi-dent, and dedicated Communist,rooted in Jewish working class experi-ence. The first act brings Bessie andMartin together for the first time; itskey dramatic subtext is that Leo hasleft his pregnant wife to go to Spain.

Act Two takes place fifteen yearslater, in 1953, on the eve of the execu-tion of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.Bessie and Martin are now marriedand have kids. They’re still folksingers(“The Aragons”), and they’ve beenfighting the good fight and rallyingthe troops for years. Returning from afinal, fruitless demonstration demand-ing clemency for the Rosenbergs, theynow confront a very different politicalreality. Fifteen years earlier they weremuch more optimistic and felt theyhad a place in American political life.Now, anti-communism and politicalrepression define the American scene.

Act Two explores what happens topolitical idealism as the two struggleboth with blacklisting and the revela-tion of atrocities in the Soviet Unionunder Stalin. The feeling is now morewistful and elegaic, but the wit andthe singing continue as well.

“Red Bessie” includes pefor-mances of a dozen songs. Some ofthese are well-known period pieces,such as “Jarama Valley,”“Workingfolk Unite,” and“Hallelujah, I’m a Red” (nee Bum).But original songs written for the play(words by Jack Gilhooley/music byPreston Boyd) inject the productionwith energy, enthusiasm, and humor.

Act One opens with the foot-stomping“Hands Off Spain, Señor Franco,” andwe are back in 1938:

From Stockholm, Cracow, Dallasand from the Zuyder Zee

The International forces will fightfor liberty

So…Hands off Spain, Adolph Hitler Deutschland has no need for warWhy prostitute your own nation?You’ve got Eva Braun as a whore!In Act Two, “The McCarthy Rag”

offers a spirited, Tom Lehrer-like takeon Senator Joe:


Lauren Wood and John Barron. Photo by Daniel Czitrom.

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the defining trauma of the story: awoman flings herself from a cliff whilea boy watches, a boy no older than 12,who now must bear witness. Smallwonder I pause there, poised at thisedge of the drawing. Have I courageto see what he sees? to bear what hebears? For I sense that to take on herbody is to take it on faith that thisdrawing is not about death. This storyis not documentary, but art; and artmeans survival when the stakes arethis high. And so I step up. I step intoher body and raise up my arms; Ireach out and away, and I lift. . .And Iexperience an epiphany that I couldnot foresee from a distance, because itcannot be grasped in abstraction. Witharms raised and reaching, bodyarched and uplifted, I feel death fallaway in the moment before gravityhits. From flinging to flying, my bodyis reconfigured—it’s as simple asthat—and the woman and I reach upand away until our bodies break freeagainst the clear sky.

This is the moment the child haschosen.

This is the heartbeat of time hehas captured.

This is the story he tells to liveon, the story he lives on for the restof his life.

As he is our witness, he is theone who must story us all.

And story he does, this 12 yearold artist. Falling faint and ghostlydown the face of the cliff, threepalimpsest women juxtapose theflyer-in-flight. In the generative spacebetween real and imagined, this child,Miguel Ercano Garcia, has drawnthree shadows: one is bent doublefrom the weight of her body descend-ing; the second grown larger, her faceparallel to the rocks that await her; thethird has turned outward. With com-manding equanimity, thisface—which is the single largestimage in the drawing—looks out atthe witness: the boy who is watching.The artist who’s drawing. This bodyperforming. The reader attending.Together we witness—across time and

space—an image of death and defi-ance held in animating equipoise, andseen through the prescient art of achild who lived on.

I would like to imagine thatMiguel grew to a ripe old age, that hesaw peace return to his homeland andthe ghosts of this war ceased to haunthim. I would like to believe that everafter, when Miguel saw a man bentdouble with effort, or a mountedhorseman on a chessboard, or a cliffdiver raising his arms, or a tree on abarren hill, or the spray of wateragainst rock, or the sun sitting onsea—I would like to believe that whenthese palimpsests of memory camehaunting (and I know that they did,ever after), that Miguel Ercano Garciacould raise up his arms and rememberto fly while he fell. And this thoughtgives me comfort. This thought gives

me courage to witness, in turn, to turnyour attention on a world where chil-dren draw pictures like this, suchpictures as this, in the aftermath ofwars that strike them. I would hopethat when strangers meet Miguel—Miguel and the 600 others whosedrawings survive—I hope they arestruck just as I was by the death-defy-ing leaps of these artful memories.Perhaps they’ll attend if they knowhow to look, if they can look throughthe eyes of a child who no longer liveson, and whose art is all that remains.And I would like to imagine that Ihave helped you to do just that.

Elyse Pineau is a member of theDepartment of Speech Communicationat Southern Illinois University inCarbondale.

EulogyContinued from page 9

fering and the loss of loved ones. Andthey are still in this situation preciselybecause the Right that is in power, thefascists of today, still refuse to formal-ly condemn the tragedy of the CivilWar and as a consequence, to recog-nize the others, the Republicans.

Concerning the conspicuousabsence of the Government in thisRepublican “mothball” ceremony, oneof the Left’s most distinguished jour-nalists, Eduardo Haro Tecglen, wrotethe following: “Franco discardedpieces of the murderous and ultra-reli-gious Right on his long march,accepting new words, bikinis, con-sumerism. Aznar’s road, though,seems to run in the opposite direction.His starting point was a grudgingattempt at democracy, and he hasbeen moving to the right ever since.”

Another Spanish writer who diedrecently, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán,left a posthumous essay titled Aznarity(La Aznaridad). In it he argues thatwhile Francoism could not survivewithout Franco, Aznarity –the regime

of the new Right governing Spaintoday—is a political style that is per-fectly transferable to new leaders. Theproof is in the numbers: Aznar’sanointed successor, Mariano Rajoy, hashigher ratings in the polls than evenJosé María Aznar himself. Not becausehe is more charismatic. It is simplybecause he promises continuity.

From this perspective alone wecan understand the moving cheers ofthe old republicans who came to thehomage that all the political parties,except the one in power, offered themin congress. With tears in their eyes,their voices breaking with emotion,they shouted with clenched fists heldhigh: “We shall forgive; we shallnever forget.”

(Translated by Tony Geist)

Miguel Ángel Nieto is one of Spain’sleading investigative journalists.

DispatchContinued from page 5

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Got nothin ‘gainst coloreds an’Jewboys an’ such

But ask if I like ‘em, well not verymuch.

But in this great country folks candisagree

‘Cept who in his right mindwould side against me?

So let’s raise our voices forSenator Joe

And those who object, they knowwhere they can go.

Wellll, I’m doin’ The McCarthy,doin’ The McCarthy, ‘doin TheMcCarthy Rag.

Before we took the show toEdinburgh, Jack Gilhooley cast twoSarasotan actors/singers, the husbandand wife team Lauren Wood and JohnBarron, both known in Florida fortheir country-folk group, Not FromTexas. Lauren and John performed“Red Bessie” in several venues aroundFlorida as well as at the VictoryGardens Theater in Chicago. We thenlanded some crucial financial supportfrom the Puffin Foundation andMount Holyoke College and headedfor Scotland.

Our small troupe—Jack, Lauren,John, stage manager Naomi Miller,and myself—arrived in late July utter-ly unprepared for the enormity of theEdinburgh Fringe, an offshoot of thelarger Edinburgh International ArtsFestival. There were hundreds of pro-ductions going on, many of which hadtheir own web sites and promotionalmachinery. We had only ourselves,our play, and our minimal set, whichincluded blown up reproductionsfrom the ALBA Spanish Civil Warposter collection. “Red Bessie” wasstaged in the aptly named CavesTheater, a 150- seat house originallybuilt over 300 years ago as an artisanworkshop, and later used as amorgue. The biggest problem wehad—the biggest problem everyonehad at the Fringe—was attractingaudiences amidst the sea of shows.But the people who found us weregenerally enthusiastic and respondedemotionally to the songs, humor, and

bittersweet political themes in theshow.

For me, the most remarkablemoment came at the opening perfor-mance with the arrival of JamesMaley, a 95-year-old British Brigadeveteran from Glasgow. Maley hadbeen a friend of Alex McDade, the

Scottish volunteer who had writtenthe words to “Jarama Valley” justbefore his death. Clear eyed, spry, andeager to talk about contemporary poli-tics, Maley charmed and inspired usall—despite the fact that his thickGlaswigean accent made it tough foreven the Scots to follow him. Weintroduced him after the show to astanding ovation.

Jack Gilhooley and I would ofcourse love to mount a production of“Red Bessie” in the US, and we arecurrently exploring several possibili-ties. Historical drama offers an

alternative way to bring the past alive,to find historical truths, and to help usunderstand the often painful choicespeople face at a particular time andplace. I like to think that Joe and LeoGordon would have appreciated thisproject. On Thanksgiving Day, 1938,as they awaited their trip home in the

tiny Catalan town of Ripoll, theLincolns celebrated by putting on asix-scene play dramatizing everythingfrom battle scenes to their eagerlyanticipated homecoming. The produc-er was Joe Gordon. We hope we’ll getthe chance to entertain, provoke, andmove American audiences with “RedBessie” in the near future.

Daniel Czitrom, co-author of “Red Bessie”and former chair of the ALBA Board ofGovernors, teaches American history atMount Holyoke College.

Red BessieContinued from page 13

James Maley, 95-year-old British Brigade veteran from Glasgow, with cast mem-bers Lauren Wood and John Barron, at the Edinburgh Fringe opening of “RedBessie.” Photo by Daniel Czitrom.

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Puffin Foundation, CFLB patrons andindividuals. The funds covered pro-duction as well as the cost ofemploying youth and artistic person-nel for a three-month period in whichtime they created a script, rehearsed,and presented four performances atseveral venues.

What resulted is a powerful pro-gram that inspires young audiencesand will serve as a prototype for edu-cators and cultural arts organizationswishing to teach the Spanish CivilWar and its effect in an innovativeand pertinent way.

Jamie O’Reilly became associated withALBA in 1996, while co-creating and per-forming “Pasiones: Songs of the SpanishCivil War,” an original folk cabaret andCD, directed by ALBA’s Peter Glazer. Sheacts as a consultant and volunteer withCFLB in addition to being the“play/dead” musical director.

ChicagoContinued from page 4

We should have known

when Ferdinand was shot;

back there, beyond the

Pyrenees and Alps,

where the soldiers speak Catalan

and the French are wishy-washy.

We should have known

when Marx called us to arms,

when Europe was the center of the

world

and nomads rallied for

anarchy...

We should have thought of it then

(We might have known

Generalissimo, that your only goal

wasn’t catholic

at all, and that your face

would paste the streets

where children died!)

We might have known

but for that last little

cowardice that let

you lead your people

into purgatory!

We might have known, but you’d

have died,

and your church would have sided

with truth.

But we know now,

after the smoke has cleared

and your dusty corpse

rests beside your laws,

that you were never meant

to reap the good of those you killed.

Oh, we should be proud of what we

know!

Yes. Now we know,

The decades pass, and we

still ask ourselves if

men are good at heart,

since we kill for sport and claim it’s

best for all.

Yes. We know now

to question whether it’s

right enough to live

for strength alone; and

we can breathe in earnest

knowing that our paths aren’t set

to relive old myths that end in death.

by David Harewood, Columbia College Theater Studentfrom the script for “Play/Dead,Jugar/Muerte”

Hindsight

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Paloma Aguilar, Memory and Amnesia:The Role of the Spanish Civil War in theTransition to Democracy. Trans. byMark Oakley. New York/Oxford:Berghahn Books, 2002.

By Shirley Mangini

In Memory and Amnesia, PalomaAguilar describes how the collectivememory of the Second SpanishRepublic and the civil war mediatedthe transition to democracy after thedeath of Franco. Aguilar points out—as she outlines various theories ofmemory—the many ways in whichmemory can be manipulated andreshaped to conform to political exi-gencies and how time changes theperception of historical events. Hergoal is to demonstrate that the “offi-cial” memory propagated by theFranco regime about the causes of warmotivated the actors in the transitionto reach consensus and therefore, intheir minds, avoid another war.Under Franco, the author points out,the dictatorship never acknowledgedany guilt for having overthrown ademocratically-elected government,but rather sought to legitimize its roleby characterizing the war as a neces-sary act that was meant to “save”Spain from the “reds” and from aneventual Soviet takeover.

Aguilar demonstrates how Francoachieved the consolidation of this“historical memory” through the cre-ation of the No-Do, the documentariesthat were required to be shown at thecinema, which highlighted the “hero-ism” of the Nationalists and of Franco.Written history of the period, especial-ly by Ricardo de la Cierva, also aidedin the creation of an official history, asdid the many commemorative eventscelebrating victory and “peace.”

Censorship of the press was undoubt-edly the most effective method forcreating the Franco myth.

The war had been a “heroic” feat,and this myth was effective in main-taining the Manichean dichotomy ofthe victors as the good and the van-quished as evil since, in addition tosaving Spain from the reds, the warhad been a crusade sanctioned by theCatholic church and God. All thisprovided the justification for the lackof any reconciliation for the cruel andconstant punishment of those whofought against Franco, and for the jus-tification of aiding only theNationalist war wounded. Aguilaralso discusses at length the signifi-cance of the Valley of the Fallen, themonstrous monument to those whodied on the Nationalist side that wasconstructed by slave labor recruitedfrom Franco’s prisons.

Only very late in the regime didthe civil war emerge in the collectivememory as a tragedy that could havebeen avoided, Aguilar points out.Franco reacted adversely to anyattempt to prove that Spain’s civil warhad been anything but necessary sincethe memory of his heroic war was allthat kept his dictatorship legitimate,according to Aguilar. But by the 1950sthere was a shift in the memory of thewar, and the official story of the“heroic” war was headed for the binof amnesia. The turning point was the“Munich conspiracy,” when in l962several moderates met with Europeanleaders to discuss how to lead Spain todemocracy—and erase the memory ofthe civil war—in order to be embracedby the European community. The talkof aperturismo (the opening up)became more frequent, especially withthe appointment of Fraga Iribarne asMinister of Information and Tourism

in l962, which eased the strict censor-ship of the press and led the way for anew myth about the war: it had been“collective insanity” and all Spaniardswere guilty.

Aguilar’s final chapter demon-strates how consensus was reachedduring the transition because of themythified memory of what had hap-pened in the l930s: the Republic hadfailed because it was flawed and hadcaused deep fissures among the vari-ous constituencies, causing the war.By comparing the transition to theRepublic, all parties involved wishedto tread carefully to avoid another war.Aguilar shows how King Juan Carloscontributed to the process as a media-tor, and how the press—she uses theconservative daily ABC and the liberalEl País to prove her point—cautiouslyavoided the confrontation that ensuedin the media during the Republic. Shealso discusses the effects of the legit-imizing of the socialist party (PSOE)and the communists (PC), and how thesocialists quickly began movingtoward a centrist position.

In conclusion, Aguilar’s skillfulargument on the collective memoryof the civil war proves that repressionand, I would add, both physical andcultural starvation, can manipulatean entire nation into forgetting histo-ry and believing what has beenpurposefully designed for their con-sumption. In the case of thetransition to democracy, there was ahappy ending for most, but especiallyfor the Francoists who were neverobliged to ask for forgiveness forcrimes committed against those whohad defended the Republic.

Forgetting Memory

Book Reviews

Shirley Mangini is a professor of Spanishat California State University, LongBeach, and author of Memories ofResistance: Women’s Voices from theSpanish Civil War (Yale, 1995).

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By Peter Carroll

Esther Silverstein was working asa nurse for the US Public HealthService’s Marine Hospital in San

Francisco when she volunteered forservice in Spain. Most of her patientswere sailors with a strong workingclass identity and an awareness of thefascist threat to peace. As fourcolumns of rebel soldiers marchedfrom southern Spain toward Madridin the fall of 1936, the sailors inEsther’s ward taped a map to the walland inserted pins each day to followthe course of the impending battle forSpain’s capital city.

Esther tells the story in Wars IHave Seen, a moving collection of auto-biographical stories and a three-actplay. By November 1936, the rebelgenerals were predicting that a “fifthcolumn” would arise inside Madrid—traitors to the Republic—who wouldsupport the insurrection and bring

victory in a few weeks. AsFranco launched the attackon Madrid, the citizen mili-tia fought back, and theworld held its breath.“Spain was all everyonetalked about,” Estherrecalled.

In San Francisco, a des-perately ill woman waswheeled unconscious intoEsther’s ward. The womanremained asleep in a feverfor a full day, then awokeabruptly.

“Has Madrid fallen?”she asked.

“No,” Esther replied.“Are you sure?”“Yes.”The woman fell asleep

for another day.Such drama inspired

Esther to act. At the begin-ning of 1937 she contacteda group called Medical Aidfor Spanish Democracy in

San Francisco and started the screen-ing process to become a volunteernurse in Spain. She had to pass aphysical examination, psychologicaltests, and a personal interview to ruleout the possibility, as Esther once putit, that she was an “adventuress.” Bythe end of April, she had resignedfrom her job and headed for NewYork to join a contingent of medicalpersonnel. “The boys politicized me,”she later told an interviewer, referringto the atmosphere in her ward. “Theywere fighting to make things betterand they had a philosophy to backthem up. That made sense to me.”

After the Spanish war, Estherresumed her nursing career andserved as a second lieutenant in theU.S. Army Nurse Corps during WorldWar II. She also continued her educa-tion, obtaining a Ph.D. in the historyof medicine, a subject that she taughtat the University of California in SanFrancisco until her retirement in 1984.

A natural storyteller, Esther wrotetwo charming children’s books. Thefirst, Berchick, won the Sydney TaylorAward from the Association of JewishLibraries in 1990 as well as the BayArea’s BABRA Book Award. The sec-ond, Long Johns for a Small Chicken, hasjust been published posthumouslywith the help of Esther’s sisterGodeane Eagle.

Both books draw on Esther’schildhood experiences on the westernprairie. Her parents were Jewishimmigrants who moved to Wyomingto farm 160 acres of unbroken landand raised a family in a dry sodhouse. Esther was born in GoshenCounty in 1913. There she acquiredthe details for these two books about aloving Jewish mother who adopts andraises a stray colt (Berchick) and savesa featherless chicken by sewing a littlecotton outfit (Long Johns).

These are warm, touching storiesfor young readers and their parents,and they give more than a hint ofwhere Esther obtained those princi-pled, humanitarian values that led herinto nursing, education, and theSpanish Civil War.

Books by EstherSilverstein Blanc Wars I Have Seen (1992)

Berchick (1989)

Long Johns for a Small

Chicken (2003) with

Godeane EagleVolcano Press PO Box 270 Volcano, CA 95689

SCW Nurse Esther Blanc,Storyteller

Esther Blanc

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The Book of the XVth Brigade: Recordsof British, American, Canadian and IrishVolunteers in Spain, 1936-1938. Warrenand Pell Publishing, 2003. Reprint of the1975 reprint by Frank Graham.

By Robert CoaleThe Book of the XVth Brigade

appeared in Madrid in February of1938, edited by Frank Ryan, withassistance from Dave Doran and JohnTisa. This publication by theCommissariat of War, part of a serieson different brigades, documents theexperiences of English speaking vol-unteers for readers around the globe.Not intended as an official history, itsobjective was to share the experiences

in Spain with a wide audience andgarner popular support for the wareffort. It is composed of first handaccounts of battles from Jarama toFuentes de Ebro, vignettes of numer-ous comrades and services topped offwith period maps and photographs.

Some sixty years later, both thestrengths and weaknesses of a textdesigned for propaganda purposesstand out. For obvious reasons, theauthors minimize difficulties andcasualties; morale is high and there islittle doubt as to final victory. On theother hand, the descriptions of ser-vices and personnel are vibrant;homages to fallen comrades are heart-felt. Printed as the Internationals wereengaged at Teruel, it offers an interest-

ing snapshot of the brigade at a pre-cise period of time: just prior to theGreat Retreats, long before the gruel-ing Ebro and the final withdrawalwere envisioned.

The present reprint is based on a1975 edition by British veteran FrankGraham. The small publishing houseof Warren and Pell should be congrat-ulated on this initiative as theopportunity to acquire a book pro-duced in Spain while the war was stillraging is indeed rare. The publishershave just announced a second reprint,that of Britons in Spain, the 1939 histo-ry by Bill Rust. One hopes that theseefforts will prove successful so thatother, long out of print texts from theera can be reproduced.

Further information can beobtained and orders made directlythrough the website at: www.war-renandpellpublishing.co.uk.

Robert Coale teaches at the University ofParis.

Book Reviews

Record of the XV Brigade

Los protagonistas de la historia ylos testigos de la vida (Una historia oralsobre la estancia de las BrigadasInternacionales en Madrigueras) byCaridad Serrano, Gráficas Albacete,2003.This newly published book containsa number of testimonies by peoplefrom the village of Madriguerasabout their contact withInternational Brigade members sta-tioned in the area during the war.The author’s goal is to describe thecultural and social impact of thebrigades on the village people. Thebook is a nostalgic tribute to both thetown and to the Brigades members;it also pays homage to Harry Fisher,who visited Madrigueras with hisfamily and established a warm rela-tionship with townspeople beforehis death in 2003.

La Medicina en el ExilioRepublicano (Spanish Exiles in theMedical Field), by Francisco Guerra,Madrid: Universidad de Alcalá deHenares, 2003.

Dr. Francisco Guerra was aMajor in the Medical Corps duringthe civil war and later HeadPhysician at the Montuich Hospitalin Barcelona. His book offers bio-graphical sketches of those whowere in the health professions indefense of the Spanish Republic.The book—the most exhaustive onthis topic to date—also containssketches of foreign doctors and med-ical aids who were part of theInternational Brigades and includesbibliographical sources.

Shirley Mangini

arrested and spent years in jail.Leandro spent 5 out of 12 years con-demned to die, expecting each nightto face a firing squad the next day.The two were reunited after beingapart for all that time.

There was much more to our trip.I could mention the serene beauty ofMarçà and the neighboring villages. . .and the Halloween atmosphere on AllSaint’s Day where people roastedchestnuts around a big bonfire, whilechildren played into the evening . . .but I will close by saying simply thatwe were treated royally and overfedby our comrades the Spanish hosts inboth Albacete and Marçà. We reallywanted to stay on.

Clarence Kailin

LettersContinued from page 2

Book Notes

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Saul Wellman(1913-2003)

Saul Wellman, a lifelong activist,died on December 10 in Ann Arborfollowing a stroke. He had celebratedhis 90th birthday in August.

“I want things to change wherethe playing field is leveled, whereequality emerges as a reality. . . wherethe horrible things about inequitiesare eliminated,” said Wellman in a

1998 interview when asked to conveythe philosophy that guided his 75years of activism.

He began as a teen organizingtruck drivers in New York during theDepression. He fought in theInternational Brigades during theSpanish Civil War and as a paratroop-er in the Battle of the Bulge againstNazi Germany. Leader of theCommunist Party in Michigan duringthe McCarthy period, he was the stardefendant in the state’s most famouspolitical trial, and was incarcerated inMilan Prison. His conviction wasoverturned in 1957. After leaving theCommunist Party the same year, hebecame a printer, a trade unionist anda mentor to many in the 1960s genera-tion of activists. From then until his

death he had been “passing the torch”of commitment to a variety of sociallyinvolved people including students,feminists, and labor, peace and envi-ronmental activists.Wellman joined the YoungCommunist League (YCL) when hewas 16 and became a soap box oratorat open air meetings. In 1930, he waspart of a demonstration of 110,000 inNew York’s Union Square protestingthe plight of the unemployed. As aresult, he was expelled from BoysHigh School in Brooklyn, never toreturn to school.

Soon after, he became a truckdriver and led a small group thatorganized hundreds of drivers, even-tually quitting his job to become afull-time organizer for theConfectionary and Tobacco JobbersEmployees Union. In 1934, Wellmanmet Peggy Hobson, another YCLmember and union organizer. Theylater married and were together 40years until her death in 1974.

For Wellman, a totally dedicatedrevolutionary at 23, going to Spain“was the most natural thing in theworld.” Wellman’s leadership in bat-tle led him to becoming PoliticalCommissar of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion until he waswounded and returned home.

During World War II, Wellman,by then thirty years old, was consid-ered “over the hill,” but hevolunteered to be a parachutist andjoined the 101st Airborne Division.He participated in the liberation ofHolland and in the Battle of the Bulge.Wounded at Bastogne with shrapnelin his heart, Wellman escaped fromthe Germans and was hospitalized forsix months and honorably dischargedin 1945 with battle stars, a PurpleHeart and special citations.

He went to Detroit in 1946 as theCommunist Party Auto CommissionSecretary. It was a period when theParty attacked Jim Crow laws andracist practices in Detroit. These activi-ties were gradually overshadowed bythe era’s anti-communist hysteria, and

the Party sent over 2,000 of its leader-ship underground to protect themfrom arrest. In 1950, Wellman, thenacting Party Chairman in Michigan,was among those who became“unavailable.” In September 1952,Wellman was one of six Michigancommunists arrested by the FBI andindicted under the Smith Act for con-spiracy to teach and advocate theviolent overthrow of the U.S. govern-ment. During the same period, Peggywas arrested and threatened withdeportation. The trial that began inlate October 1953 took four months,resulting in the convictions of all sixdefendants. Each spent about sixmonths in jail. In 1957, the U.S.Supreme Court ruled the Smith Actunconstitutional and the “MichiganSix” case was thrown out. Later a fed-eral appeals court ordered thatWellman’s full military pension rightsbe restored, and Peggy’s deportationorder was rescinded. ProsecutorWilliam G. Hundley later publiclyapologized to Wellman.

Soon afterward, Wellmanresigned from the Communist partyhe joined the printers union andbecame an apprentice printer. By thelate 1960s, Wellman’s main preoccu-pation was with influencing many inthe New Left through education andadvice to its emerging leaders.Following his retirement as a printerhe became a one-man link betweengenerations, speaking in the UnitedStates, Canada, West Germany, andItaly. Young people mentored byWellman went on to become leadersin unions, academia, and politics.

Wellman was honored at a 1979testimonial dinner in Detroit, receivingresolutions in recognition of his lifelongcontributions to Detroit and Michiganfrom the Detroit City council, and theMichigan Senate. In 1999, he was hon-ored again by the Detroit City Council,receiving from Council PresidentMaryann Mahaffey a resolution recog-nizing his lifelong contributions toworking people and the city.


Added to Memory’s Roster

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In an interview shortly after hesaid that the “worst thing is passivi-ty,” people must “react to yourproblems today and to react to yourproblems today doesn’t mean you haveto carry a red banner and yell revolu-tion . .Just do something about it.”

A documentary film aboutWellman is in the final stages of pro-duction. He is survived by hischildren, David and Vickie. A memo-rial gathering will be held March 28 inAnn Arbor.

—Ron Aronson

Irene GoldinSpeigel

(1910-2004)Irene Goldin Speigel, who served

as a nurse during the Spanish CivilWar, died on January 15 in Vienna,Austria after a brief illness.

Born in Brooklyn, she completednurse’s training in New York andjoined a new nurse’s trade union,United Professional, where she saw aflyer recruiting medical workers forthe American Bureau to Aid SpanishDemocracy. She applied and wasgiven a long questionnaire to fill out.In the large space where she was togive the reasons why she wanted togo to Spain, she wrote four words, “Tohelp fight fascism.” She didn’t tell herparents she was going, because she“didn’t want there to be any fuss” andsailed for France with 20 other medi-cal volunteers, on the S. S. Normandie,in May 1937.

Irene served at the Aragon Front,Teruel, the second Belchite and atMataro during the Battle of the Ebro.It was at Mataro in 1938 that she caredfor a patient who became her hus-band, Harry Speigel, an Austrian IBvolunteer. At the end of the war, theyfled to France together and foundwork at a children’s refuge run in achateau by the Baroness deRothschild. After the Nazis occupied

France, they lived with forged identitypapers under assumed names in thesouth of France and worked in theResistance with the Austrian under-ground.

At the end of World War II, Irenestayed in France to direct theUnitarian Service’s aid effort inMarseille for Spanish refugees. Shejoined her husband in Vienna in 1947and lived there until the end of herlife. She is survived by two children,Peter and Ilse, and grandchildren.

In a videotaped interview inMadrid in 1996, on the occasion ofSpain’s Homenaje to the Civil Warvolunteers, Irene summed up her feel-ings about that time, “TheInternational Brigades did not fightand lose their lives in vain. I’m alwaysglad that I went to Spain. I felt thatwas the great, great achievement ofmy life.”

—Julia Newman

Alfred L. Amery(1906-2004)

Al Amery, who served with theMackenzie Papineau battalion, andlater the Lincoln battalion in Spain,

died on January 7, one day short of his98th birthday.

A resident of Massachusetts, Alwas a frequent contributor to the let-ters column of the Boston Globe. Hisfriend, David H. Spodick, describedhim as “a self-educated intellectualwho produced hundreds of poems,some published, but mostly becausehe enjoyed composing them, an auto-biography and a play —-nearly allfrom the standpoint of the idealismthat took Al to Spain and into the CPand which never flagged through hiswhole life.”

Of the night in 1937 that heclimbed the Pyrenees, he wrote in hisunpublished autobiography that is inthe ALBA collection: “That momentwas the height of my life. I thought Iwas going to help save the world.”

Spodick described him as “aremarkable person who only failedphysically quite recently. (Until hewas about 92, he ran several milesevery day, did cross country skiingand managed a very large and pro-ductive garden).”

Added to Memory’s Roster

LINCOLN VETS WHO DIED IN 2003

Bill Susman Sana Goldblatt

Sid Linn George Cullinen Morton Wolson

Harry FisherRudolph Valuch

Bill Sennett Tom NortonJoe Young

John Rossen Herman Lopez

Arthur HarrisonEd Lending

Saul Wellman Hy Hollander

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In Memory of a VeteranFred Lisker in memory of Bill Sennett $100

Martha Weissman & Bill Hagel in memory ofHarry Fisher $100

Dan & Molly Watt in memory of George Watt$50

Vincent L. Wolfe in memory of Oiva Halonen$50

Mildred Rosenstein in memory of Herman(Gabby) Rosenstein $50

Jonathan Robison in memory of Jesse Wallach$15

Mary Jill Hanson in memory of Irving Weissman$50

Manny & Nieves Posada in memory of AlWarren $50

Kathleen Hager & Arthur A. Wasserman inmemory of George Cullinen $50

Michael Sennett in memory of Bill Sennett $50

Hilda L. Waitzman in memory of SamWaitzman $25

Constancia Warren in memory of Al Warren,Maury Colow and Arthur Munday $100

Alan Jay Rom in memory of Sam Schiff $50

Susan Alexander in memory of Harry Fisher$100

Helen Lossowski in memory of Vince Lossowski$100

Vicky Starr in memory of Milt Cohen $25

Glen R. Lindfors in memory of Veikko Lindforsand in honor of Clarence Forester $100

Margaret Eberly in memory of Al Warren, RalphFasanella and in honor of Anthony Toney $40

Gideon Rosenbluth in memory of Bill Van Felix,Harry Fisher and Bill Susman, and in honor ofMoe Fishman $1,000

DONOR, IN HONOR OF VETERANJane Larson in honor of Bob Doyle (an Irish-British veteran) $40

Irving Rappaport in honor of my 93rd birthday$93

William R. Carrick in honor of Robert (Bob)Steck and Joseph Grigas $50

DONOR, IN MEMORY OFDr. Stanley Laskey in memory of Sam Goldman$100

DONOR, IN HONOR OFDorothy Bracey in honor of Eileen Rowland$50

Prof. Joan C. Ullmann in honor of Bob Reed$100

CONTRIBUTIONSTeresa Azcarate (from Madrid, Spain) $25

Josep Verdaguer $50

ONLINE CONTRIBUTIONSGarcia Azcarate Tomas, Madrid, Spain $25

Manny & Nieves Pousada, Montrose, NY, $50

Jo Stein Moen, Oslo, Norway, $25

Alvin & Edna Meyer, Ridgewood, NJ, $30

Zhishan Zhang Bejing, China, $25

Max Applebaum, Seattle, WA, $25

Martin Tiersten,Hastings-on-Hudson, NY $25

Constancia Warren, Croton-on-Hudson, NY,$100

David Sloan, Huntington Woods, MI, $25

Joni Plummer-Dibrell, APO AP, CA, $25

Eric Smith, Chicago, IL, $25

To make an online contribution to ALBA, visitwww.alba-valb.org. Click on Contributions.Credit information is secure and confidential.

Contributions

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ALBA BOOKS, VIDEOS AND POSTERS

ALBA EXPANDS WEB BOOKSTOREBuy Spanish Civil War books on the WEB.ALBA members receive a discount!

WWWWWW.ALBA-V.ALBA-VALB.ORGALB.ORGBOOKS ABOUT THE LINCOLN BRIGADEThe Selected Poems of Miguel Hernándezedited by Ted GenowaysThe Wound and the Dream: Sixty Years of AmericanPoems about the Spanish Civil Warby Cary NelsonPassing the Torch: The AbrahamLincoln Brigade and its Legacy of Hope by Anthony Geist and Jose MorenoAnother Hillby Milton WolffOur Fight—Writings by Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Spain 1936-1939edited by Alvah Bessie & Albert PragoSpain’s Cause Was Mineby Hank RubinComradesby Harry FisherThe Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigadeby Peter Carroll

The Triumph of Democracy in Spainby Paul PrestonThe Lincoln Brigade, a Picture Historyby William Katz and Marc Crawford

EXHIBIT CATALOGSThey Still Draw Pictures: Children’s Art in Wartimeby Anthony Geist and Peter CarrollThe Aura of the Cause, a photo albumedited by Cary Nelson

VIDEOSInto the Fire: American Women and the Spanish CivilWarJulia NewmanArt in the Struggle for FreedomAbe Osheroff Dreams and NightmaresAbe Osheroff The Good FightSills/Dore/BrucknerForever ActivistsJudith MontellYou Are History, You Are LegendJudith Montell

❑ Yes, I wish to become an ALBAAssociate, and I enclose a check for $25made out to ALBA. Please send me TheVolunteer.

Name _________________________________________

Address _______________________________________

City________________ State ___Zip_________

❑ I’ve enclosed an additional donation of____________. I wish ❑ do not wish ❑ to have thisdonation acknowledged in The Volunteer. Please mail to: ALBA, 799 Broadway, Room 227, NewYork, NY 10003

ALBA’S TRAVELING EXHIBITIONTHE AURA OF THE CAUSE

ALBA’s photographic exhibit, “The Aura of theCause,” has been shown at the Puffin Room in NewYork City, the University of California-San Diego, theSalvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, FL, the FondaDel Sol Visual Center in Washington DC, and theUniversity of Illinois. This exhibit, curated byProfessor Cary Nelson of the University of Illinois,consists of hundreds of photographs of the LincolnBrigaders, other international volunteers and theirSpanish comrades, in training and at rest, among theSpanish villages and in battle.

For further information about “The Aura of theCause” exhibit, contact Julia Newman, (212) 674-5398;[email protected]. The exhibit is available formuseum and art gallery showings.BRING THIS EXHIBIT TO YOUR LOCALITY.

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The Volunteerc/o Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives799 Broadway, Rm. 227New York, NY 10003

NON PROFIT ORGUS POSTAGE

PAIDSAN FRANCISCO, CA

PERMIT NO. 1577

New York Honors Lincoln Brigade

“Patriots Act!”Performed by the S. F. Mime Troupe

Speaker Victor NavaskyMay 2, 1:30 p.m.

Join Us for the 68th ReunionSkirball Center for the Performing Arts

60 Washington Square SouthTickets: (212) 674-5398

Grace Paley ALBA-Susman Lecture

April 30, 6 p.m.*King Juan Carlos Center

53 Washington Square South

Shirley Mangini “History & Memory of the Spanish Civil War”

April 29, 6 p.m.* Instituto Cervantes

211-215 East 49th Street

*These lectures are free events open to all

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vol. xxv1, no.1 march 2004 patriots act!

Documents