the volunteer, september 2003

8/14/2019 The Volunteer, September 2003

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

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

TheVolunteerJOURNAL OF THE VETERANS OF THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN BRIGADE

TheVolunteerVol. XXV, No. 3 September 2003

Veterans and friends with banners in Corbera. Photo courtesy of Bob Coale and Len Tsou. See Return to the Ebro, page 3

Chicago Vets, page 5

Prison Labor in Francos Spain, page 7

George Watt Awards, page 9

Book and Music Reviews, pages 16-20


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Dear Friends:The obituary of Bill Susman is a reminder of how

neglect and procrastination negate the best of intentions.I met Bill and was associated with him for a period

during the time when we both served on the board of theAbraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. I remember getting

down beside his chair in a noisy, crowded conference roomto talk, and his admonishing, Please Rick, you dont haveto genuflect to me! Bill was very friendly, outgoing, andaccepting of my really non-qualifications to be on theALBA board.

Since it involved Spanish Civil War aviation, of courseI talked to him about the incident of his being made acourier in the purchase of a German airplane for use of theSpanish loyalists. I think we decided that the airplane wasprobably a commercial version of the Messerschmidt 108,

but Bill could not recall the name of the German purveyor,nor that of the Spanish agent who arranged the sale, proba-

bly at Villacoublay.This was certainly an unusual occurrence, entrustingsuch a transaction to a brash young American volunteer, justarrived in France. (But it seemed to me, 50 years later, fromhis confident, easy manner and continuing enthusiasm forthe cause, that Bill was probably just the right ALBA volun-teer to choose to finagle the sale of the German airplane.)

Bill said he would write down everything he couldrecall about the incident and send it to me. I often thoughtto write and pester him about it but never did, and now itstoo late. Worse yet, I cannot find the notes I made (if any)concerning the incident, and it doesnt seem to be men-tioned elsewhere.

So, if any of you diligent and discerning SCW aviationhistorical researchers have ANYTHING concerning BillSusmans sale of an ME 108 to the Spanish republicansearly in 1937, Id appreciate it if you would clue me in.

It seems like a minor, but highly interesting, footnoteto Spanish Civil War aviation history, and I regret to havefumbled the ball.

Viva la brigada!Richard (Rick) Sanders Allen831A Stewart AvenueLewiston, ID 83501

Dear Volunteer,I'm writing to ask you to correct a misspelling invol.xxv' #2,under contributions, you listed my donation to

the memory of Norman as NORMAL Perlman, not NOR-MAN PERLMAN. A small thing , maybe , but a correctionin the next Volunteer will be much appreciated.

Thanks,Polly Perlman

SS eekeeking Wing Woror ld Wld War II Lar II LettettersersTo document the role of the veterans of the Lincoln

Brigade during World War II, ALBA is seeking privatelyheld correspondence written by vets in the military orfrom the home front. Such material will be indexed andadded to the ALBA archives at New York UniversitysTamiment Library for the use of students and scholars.These letters may also be published in a forthcomingvolume.

Such gifts to ALBA are tax deductible. If you havesuch material, please contact Julia Newman, ExecutiveSecretary, ALBARoom 227, 799 Broadway, New YorkNY 10003; 212-674-5398; [email protected].

2 THE VOLUNTEER September 2003

TheVolunteerJournal 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

Design ProductionRichard Bermack

Editorial AssistanceNancy Van Zwalenburg

Submission of Manuscripts

Please send manuscripts by E-mail or on disk.

E-mail: [email protected]

LettersContinued on page

Letters

W W W . A L B A - V A L B . O R GMake a donation on line. We now accept

credit cards. Support ALBA's important

work. Donations are tax deductible.

ErratumThe photo of Abe Osheroff that appeared in the last

issue of The Volunteer, page 4 credited to photographerJose Moreno should have been credited to Jaffe.


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THE VOLUNTEER September 2003

By Bob Coale

The International Brigadesreturned to the Ebro battlefieldsof 1938 to commemorate the 65th

anniversary in a four-day reunion

from July 3-6. The initiative was orga-nized by Terre de Germanor, anassociation of some 21 municipalitieson both sides of the Pyrenees that areworking to preserve the historic mem-ory of those who fought for freedomin the Spanish Civil War and WorldWar II.

The events attracted about 20 IBveterans, as well as 350 friends andfamily members, from 22 countries,from as close as France and as far as

Estonia and Costa Rica. There wereabout 10 veterans from the 15thBrigade including, from the UnitedStates, Moe Fishman, Jack Shafran,and Clarence Kailin. The latter twocarried with them not only memories,

but also scars, from the Ebro Battle.The commemoration included the

customary speeches, dinners, SpanishRepublican songs, and flags.Ceremonies were organized in townscentral to International Brigade history.

In Miravet veterans and friends re-crossed the river, throwing redcarnations into the water in homage tofallen comrades.

Farther upstream, in Flix, wheremany men of the 11th, 13th and 15thBrigades crossed in 1938, there was a

gathering around the monumenterected by Italian veterans. This beautiful memorial sits on an overhangwith a vista of the valley with the Ebrunning through it. Giovanni Pesce,an Italian IBer, gave a rededicationspeech. Standing up front holding onend of the VALB banner, Moe Fishm

witnessed a white-haired womanweeping all through the ceremony,caressing the concrete base of the moument. We learned later that herhusband died in this action in 1938.

One of the most memorableevents took place in Marsa. This towis unique in Spain; in a nearby fieldrests John Cookson, whose gravesitethe only one to survive Francoist vandalism. In a moving talk in the localauditorium, Clarence Kailin, whose

book on his friend and fellowWisconsonite will be published shorly in Spain, thanked the townspeoplfor preserving the site and spoke tothem about Cookson. Recently

Vet Pees HomageJack Shafran had a personal anecdote to tell reporter Jerome

Socolovsky, who covered this summers memorial events for NationalPublic Radio. He explained that soldiers sometimes make promises thathaunt them for their entire lives. While facing bombardments on Hill 666,

Jack swore that if he survived the war hed return someday to piss onFrancos grave. At least that is what Jack remembers today. But, like manyvets, Jack refused to return to Spain while Franco remained in power.

Not until 1986 did he have the opportunity to come clean with his con-

science. With his son Seth, Jack visited the huge Franco tomb in theCathedral of the Valley of the Fallen. Before stepping inside, Jack told thereporter from NPR, he entered a pharmacy and purchased a glass vial,which he took to his hotel room. He filled the vial with urine, returned tothe cathedral, and emptied it on Francos grave. The story was broadcaston July 6.

Apparently Jack wasnt the only person with such ideas. A recent visi-tor to the cathedral found that a guardrail has since been installed at thedictators last resting place. It is not so easy to pee homage these days, butsome, so we are told, still manage.

ReturReturn tn to the Eo the Ebrbroo

Continued on page

Jack Shafran and Moe Fishman are about to cross the Ebro.

Bob Coale is assistant professor of

Hispanic studies at the Universite Paris

- Saint Denis.


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Clarence has been in close contactwith the town authorities to guaranteethe preservation of the site and toerect a monument. Later, with his sonand daughter, Clarence visited hisfriends grave for the first time.

The next day, brigadistas andfriends converged on Corbera de Ebrofor the official ceremony of remem-

brance. Several InternationalBrigaders fought for and passedthrough this small agricultural town

on numerous occasions from April toSeptember 1938. There, surrounded bythe ruins of the old townwhichremain as a reminder of the horrors ofwar and a monument to peaceandunder the hot summer sun, brigadis-tas, former Spanish political prisoners,several associations of friends of theIB, and local and regional authoritiespaid homage to veterans and theirendless struggles for democracy and

international peace.The main addresswas given jointly byAna Perez, Presidentof the Asociacin deAmigos de lasBrigadasInternacionales ofSpain, and her coun-terpart, Sr. LuisBielsa, President ofthe Amigos of

Barcelona. A rousingmessage from LiseLondon, herself anIBer as well as spokesperson for theFrench Resistance to fascism, closed theceremony.

Following lunch, another U.S. vet-eran made his own personal homage.

Jack Shafran, escorted by his son-in-law and a British filmmaker, onceagain made his way to the top of the

infamous Hill 666. With the backdroof Gandesa and Corbera across thevalley, Jack shared his memories ofthe struggle on that bare rock in 1938for an upcoming documentary movi

Following three days of official

ReturReturn tn to Eo EbrbrooContinued from page 3

Veterans and friends in Corbera.

Vet Moe Fishman (r) talks with the mayor of Barcelona.

Continued on page


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By Marta R. Nicholas

The Chicago Friends of theLincoln Brigade honored thelocal vets with a program of

music and poetry, Forever Activistsfor Truth and Justice, on June 7 atRoosevelt Universitys Ganz Hall,

thanks to the support of the universi-tys Center for New Deal Studies.

Jamie OReilly, creator of thecabaret review Pasiones, hosted andsang throughout the program, accom-panied by her niece Katrina OReilly.The opener was the Spanish folk songAsturias, which was followed by

Jenny Magnus reading GenevieveTaggards poem To the AbrahamLincoln Brigade.

After comments by CFLB Chair

vet Charles Hall, Henry Garcia (whosefamily emigrated to Cuba from Spain)read a message of support, in Spanishand English, from Francisco Moreno,Director of Instituto Cervantes inChicago. Jamie read special remarkshonoring Commander Oliver Law, thefirst Afro-American to lead an inte-grated company of American troops;his daughter, Eunice Maynes, wasunable to attend due to illness.

Ralph Nicholas of the CFLB intro-duced Cary Nelson (Jubilee Professorof Liberal Arts and Science atUniversity of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and Vice-Chair of ALBA),

who gave a moving keynote address,reading poems from his volume TheWound and the Dream: Sixty Years of

American Poems about the Spanish CivilWar.

Chicago poet Cranston Knight fol-lowed. Identifying strongly with bothhis African and his Latin background(one of his grandfathers fled Spain forPuerto Rico), he spoke about teachinghistory to working-class students in aChicago community college, where

refugees and minorities hoping to getahead in America often ask what his-tory has to do with them. He engagesthem through poetry.

Cranston read poemsaboutLorca, about Paul Robeson, about anAfro-American woman reporter cov-ering the Spanish Civil Warfrom his

book, La Brigada: Spain (1936-39), soonto be published by Chicagos ThirdWorld Press.

Fred Katzs song BelovedComrade preceded remembrances of

recently deceased local vets Bill Sennett,Art Harrison, Paul Lutka, and RobertKlonsky (whose granddaughter Jo JoKlonsky talked of her memories andread excerpts from his letters fromSpain). Chuck Hall, Al Weinerman,and Aaron Hilkovich are the remain-ing vets in the Chicago area.

The audience was invited to lookat photos and other memorabiliaassembled for the occasion. All joinedin singing Sweet Cookhouse/Young

Man from Alcala and Jarama.The final item of the program wasa call and response: Several peopleread short statements expressing con-temporary causes. At the end of each,the participant said, We continue topursue, and the audience replied,Truth and Justice, in the language oftheir choice (for example, Verdad y

Justicia! in Spanish or Emes undGerekhtikeyt! in Yiddish).

CFLB now launches an excitingnew project. With generous grantsfrom the Puffin Foundation andColumbia College Office ofCommunity Arts Partners Urban

Missions, CFLB will support a majorcollaboration between Free StreetPrograms (urban young peoplesdrama and musical theater groups),Columbia College TheaterDepartment, and Proyecto hACE(bilingual high-school students) todevelop a performance piece based ohow young people relate to theSpanish Civil War and its relevance tissues of our age. After being per-formed several times in the Chicago

area, the program will travel to otherlocations. In addition to providingresources for the young people tolearn about the SCW, the CFLB willhelp arrange productionsincludingsome of the financing. Anyone inter-

ested in more information aboutand/or contributing to this project cacontact Yolanda Hall at [email protected], (708) 488-9552, or MartaNicholas at [email protected](773) 288-1538.

Marta R. Nicholas is active in Chicago

Friends of the Lincoln Brigade, ALBAs

midwest Associates.

CChichic ago Lago L auds Aauds Acc tivist Vtivist Vetsets

Bill Sennett (center), one of the activishonored in the program, at a civilrights demonstration in 1946.

Jamie OReilly sang and hosted theevent.


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Vet ArtistIrving Normanon the Web

An introduction tothe paintings of Lincoln

vet Irving Norman is now

available under the title

The Artist and the Human

Predicament. The web-

site address is

www.irvingnorman.com.

A longtime California resi-

dent, the self-educated

artist has works hanging

in museums around the

country.

Dave Smith Turns 90Neighbors, friends and members of the Bay Area Post came together in

June to celebrate Dave Smiths 90th birthday at his daughters and son-in-laws

(Linda & Steve Lustig) home in Berkeley, California. Much food, Spanish wine,

and camaraderie prevailed. In Daves short remarks, he said that the gathering

was a tribute to all the vets.

Because for many years Dave has celebrated birthdays at 5-year intervals,

all were invited back in 2008! In good health and a member of the Sierra Club,

he takes a weekly 3-4 mile hike with a group of seniors in the hills and around

the lakes of the area. Hes the oldest male hiker of the group. And Dave keeps

on fighting the good fight, as we all need to do.

The VermontInternational FilmFoundation will honor thememory of one of its founders,

Lincoln vet George Cullinen, dur-

ing this years events, October 16-

18, in Burlington, Vermont.

Cullinen died last spring.

Photo Show inArgentinaALBAs traveling exhibition of

black and white photographs, The

Aura of the Cause, curated by

Cary Nelson, will be shown at the

Palacio de Bellas Artes in Buenos

Aires, Argentina, from Septemberthrough November 2003, thanks

to the support of The Puffin

Foundation, Ltd. The same grant

will enable vet Moe Fishman to

participate in public events there

with Argentine vets of the Spanish

Civil War.

In BrIn Briefief


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By Nicols Snchez-Albornoz

Translated by Anthony GeistNicols Snchez-Albornoz, a long-

time member of ALBAs Board ofGovernors, is professor emeritus of historyat NYU. Born in Madrid in 1926, he wasarrested in 1947 for student activism inthe University of Madrid and sentenced toseven years hard labor in the Cuelgamuros

prison camp. He was one of thousands ofRepublican political prisoners forced towork on the construction of the Valley ofthe Fallen, destined to be Francos tomb.

He served six months before escaping withtwo other prisoners, aided by a young

American student, Barbara ProbstSolomon. She has made a documentaryabout the experience, When the War wasOver. The author is one of four survivors

from his labor camp. He has sworn not tovisit the Valley of the Fallen until Francois exhumed or a urinal is installed directlyover his grave.

In Franco Spain during the 1940sand 50s, being in prison or infreedom differed only in degree.

All of Spain was a great prison in

which everyones movements wererestricted. Only exceptionally wereSpaniards able to travel outside thecountry. Gibraltar and Portugalreturned fugitives who crossed their

borders. The Pyrenees remainedclosed after France broke relationswith Spain. The area near the borderon the Spanish side was heavilypatrolled after guerillas based inFrance tried to invade the AranValley. To circulate in that zone

required a special permit, signed byno less than the captain general of themilitary region. To travel elsewhere inSpain one needed a safe-conduct passissued by the police upon presentation(this is not invented by Buuel) of acertificate signed by a parish priestthat the bearer had taken communion.Since I traveled frequently between

Continued on page 8

Prison Labor in the Building of

the Valley of the Fallen

Monument at the Valley of the Fallen. Digital manipulation from photos by GaleR Frysinger.


8/24


vila and Madrid, I took communionannually in San Vicente in order to getmy certificate. Police checked train carsasking for papers and the GuardiaCivil patrolled highways and foot

tracks. Homes were subject toimpromptu searches without warrants.A network of informants helped keepan eye on all those suspected of politi-cal crimes. Virtually the only optionleft to those who were pursued was to

become topos (moles) and literally wallthemselves up in their homes.

I am often asked if Francos campswere extermination camps in the samesense as the Nazis were. In Spainthere were of course camps, colonies

and battalions where prisoners died ofmistreatment without facing the firingsquad. This happened less frequentlyin Cuelgamuros and similar workcamps. Excavation of the crypt wasoften bloodied by accidents withexplosives, and deaths occurred dur-ing the construction of the monastery.The roadwork was extenuating.Additionally there was never enoughfood. Hygiene was precarious. I stillremember summer nights when the

bedbugs crawled in our nostrils and

ears and sucked out buckets of blood.Life in the work details was only

benign by comparison with prison.Concentration camps, work battal-

ions, disciplinary labor battalions forRepublican soldiers, colonies, work-shops, penal detachments the entirestring of penal institutions did nothave a single or permanent characterover the first 25 years of the Francoregime. Their evolution over time can

be likened to a funnel, wide enough in

1939 to accommodate an enormousmass of prisoners, narrowing to apoint in the early 60s. TheCuelgamuros penal detachmentsoccupy just a fraction of that process,and the point I am referring to in thelate 40s is about half way through,when the early brutal repression hadslackened somewhat and the workdetails had become an important busi-ness for the State.

The first work camps were undermilitary command. Prisoners dugtrenches, built fortifications, or clearedrubble under the watchful eye of sol-diers and officers. Within a year thefascists added to this primary exploita-tion of political prisoners and prisonersof war a more perverse punishment. Icannot resist quoting part of thepreamble to Decree 281, issued May 28,

1937, exactly as Buchenwald was beingbuilt. This decree began the systematicexploitation of Republican labor:

The right to work enjoyed

by all Spaniards must not be

denied by the New State to

Red prisoners... The concession

of this right ... could be taken

as simply another ineffectual

concession in the face of the

passivity of those entitled to it,

leaving unfulfilled the goals

the declaration of this rightentails, that is that they can

support themselves by their

own effort, aid their families

appropriately, and not consti-

tute a drain on the public

treasury. Said right to work is

governed by the concept of a

right-function or right-duty

and is, to be precise, a right-

obligation.

Rarely does one encounter a textboth as convoluted and at the sametime as obvious as this. It does notgive the impression of having beenwritten by a bloodthirsty beast or acold-blooded Nazi convinced of thesuperiority of the chosen race. Whatthe text reveals is the voice of a prieswell versed in verbal manipulation.The decree, inspired in the Jesuit

Prez del Pulgar, grants prisoners thright to work but leaves them nooption. If they do not cooperate theyare forced to comply. The distortion the concept of right reveals its truepurpose. Its intention is to make theprisoner responsible for the cost of hconfinement. A few lines farther on,which I have not transcribed, thedecree distinguishes between prisoners accused of serious crimes, who argiven no rights at all, and the large

group that has no specific chargeshanging over them but who the Stateprefers to keep locked up. This decreconfirms that prison labor was animportant resource to increase represion to unjustifiable levels withoutextra costs and without removinglaborers from the circuit of produc-tion. The system reached its greatest

Continued on page 1

Valley of the FallenContinued from page 7


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GG eoreorge Wge Watt Aatt Awwarards 2003ds 2003By Daniel Czitrom

WWe are pleased to announcethe winners of this yearsGeorge Watt Awards, estab-

lished to honor the memory of thisLincoln vet, author, activist and lead-

ing figure in creating and supportingALBA. The competition encouragesstudent research and writing on theAmerican experience in Spain, aswell as related topics in the SpanishCivil War and the larger history ofanti-fascism.

This year, we received essaysfrom the widest geographical rangeyet. The 22 undergraduate and fourgraduate entries came from studentsfrom all over the United States, as well

as Canada, England, France, Pakistan,Cameroon, and Zaire. The quality ofthe undergraduate essays was espe-cially impressive, and the judgesdecided to award two prizes of $500each in that category, but none forgraduate level work. This years com-mittee consisted of Shirley Mangini(California State University at LongBeach), Mel Small (Wayne StateUniversity), and Daniel Czitrom(Mount Holyoke College).

And the 2003 winners are:Kathleen Rose Halper, Wesleyan

University, for Voices From the

Valley: El Valle de los Caidos in History

And Memory

Andrey Shlyakhter, Brandeis

University, for The Good Fight On

Trial: The Subversive Activities

Control Board on the Abraham Lincoln

Brigade in 1955

We extend our warmest congratu-lations to both.

Daniel Czitrom, former chair of the ALBA

Board of Governors, is co-author ofRed

Bessie, a new historical drama with

songs, inspired by the letters, experi-

ences, and family of Lincoln vets Joe and

Leo Gordon.

Voices From the Valley:El Valle de los Caidos inHistory and Memoryby Kathleen Rose Halper

The Valley of the Fallen, thelargest monument in Spain, was

built by political prisoners anddedicated to the victors of the SpanishCivil War. Buried in its Basilica are the

bodies of Jos Antonio Primo deRivera and Francisco Franco. Themonuments political identity seemsclear, glorifying one side and punish-ing the other. Yet despite this, theValley provokes opposing interpreta-tions and understandings. The same

monument that symbolizes divisionand war to some represents reconcilia-tion and peace to others.

How is it that one monument canhave such contrary meanings? Much ofthe answer lies in the history of Spainunder Franco. The notoriously prag-matic and flexible Franco presenteddifferent faces to different people at dif-ferent times. In Francos terms, prisonlabor in general, and at the Valley, was

both charitable and punitive, for thebenefit of the prisoner and for the bene-

fit of all of Spain. Depending on thetime and the audience, Franco used theValley of the Fallen to glorify the war orto exalt his peace.

The language of reconciliation andpeace associated with the Valleyincreased as the population of peoplewho had not lived through the CivilWar grew and as the regime began tocater to an increasingly acceptinginternational community. But Franconever abandoned the belligerent and

one-sided tone of his earlier rhetoric,so that the two opposing messageswere simultaneous.

Yet the question remains why,almost 30 years after the death ofFranco, does the Valley of the Fallencontinue to mean such different thingsto different people? To answer thatquestion we must look at Spain afterFranco. The governments since Francoentered into a pact of silence, a tacit

agreement to leave the past alone forthe sake of a stable democracy. Theyhave, for the most part, de-politicizedthe monument as much as possible.Today there are no Franco or JosAntonio memorabilia in the Valley o

the Fallen gift shop, and guidebooksignore or barely mention the detailthat prison labor was used to build thValley. This leaves partisans on boththe right and the left frustrated, as

both sides see their understanding ofhistory silenced. Yet this silencingfavors a Francoist interpretation inthat it does not expose an alternativeunderstanding of the monument, onthat has never been presented officialy. For years Franco presented this

monument in his own language, artiulating an interpretation still held byhis supporters. Today this message ino longer as loud. Yet the victims ofthe war have never had their messagarticulated through official channels

This project is based on primarysources, as well as oral histories I conducted in Spain with former politicalprisoners who worked on the monu-ment, a sculptor who worked on theValley of the Fallen, Falangistas,Franquistas, and a former Minister of

Housing under Franco. I argue thatthe idea of the Valley of the Fallen asplace of peace and reconciliation is thresult of the manipulation of theregime and of regime supportersattempts to rewrite history.

This history has been left unchalenged and uncorrected by post-wagovernments in an attempt to maintain peace and reconciliationachieved during the transition fromdictatorship to democracy. Yet man

have begun to question and chal-lenge this history, demanding theexhumation of Republicans who ha

been buried in mass graves duringand after the war, thus literally andfiguratively confronting the ghosts the past. I hope this essay will con-tribute to this process by bringingthe opinions expressed in privateinterviews into public conversation

Continued on page


10/24


The Good Fight OnTrial: The SubversiveActivities Control Boardon the Abraham LincolnBrigade in 1955

by Andrey Shlyakhter

The Good Fight on Trialaddresses the singular caseof a government agency

passing judgment on matters of histo-ry. In its 1954 hearing of The AttorneyGeneral vs. Veterans of the AbrahamLincoln Brigade, the SubversiveActivities Control Board (SACB)

determined that the VALB constituteda Communist-front organization. Inpresenting their case, the AttorneyGenerals lawyers sought to show thatthe VALBs predecessor, the AbrahamLincoln Brigade, was already con-trolled by Communists and served theinterests of the Soviet Union. As aresult, the truth of what took place inSpain between 1936 and 1939 becamethe subject of debate in a Washingtoncourtroom.

Although the SACB denied pass-

ing judgment on the history of theSpanish Civil War, 60 pages of itsRecommended Decision are devoted tothe activities of the Abraham LincolnBrigade rather than the veterans orga-nization. Under Findings of Fact,the decision includes sections withsuch titles as Character and Functionof ALB in Spain, CommunistLeadership of the ALB, and SovietInterests Advanced in Spain byCPUSA and CPS Through the United

Front. Given recent scholarship onthe subject (e.g., R. Radosh, M.Habeck, and G.Sevostianov, SpainBetrayed: the Soviet Union in the SpanishCivil War [Yale, 2001]) such claimscannot be dismissed simply as excess-es of their time but must be evaluatedseriously for their historical accuracy.

Two such historical claimsmade by the SACB are particularlycompelling. One is the allegation, con-

tained in a section of the decision enti-tled Political Commissars andCommunist Indoctrination, that apolitical commissar system com-pletely dominated by Communists

functioned throughout theInternational Brigades, including theALB, for the purpose of dispensingCommunist indoctrination. Theimplication was that Spain became a

breeding ground for Communist revo-lutionary cadres, who would lead afight for world revolution when theyreturned to the United States. A stillmore serious allegation, contained inthe section titled ALB MembersTrained as Soviet Agents, asserted:

Political Commissars turned over men who were then sent to the diver-sionary school where they weretaught sabotage and commando tac-tics by Russian experts, such persons

becoming members of the CPSU for

use in the future wherever the SovietUnion directed. By demonstratingthat the Lincolns in Spain were notonly subjected to Communist indoc-trination, but that some of them weretrained as Soviet agents, the SACBfulfilled its mandate of finding sub-version. Or had it?

My paper shows that the SACBwas right about some things andwrong about others. After reconstruct-ing the stories of Lincoln commissars

John Gates, Joe Dallett, Archie Brown,Carl Geiser, Harold Smith, and OscarHunter, I concluded that most com-missars were indeed committedCommunists who used their positionto promote communist ideologyamong the volunteers. Moreover,

evaluations of commissars by brigadparty leaders clearly indicate that thewere expected to disseminate commnist propaganda. On the other hand,the extent to which the commissars

were able to shape the Lincolns polical outlook is debatable, and thevolunteers varying experiences withcommunist indoctrination lead onto conclude that the commissars wernever able to attain the status ofintellectual policemen ascribed tothem by the SACB.

This above all is the highest treason/To do the right thing for thewrong reason, wrote T. S. Eliot in

Murder in the Cathedral. In its dogged

pursuit of subversion, the SACB itselbecame guilty of such treason.Although history has vindicated its

judgment that members of the LincoBrigade had trained as Soviet agentin Spain (e.g., Morris Cohen), they

were not the volunteers named by thBoard itselfIrving Goff and BillAalto, neither of whom had everworked for Soviet intelligence. Theirguerrilla training under Soviet instrutors enabled them to serve theircountry in World War II, but to theSACB this training became evidence

of subversion once their skills werno longer needed. The facts of theirbiographies had not changed, but theevaluation of those facts became sub

ject to a new, Cold War way ofthinking. That was treason indeed.

I would like to thank my advisorat Brandeis University, DavidEngerman, and the BrandeisUniversity Undergraduate ResearchProgram for funding this project.

WWatt Aatt AwwararddContinued from page 9

[T]he volunteers varying experiences with

communist indoctrination lead one to conclude

that the commissars were never able to attain the

status of intellectual policemen ascribed to themby the SACB.


11/24


By Michael Nash

This spring the Tamiment Libraryacquired the papers of Robert

Garland Colodny (1915- 1997).Colodny was a brave veteran of theLincoln Brigade who, in the summerof 1937, while fighting near Madrid,was struck above the right eye by asnipers bullet. Colodny woke up in ahospital in the Palace Hotel in Madrid.He had gangrene of the brain and wasnot expected to live, but proceeded tomake a miraculous recovery. Theinjury left him partially paralyzed and

blind on his left side. Nevertheless,

four months later, in November 1937,he volunteered to be sent to an anti-gas school in Madrid because he had

been a chemistry major at ColumbiaUniversity before volunteering to goto Spain. After a brief return to thefront, Colodny found that he was tooweak to fight, and he returned to theUnited States in April 1938.

Despite his continuing disability,Colodny joined the United StatesArmy in 1941. He served for fouryears, becoming a staff sergeant with

the army intelligence unit that wasstationed in Alaskas Aleutian Islands.Here he worked with fellow intelli-gence officer Dashiell Hammettpublishing the legendary newsletterThe Adakian. Colodny and Hammettalso co-authored The Battle for the

Aleuthians, which was published bythe United States Army in 1944.

Hammett and Colodny arrived inthe Aleutian Islands, on Adak, some-time in late 1943. Hammett was a

veteran of World War I and Colodnyof the Spanish Civil War. The mission,which involved 50,000 men dug intothe icy Arctic wilderness in the BeringSea, was to root out the Japanese fromtheir last remaining foothold on U.S.territory and to prepare bases for theinvasion of the Japanese home islands.Not surprisingly given the locationand climate, there were serious moraleissues in the Aleutians. Hammett and

Colodnys newsletters and occasionalradio programs were designed to raisemorale by providing the soldiers withnews from the home front and a senseof mission.

Their writings contain a vividdescription of this northern front writ-ten from a broad internationalperspective. They often included anal-yses of the news from occupied Franceand Fascist Spain. According toColodny, We reported the war in real

time. The generals gave us carteblanche to tell the story as we saw fit.The North Pacific fighting men wereperhaps the first to get the full story ofthe Partisan armies of the InternationalBrigade veterans commanding resis-tance forces, [and how] SpanishRepublic exiles contributed to alliedvictory. The Colodny Papers containa nearly complete run of The Adakianand scripts from the radio broadcasts.

After the war, Colodny earned adoctorate in history and philosophyfrom the University of California atBerkeley. He then taught at SanFrancisco State College and theUniversity of Kansas. In 1959 he

joined the faculty of the University oPittsburgh, where he taught until hisretirement in 1986. He was one of themost prominent historians of sciencein the United States, influencing atleast three generations of scholars. H

was an early proponent of the so-called externalist approach.His work demonstrated that the

history of science needs to be studiewithin a broad social and culturalcontext, because is very much part othe society that produced it.Throughout his career Colodny wasinterested in the relationship betwee

Tamiment Library AcquiresRobert Colodny Papers

Continued on page


12/24


ceremonies, while most visitors begantheir trek home, several IB delegations

returned to Barcelona, where theywere received in both the town halland the regional parliament.

This commemoration of the Ebrois the largest such gathering in recentyears in Catalonia, attracting many

local friends of the IB and students ofthe Spanish Civil War. The regional

press of Catalonia widely coveredthese events, including interviewswith several IBers. In the UnitedStates, National Public Radio reporter

Jerome Socolovsky broadcast an inter-view with Lincoln vet Jack Shafran.

In a unique coincidence with his-toric relevance, over the sameweekend, in northern Catalonia, closeto the border with France, a monu-ment was inaugurated in memory ofthe hundreds of thousands of SpanishRepublicans who were forced to flee

the country in 1939. The monument inVajol marks the spot where LluisCompanys and Jos Antonio Aguirre,presidents respectively of Catalonianand Basque governments during thewar, went into exile.

ReturReturn tn to Eo EbrbrooContinued from page 4

Photos clockwise from top: ClarenceKailin, vets at Corbera, GeorgeSossenko, vets crossing the EbroRiver, and rally in front of church atCorbera.


13/24


success when it joined with privateenterprise.

This system is worthy of a muchlengthier study, which will have towait for another occasion, but I would

like to turn my attention to two factorsfundamental to this regime ofredemption: vengeance and class.When the military rose up in armsagainst the government of theRepublic, they expected immediatevictory and that the country would beintact. The resistance of the workingclass put down the rebellion in themajor urban centers and took them bysurprise. The rules of the game, asplayed in the 19th and early 20th cen-

turies, had been broken. A show ofarms did not guarantee the immediateimposition of the goals of the army inthe face of general public passivity.The partial success of the fascist upris-ing escalated into a lengthy war ofattrition. Military victory was finallyachieved in the midst of the desolationof the country.

Rather than accept responsibilityfor their actions and miscalculations,the army decided to take revenge onthose who had dared to defy their

superiority and defend their govern-ment by taking up arms, accusingthem of military insurrection. The mil-itary shamelessly used the codesintended to regulate its own behaviorto sentence and execute civilians andcomrades in arms who had defendedthe government. This argument wasthe justification for mass executionsand arrests for years following thewar. Concerning material damagessuffered, two laws one of political

responsibilities and the other ofredemption of sentences throughlabor were conceived no lessstrangely as economic revenge. Thefirst law punished the pocketbook ofthe Republican middle class; the con-cept of redemption put the weight ofthe reconstruction of the country onthe shoulders of the working class.

The imposition of forced labor fitperfectly with the concept of class

shared by the victors and their men-tors. The working class was, in thefinal analysis, the usual object ofexploitation. What was new was thecruder form of exploitation. The con-

cept of class finally prevailed over thegas chambers and their equivalents.Prisoners were more valuable diggingditches than dead. The State preferredthe role of supplier of labor to the pri-vate sector. The importance that Iattribute to class consciousness in thisprocess has less to do with a Marxistanalysis than with the facts. TheFranco regime followed a Marxist for-mula, but inverted it. Eleven yearsafter the decree took effect, when I

was sentenced, the regime of prisonlabor remained virtually unchanged.Because I was a student and not affili-ated with any particular politicalparty I was assigned to the office ofthe work detail. I learned from thedocuments I had access to at that timethat the State charged the MolnConstruction Company, which hadthe contract for the construction of themonastery, 10.50 pesetas per day foreach prisoner it supplied, more thanone-third less than the base wage of

free labor. The State, as employmentagency, sold labor at a modest priceand made a great profit. By the sametoken the construction companyreduced its labor costs and increasedits profits. For Franco-era constructioncompanies, prison labor represented aprimitive source of capital accumula-tion. By the end of this extortion ofpolitical prisoners the accumulatedwealth reached its logical conclusion,

baptizing a new resort on the Costa

del Sol with the name of the companyresponsible for building the road tothe Valley of the Fallen: Puerto Bans.A doubly lucrative business built onthe backs of the prisoners.

The profits that the State maderenting prisoners can be broken downas follows. Of the 10.50 pesetascharged per day, half a peseta wentinto an account in the prisonersname, which he received when

released from prison. For each yearworked the prisoner earned some 15pesetas, which represented little purchasing power. Twelve hundredpesetas for eight years hard labor wa cruel joke. Of the remaining 10 pestas, five were what the administratio

budgeted for room and board. For thprice of renting prison labor the Statecovered the cost of feeding and cloth

ing the prisoners. Hence prisonerscost the State nothing. Additionally,the other five pesetas went to coverthe costs of infrastructure, guards,police and the military. The State didnot need to release prisoners to savemoney. On the contrary, as the prisopopulation increased, so did profits.

In the light of documents andbudgets of the Ministry of Justice andthe Army in those years, future historians will decide if the regime of

prison labor constituted an accidentasource of income or if, as I maintain,financed the enormous repressiveapparatus of the Franco regime.Francos refusal to seek reconciliationafter the war surely has its roots inideology and its emotions, but Francalso had economic reasons to avoidreconciliation.


Continued on page


14/24


To give a more complete picture,the research I propose should alsoinclude the construction cost of theValley of the Fallen, not only direct butindirect costs, including the damage

caused to the rebuilding and develop-ment of a country that lay in ruins bydiverting scarce resources (includinglabor) to the erection of a monument tothe vanity of the dictator. Economichistorians have the floor.

Studies like these are feasible, forthe bureaucracy of the regime, boththe Army and the Ministry of Justiceand other branches of the govern-ment, produced mountains ofdocuments. I personally witnessed the

variety of memos, statements,accounts and other documents thatissued from the offices of a modestpenal detachment like mine thatworked on the construction of themonastery. By the time I was servingmy sentence, the camps were nolonger under military jurisdiction.Correspondence was sent daily to theGeneral Office of Prisons, to the Officeof Prison Labor, to other prisons andto the Guardia Civil. For example,prisoners were counted seven times a

day and the results were sent immedi-ately. They were then followed byweekly and monthly reports. Onekind of memo we produced gave aninventory of the amount of food theo-retically consumed in the camp. Thesedocuments, moldering in the archives,give both a statistical account and apicture of many of the tensions experi-enced in the camps.

The documents from the penaldetachments require, some more than

others, a critical reading. The primarylists of prisoners are reliable. Noprison official would have dared tocover up the disappearance of a pris-oner. The economic documents areanother matter. The profits the Statewas making on high invited embez-zlement below. The Franco regime setthe example for generalized corrup-tion, as I shall show.

One of my duties in the office was

to draw up a daily menu with a bal-anced calorie count of carbohydrates,fats, and proteins within given guide-lines. The tables had to balance thenumber of prisoners and the food on

stock in the warehouse, gradually con-suming the monthly allotments sent bythe General Office of Prisons. Thesetables were not worked out ahead oftime and did not follow a set order, butwere drawn up only when they had to

be sent to the Ministry. They were a jus-tification and had nothing to do withthe food on stock or with what wentthrough the kitchen. The months I pre-pared them I never once consulted withthe cook or set foot in the pantry. It was

a theoretical exercise to comply with anadministrative requirement, and repre-sented the dietary conception of thedoctors who invented it.

That these calculations said onething and the storeroom another wasno accident. In theory not an ounce offood should have gone astray. Butwhat made the numbers doubly hypo-thetical was that the suppliesaccounted for either had neverentered the storeroom or had enteredin quantities less than those declared.

Trucks arrived at our detachmentfrom time to time. We all saw themunload a sack or two and then leavenearly as heavy as they arrived. It wasrumored that the Madrid black-marketwas supplied mainly by food divertedfrom prisons and barracks. We wereunable to determine where the trucksand the profits wound up. It seems like-ly that there was a chain of supply to

better cover their tracks. The prisonershad no doubt that the warden of our

detachment got his share.The shortage of food did not havethe consequences you might expect.Prisoners worked overtime for directpay from the company. This minimalextra income was sufficient to buycigarettes, wine and a little food. Inpoint of fact, prisoners paid twice fortheir food: on the food line and in thecanteen. In this world of misery theprisoners were free of moral indi-

gence, which fell fully on the shoul-ders of the repressor-criminals, whogrew rich at their expense.

Despite the particular ideology osome wardens and prison officials, th

regime of the Franco concentrationcamps did not follow a Nazi model.Control of the camps did not lie withthe Falangist party, nor was their population chosen by the same phobias ain Germany: Jews, undesirables, andCommunists. The origin of theSpanish camps has an unmistakablemilitary stamp that goes back to theSpanish-American war of 1898. Thusthe concept did not need to be impored from northern Europe and its

totalitarian doctrines but derives froma home-grown colonial model. At thbeginning of the war, the camps werimprovised. Their systematization,which happened almost immediatelywas the responsibility, as we haveseen, not of the Party, but of theChurch, which brought the camps ouof a phase of blind repression to givethem a dehumanized rationality,which is difficult for us to share, butwhich responded to the objectives ofthe regime. These were, as I have sug

gested above, to avenge the militaryfrustration and to assure the long-term domination of one class overanother, all within an organic vision society. Class and revenge comple-mented each other perfectly.

The Franco labor camps were noa necessity of war. They were compldevices designed to keep great sectoof the population under control afterthe war without incurring enormousdeficits that would have forced the

regime to loosen its grip. The Army inormally not concerned with the supply chain intended to keep itmarching. Professional economists,virtually unknown at that time, didnhave responsibility for the supplychain either. It was the clergy, withgreater social and doctrinaire concerthan the bankers.


continued next pa


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scientific revolutions and politicalchange.

Colodny remained committed toprogressive causes throughout hislifetime and was active in the peaceand civil rights movements. During

the Vietnam War he was a member ofthe group Veterans for Peace and wasoften seen at anti-war demonstrationswith Abraham Lincoln Brigade veter-ans. Colodny was an active member ofthe Veterans of the Abraham LincolnBrigade (VALB) and a founding mem-

ber of the Abraham Lincoln BrigadeArchives (ALBA). He wrote vividlyabout the Spanish Civil War in twomajor books, The Struggle for Madrid(1958) and Spain, the Glory and the

Tragedy (1970). During the VietnamWar he published a very influentialpamphlet, Spain and Vietnam: An

Historical Perspective (1967), that was

based on an address that he deliveredbefore the Historical Commission ofthe Veterans of the Abraham LincolnBrigade. In this pamphlet he arguedthat the war in Spain, like the war inVietnam, was a war of national libera-tion; both were peoples wars forsocial justice.

In 1961 Colodny became involvedin a national controversy when

Pennsylvania State RepresentativeJohn T. Walsh of McKeesport accusedhim of being a Communist sympathiz-er. This incident followed thepublication of a story in the Pittsburghpress that quoted him as saying thatthe Cuban revolution representedagrarian reform. Colodny wascalled before the House Committee onUn-American Activities (HUAC),where he was subjected to intense

questioning. The University ofPittsburgh conducted its own six-month investigation, and Colodnyretained his teaching position.University Chancellor Edward H.Litchfield announced Professor

Colodnys vindication with a broadand moving statement endorsing theidea of academic freedom. TheColodny proceedings were one of thlast of the national witch hunt cases the so-called McCarthy period. TheColodny Papers contain correspon-dence files, hearing transcripts, andnewspaper clippings describing thisimportant academic freedom case.

After his retirement from theUniversity of Pittsburgh, Colodny

continued to devote himself toALBAs work and the preservation ohistorical memory of the Spanish CivWar. He served as an historical con-

sultant to the National PublicBroadcasting System program CorpDuende: Echoes of the Spanish CivilWar. He was a regular contributor toThe Volunteer and spoke about hisexperiences in Spain on college cam-puses throughout the United States.

The Tamiment Library at NewYork University is continuing itsefforts to build the Abraham Lincoln

Brigade Archives. Veterans and theirfamilies who have materials to con-tribute, please contact Julia NewmanExecutive Secretary, ALBARoom227, 799 Broadway, New York, NY10003; 212-674-5398;[email protected].

Michael Nash is director of the Tamimen

Library at New York University.

Robert Colodny PapersContinued from page 11

He was one of the most prominent historians of science in

the United States , . . . His work demonstrated that the

history of science needs to be studied within a broad socia

and cultural context, because is very much part of the

society that produced it.

The fact that I have chosen tostudy Francos concentration campsfrom the perspective of my own per-sonal experience does not excluderecognition of the material and moralsuffering of the prisoners and their

families; rather, it is a way of trying tounderstand the extreme dimensionsand longevity that the systemachieved, greater than those achieved

by Nazi Germany, the paradigm ofpersecution, cut short by the Alliedvictory. The Nazi camps were cruelinstruments of war; Francos campswere that and more. They were tools ofrepression in a blood-drenched coun-try. As the repression lasted, vengefulfury gave way over time to businessand corruption. I believe it was Sir

Samuel Hoare, the English ambassadorin Madrid, who defined the Francoregime as a dictatorship tempered bycorruption. This corruption temperedthe penal regime as well, though itnever lost its punitive integrity.

In conclusion, it is rather surpris-ing that Franco, whose awareness ofthe power of symbols led him toparade under an ecclesiastical canopy(like the Pope) or to conceive of theValley of the Fallen, did not under-

stand the significance of building hismausoleum with the forced labor ofpolitical prisoners. With a little moremoney, which he had in abundance,he could have hired free labor and notleft the stamp of vengeance on thevanquished or the shame of traffick-ing in prison labor. He was betrayed

by his arrogance. Today his mortalremains lie in a monument to revengeand corruption.

Sculpture at the Valley of the Fallen.Photos by Galen R Frysinger.


16/24


En La Plaza De Mi Pueblo, Spain in My

Heart: Songs of the Spanish Civil War

(Appleseed Recordings )

By Peter Glazer

We owe gratitude to HeatherBridger and her coproducer Joe Weedfor their beautiful new CD, Spain in

My Heart: Songs of the Spanish CivilWar, to be released this month. It is anessential addition to the small canonof recordings that arose from theSpanish conflict. Though not all of the17 tracks are successful, the vastmajority are, some bordering on thetranscendent. The liner notes withposters and photographs will makethis a very appealing package for any-

one with an interest in the wars musicand the ways the story has been reinter-preted in the decades since. More thanhalf of the tracks are sung in Spanishwithout translation, but that shouldntdissuade non-Spanish speakers. In fact,it is only a few of the English interpreta-tions that fail to capture the complexemotions of the event.

One reason the project is so suc-cessful is the unusually broadspectrum of songs and performers

Bridger has gathered: from PeteSeeger, who has been singing some ofthese songs longer than anyone butthe veterans themselves, to Bay area

bluegrass star Laurie Lewis, to thebrilliant contemporary Spanish singer-songwriter Uxa and Aoife Clancy,daughter of Bobby Clancy of theClancy Brothers. Thanks to solid,straightforward production, Weeds

beautiful guitar and string playing,

Kenny Stahls flutes and the samerhythm section on most tracks, thefeatured artists are well supported.

The CD opens with Arlo Guthrie,in his rough, expressive baritone,singing a version of Jarama Valley,probably the best known of theEnglish language songs. It is intercutwith Pete Seegers recollections of hisparticipation in the first Americanrecording of Spanish Civil War songs.

This segues beautifully into En LaPlaza De Mi Pueblo, which beginswith sounds of a Spanish plaza under-scoring an arrhythmic bass line,percussion, hand claps and flute, set-ting up Michele Greens strong vocal.It creates a beautiful transition to theSpanish landscape, where the eventsthat inspired these songs tore a coun-try apart. With my hoe I write pagesof misery and sweat upon the land,

the lyric reads, reminding us how cetral issues of land reform were to thepeople of Spain.

Most of the famous songs arehere: El Quinto Regimiento sung bLila Downs, a nearly danceable ver-sion of Si Me Quieres Escribir byQueztals lead singers Gabriel andMartha Gonzlez, and Laurie Lewissad and pretty Peat Bog Soldiers.The brother-sister duo

Guardabarranco, Katia and SalvadorCardenal, have two gorgeous tracks,Asturias and Noche Nochera, thlatter Salvador Cardenals magnificesetting of Garcia Lorcas Romance dla Guardia Espanola, composedspecifically for this project. Its sinuoumelodic turns from minor to majorchords lift the heart.

Singing theSpanishCivil War

Music ReviewsMusic Reviews

Continued on page 2


17/24


Republic of Egos: A Social History of

the Spanish Civil War.

by Michael Seidman, Madison: University

of Wisconsin Press, 2002

By Joshua Goode

Over the past decade, historicalrevision of the conflagrations of the

1930s and 1940s, especially World WarII and the Holocaust, has focused onthe individual, exploring individualacts, small groups, the platoon ratherthan the battalion, and the Pianistrather than the orchestra. These worksset out to prove that understandingpast events needs to be more intricateand complicated. We know why statesgo to war; why do people so willinglyfight in them? We need to know whypeople did what they did in war, howthey became killers, or worse, genoci-

dal killers.Michael Seidman, a history pro-

fessor at the University of NorthCarolina/Wilmington, brings thiskind of analysis to the Spanish CivilWar. As Seidman writes, his goal is toreplace this view of the great battle ofisms by bringing back the individ-ual to study the war from the

bottom up.What did Seidman discover by

studying individuals and their

motives in the Spanish Civil War?Spaniards (by which he means the citi-zens of Spain, rather than thevolunteers who flocked to Spain, animportant point to which I will return)fought or did not fight, fired theirguns or deserted their positions,donated their possessions or hoardedmaterial necessary for the war effort,for very personal reasons. These rea-sons usually related to the

preservation of their families, theirtowns, or themselves. Such personalreasons often conflicted with anddamaged the collective interests ofclass, gender, party, or union.Seidman says that the Spanish SecondRepublic was filled with egos first,republicans second.

Seidman skillfully demonstrates

that these individuals were not merelycallous and selfish, but rather were, ina sense, abetted or forced into selfish-ness by structural defects in theRepublican management of the war.Stated simply, the Republican govern-ment failed to convince its loyalists tosacrifice and die for the war. The fail-ure grew more acute as the conflictdevolved into protracted trench war-fare that tested the skills of state

bureaucrats and military quartermas-ters to feed, clothe, motivate and arm

a fighting force as supplies dwindled,foreign aid was minimal, and graft ranrampant. For Seidman, these pres-sures on the individual soldier werefar more explanatory of the Loyalistsfailures to maintain a committed fight-ing force than were politics, culture, orideology.

Using a range of evidence to showthis lack of commitment, Seidmandetails pillaging and looting thatRepublican troops engaged in

throughout the Republican zone thathampered state efforts to feed all of itsforces. He describes the live and letlive system of trench warfare (a termfirst coined to describe World War I),where opposing soldiers did not fireto kill but to keep up appearances,even engaging in soccer games andnewspaper exchanges, as symbols of alack of commitment on both sides.This egoism born of frustration,

fear, and pessimism was the funda-mental source of Republican failure.While Seidman is careful to show sim

ilar selfishness among the Francoisranks, their efficient organization onthe front lines and in the rear-guardand the maintenance of non-combatpopulations mattered far more thanthe numerical superiority of theRepublican forces. Seidman writesthat if a soldiers valor depends onhis stomach, then one side clearlysucceeded in filling those stomachsalbeit with far more internationalsupportwhile the other failed.

Seidmans work is particularlyvaluable for the detailed portrait ofthe Spanish Civil War gleaned fromenergetic archival work and sec-ondary reading. Seidman makesreference to letters, front-line reportsrequisition and quartermasterrequests, minutes from meetings, telegrams, regulations, and medicalrecords that capture the war in all ofits noisome smell, hunger pangs, petness, confusion, and surprisingcamaraderie. He brings us to local

meetings, lets us see particularinstances of looting, tells us what wain the soldiers mess plates, whatkinds of pastimes they engaged in anwhat they screamed to the enemyacross the no mans land. In the waythat a good movie adds flesh and boto past events, Seidmans efforts giveus insight into the varied minds of thsoldier and civilian. Given the rangeof documentation, one cannot quibbllightly with Seidmans arguments. H

work is a revealing portrait of the waYet, oddly, as a result ofSeidmans focus on Spanish citizens,he seems to draw an unintentionaland perhaps contradictory conclusioThere were exceptions to Seidmansemphasis on egoism, especiallyamong the international volunteersthat came to Spain beginning inNovember 1936. According to

Why the Spaniards

Fought

Continued on page

Book ReviewsBook Reviews


18/24


Dirty War. Clean Hands. ETA, the GAL

and Spanish Democracy.

Paddy Woodworth. New Haven: Yale

University Press, 2003.

By Shirley Mangini

Paddy Woodworth, an Irish free-lance writer, has recently published arevised edition of Dirty War. Clean

Hands (first published by Cork

University Press in 2001). The bookdeals with the riveting, grizzly story ofhow Felipe Gonzlez socialist govern-ment created an underground terroristorganization, the Grupos Antiterroristasde Liberacin (GAL), to combat theBasque terrorist group ETA.

Woodworths passionate interestin this themehe covered Spanishaffairs for The Irish Times and the BBCfor over 20 yearsoriginated from apersonal connection to one of themain players in the GAL affair, Julin

Sancristobal. As the story unfolds, wefind that Woodworth was motivated

by a commitment to justice, condemn-ing violence by describing howterrorism begets more terrorism.

Reprehensible as ETAs terrorismhas been, he says, I do not believethat the democratic state has any man-date to use terror against terrorism,however much it has been provoked.And he aims to prove his convictionsthrough a dramatic narration of the

events that led up to the creation ofGAL and that culminated in endlessinvestigations and trials.

Paddy Woodworth has made amajor contribution to the study ofSpanish history on a subject that has

been masked and manipulated for 20years. His dedication to his material,his need to get to the bottom of thingsin a personal, yet objective, style,makes Dirty War. Clean Hands a book

that should be read by all of thoseinterested in Spanish politics.

The text begins by introducing thereader to the mysterious history of theBasques, whose origins are still dis-puted today. Inhabitants of thepeninsula for some 2000 years, withtheir own culture, language and dis-tinctive physical characteristics, thefiercely independent Basque peoplehave preserved a distinct spirit

through the centuries.When Sabino Arana founded theBasque Nationalist Party (PNV) in thelate 19th century and declared hisnation a race, rather than an ethnicgroup, his ideas were embraced by hispeople. Six decades later, after years ofenduring repression under the Francoregime, the younger members ofPNVrepulsed by the older genera-tions apathycreated ETA. But it wasnot until l968 that ETA launched itspolitics of violence, an armed struggle

against the regime that was supportedor at least condoned by many ofSpains dissidents.

When the regime ended and thereferendum on the Constitution tookplace in l978, the majority ofSpaniards were elated, but not theBasques. Thus began the contention

between the new democracy andBasque nationalism. When FelipeGonzlez became Prime Minister in1982, it took only a few days for ETA

to show its dissent through a newwave of terrorism. The next year, mys-terious killings of suspected Basqueterrorists and a number of innocent

bystanders began in border townsmany of the members of ETA lived inFrance, a safe haven in those yearsand continued until l987. ETAreciprocated by stepping up its ownviolence. (As Woodworth notes: Inthe l980s, ETA would get no better

recruiting sergeant than the GAL.)In 1983, Judge Baltazar Garzn

began his investigations, and eventu

ally, several key GAL figures weresentenced to prison. Felipe Gonzlezcomplicity in the GAL affair wasnever proven, but in 1996 he lost theelections to Jos Mara Aznar. Fromhis consistently ethical stance,Woodworth praises the attempt toexecute justice, but faults the formersocialist government for continuing tevade the moral issues of the dirtywar and for oscillating between thedenial of and justification for the exis

tence of GAL.Shirley Mangini is Professor of Spanish

at California State University, Long

Beach, and author ofMemories of

Resistance: Womens Voices from the

Spanish Civil War.


Seidman, these volunteers clearly di

tinguished themselves fromSpaniards with their skill and bravadprecisely because they were fightingfor ideals rather than personal gain.The International Brigades were theheroes of the defense of the Republic

because of, rather than despite, theirideological commitment. In the end,Seidman does not seem to disputewhat meaning the war had for thoseoutside Spainas the first great contest of isms in the 20th century.

Unfortunately, the loyalist soldiersand citizenry of Spain, who wereforged within a Spanish historicalcontext that gave them higher personal expectations, and, ultimately, themost to gain and the most to lose, dinot share this view with their interntional colleagues.

Joshua Goode teaches in the History

Department at Occidental College.

Spanish Terrorism

Why they FoughtContinued from page 17


19/24

The Fifth Column.

By James Garcia Woods. Madrid: Noche

Flug, 2002. ([email protected])

Death of a Nationalist. By Rebecca C.

Pawel. New York: Soho Press, 2003.

By Martha Olson Jarocki

In two new mystery novels, theSpanish Civil War provides the back-ground for crime and punishment.

The Fifth Column is set in SanAntonio de la Jara, a small village nearAlbacete, where the Abraham LincolnBrigade rests and prepares to face thefascists once again. It is a setting madeto order for a VALB aficionado. Topeer down those dusty streets andhang around the Lincolns while theyoiled ancient rifles, talked tradeunions, or made supply runs to

Albacete are pleasures to savor. Thenovel inhabits a place and a time soclearly realized (at least for one whowas never there) that the hands thatgrip the page begin to smell of garlic.

In The Fifth Column Inspector PacoRuiz, a Republican soldier, is pressedinto service to solve a mystery becausehis past as a Madrid homicide inspec-tor comes back to haunt him. Thevictim was a member of the Lincolnsand suspicions threaten morale in a

unit desperately needed to defendMadrid. Paco enlists his U.S. fianc astranslator and wrestles his Spanishsensibility around a series of interest-ing characters so deeply rooted in1930s left wing politics that The DailyWorker echoes in their voices. A classy

but unbelievable woman war corre-spondent twists the plot as itdeliciously unfolds.

Inspector Ruiz is confronted with

the murder of an African-Americanvolunteer, a man so admired and com-petent that many think it must have

been an act of sabotage. Yet the novelnever fully realizes the U.S. racialdivide, despite its place at the center ofthe plot, and the inspector wears amacho sensibility that is probablyauthentic, but hard to take for a femi-nist reader with even small knowledge

of the role of women in the Republic.The Fifth Column is a mixed bag,delightful and frustrating at once. It isthe third Inspector Ruiz Civil Warmystery; the others areA Murder of NoConsequence and The Generals Dog.(Guess which ones are set in the fas-cist camp.) The title, which refers to anenemy from within, has a dab of ironyall its own; the author is not himself.

James Garcia Woods is a pen name foSally Spencer, a prolific writer ofEnglish language mysteries and his-

torical sagas who lives in Spain.Amazon.com has a SallySpencer/James Garcia Woods pagethat reveals all.

Rebecca C. Pawels Death of aNationalist is set in Madrid at the endof the war. Pawel, a Brooklyn highschool teacher, places a reluctanthomicide inspector at the helm ofanother murder investigation. Thistime the victim and the inspector are

both members of the Guardia Civil,

Francos feared police force. But theinspector has second thoughts abouthis position and increasingly finds hmorality and humanity at odds withwhat is expected of him. This novelssetting is more problematic, but ulti-mately more satisfying.

This is a story that hinges on the



Mysteries of the

Spanish Civil War

To Make the People Smile Again: A

Memoir of the Spanish Civil War. By

George Wheeler. Newcastle-upon-Tyne:

Zymurgy, 2003.

By Dolly Westshaer

We came to sunny Spain

To make the people smile again

And to drive the Fascist bastardFrom the hill and from the plain

A British Battalion marching song.

This paperback is very differentfrom most of those written about whatI would prefer to call the SpanishAnti-Fascist War.

George Wheeler was raised as asocialist in Battersea, London. He was24 when he went to Spain on the same

boat as Jack Jones (who has writtenthe books forward) via France. Hewas fired by a speech by AneurinBevan in Trafalgar Square. As Georgsays, he never had been further souththan Margate, and the whole experi-ence of different cultures, languages,and the war had a strong effect on him

The book is divided into three se

tions: first, why Wheeler went, howhe got there, and his introduction tothe Internationals; then the trainingand fighting; and, finally, his journeyto and imprisonment for sevenmonths in the concentration camps oSan Pedro de Cardenas and SanSebastian. George explains that hewas and is an anti-fascist. He and therest of the Labour Movement had se

Continued on page

Continued on page

Memories of theSpanish Struggle


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the rise of Hitler and Mussolini andthe attack on the legitimate govern-ment of Spain by Franco and thefascists. He had seen the effects of non-interventionist policies of WesternEurope and, like the other 2,400 or sowho went from Britain (of whom 526were killed), saw the need to defenddemocracy and defend Spain.

Wheeler describes the journeythrough France, the horrendous climbover the Pyrenees, and then on to the

training camps and finally on to thebattlefields. During the journeys hedescribes the friendships of theBrigaders and the warm welcome ofthe Spanish peasants who greetedthem with clenched fist salutes.His first battle was at the Ebro on July25, 1938, and the fight for Hill 481.Georges last battle was in September1938, still on the Ebro. (He had a short

break in a hospital because he had

what seems to have been a carbuncleon his arm.) It was at the end of thislast battle that he was taken prisoner.

Wheeler then describes the con-centration camps and the fascistsattempts to denigrate and dehuman-ize the prisoners with all thepsychological and physical means attheir disposal.

George finally left Spain in April1939, traveling the last part of the jour-ney by bus. He was welcomed home

by his family, who were having aparty, with the words, Where thebloody hell have you been?

This book is important to me,especially because George was takenprisoner with my father, Frank West,and released at the same time. Ilearned more about Dad in prison andwhat happened to them. There arenames of some of the guards that arefamiliar to me.

But the important thing about thbook is that it is not a detailed militaaccount of what happened. It is the

reactions and observations of a sociaist working-class anti-fascist youngman from Battersea. It reveals the losof his naivety, his anger at the deathsof his comrades, the warmth and geerosity of the Spanish people, and hiclass consciousness.

In all this he is still today an antifascist. I can tell because I know him

Read this book. Give it to mem-bers of the Labor Movement and tellthem about it. Above all give it to

young people who, as we see, arebecoming more politically aware.

SmilesContinued from page 19

disappointment of the Civil War. It iset among Spaniards who fought forthe Republic and are now under-ground, hiding from a vengeful andunrestrained Guardia Civil that liveshigh on the hog in the midst of

widespread starvation. The women athe heart of the story struggle to sur-vive at the same time theyre reelingfrom the cultural nosedive back intoCatholicism and sexism that theFrancoists seek to enforce. Pavels chaacters take on a luminous life, proudof their political choices and tingedwith regret as they deal with whatthey thought was an impossiblefuture.

Both of these novels reveal a tim

in which ordinary people struggled extraordinary circumstances. For thialone, they are a keen read. At a timwhen the U.S. imperialist tide runshigh, Republican Spain is a fine talisman. No Pasaran!

Martha Olson Jarocki is the daughter o

Lincoln vet Leonard Olson and an asso

ate in the Bay Area Veterans and Friend

of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

Two of the newer songs in Englishdeserve mention: Christy MooresViva La Quinte Brigada is touching-ly sung by Shay Black and AoifeClancy. It suffers only from the loss ofone harrowing verse, describing theIrish priests who supported Franco.For Moore, The men of cloth failed yetagain/When the bishops blessed the

blueshirts in Dun Laoghaire/As they

sailed beneath the swastika to Spain.The CD closes with Bruce Barthols1986 Taste of Ashes, whose title cap-tures perfectly the bitter defeat inSpain. Laurie Lewiss rendition is faith-ful to this great song, but anyone whohas heard Velina Browns deeply feltand shattering version under Bartholsmusical direction at the veterans annu-al events may have trouble withLewis understated delivery.

The one major disappointment forme is Joel and Jamaica Rafaels LosCuatro Generales. The jauntyarrangement and cheerful vocals justdont fit the spirit of the song. Its notsurprising that they excised its darkestlyric, which imagines a just end forFrancos henchmen: At Christmas,holy evening/Mamita mia/Theyll all

be hanging, theyll all be hanging. Like

Catholics sailing under the Nazi flag,images such as these are crucial in por-traying the brutal war. They would addspecificity, tension and complication toall this inspiring music.

Peter Glazer, director of many ALBA-

VALB reunion events, teaches in the

Department of Theater, Dance and

Performance Studies at the University of

California, Berkeley.

Spain in My HeartContinued from page 16

MysteriesContinued from page 19


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Memorys Roster

Vita BarskyWe note with sadness the death of

Vita Barsky, widow of Dr. EdwardBarsky, who founded and led the

American Medical Bureau during theSpanish Civil War. She was feisty andindefatigable, even at age 92, and adevoted friend of the Lincoln Brigadeand the Abraham Lincoln BrigadeArchives.

THEY ALSO FELL

Arthur Harrison

John Rossen

Joseph Lafayette Young

Dear Volunteer,As you noted in The Volunteer, myfather, Lincoln Brigade member RobertKlonsky, died in September of 2003 at theage of 84. We discovered among his papersmany letters that he had written to his

family from his time in Spain. I would liketo share a letter he wrote in March 1937.

Fred KlonskyChicago

Dear Mom, Pop and Family-This past Friday was my 19th

birthdayand was I proud! Im one of

the youngest men up herethat is,excluding the Spanish boys them-selves. One feels very old when hesees children of 14 and 15 years goingto the front lines to fight. And onefeels very proud to be part of it allIcant really find the words suitable todescribe the country! Acres and acresof olive groves and orange grovescover the country. Spain is a very richcountry in natural resourcesespe-cially agriculture. But the peoplethe

poor Spanish people! One wonderswhat has kept the workers and peas-ants in ignorance and subjugationuntil now. The worst slum sections ofBrooklyn are a paradise compared tothe living quarters of the working peo-ple here. But those things are comingto an end! They have begun to realizethat the labor and sweat that theyhave put into the soil and the factoryentitle them to the right of self-rule,

and the right to profit from theirlaborand at the present time theyare heroically fighting and layingdown their lives so that the genera-

tions to come will have that right, in afree, happy and rich Spain. When I gethome Ill be able to tell many interest-ing stories. But meanwhile that willhave to wait.

I imagine that this letter will reachyou in time for the Passover holidays.Im taking this opportunity of wishingall of you a really happy Pesach, and Ipromise you that next Passover Ill be

back home with all of you, and Illdrink a toast to you with Papas winethat I miss very much. Meanwhile, my

place, I believe, is here, doing my bitto make sure that in the future no raceof people, whether Jew or gentile, willhave cause for mourning their dead. Iknow that you will agree with me,when I say that Im doing more for myrace and my class, here in Spain, help-ing in the fight against Fascism, than Icould possibly do at home. Still in all,Im going to miss it all, since this is thefirst Passover in my life that I have not

been at home with all of you. As a

matter of fact, this is the first time thatI have been away from home for sucha long period of time, and I feel sort ofhomesickYou can help a lot by writ-ing as often as possible, and please tellme everythingMake the letters long.

Your son, brother, brother-in-law, uncle and comrade,

Bob

Dear Editor,In your book review of Fighting

Fascism in Europeby Lawrence Cane,as printed in the June 2003 Volunteer,

you state: Of the 400 ALB veteranswho fought during WW II, LawrenceCane was the only one to participatein the D-Day Normandy invasion.My husband, Alfred L. (Al) Tanz, whhad been recruited by Bill Donovan,head of the OSS, parachuted intoFrance prior to D-Day. He was secreed in a farmhouse in the village ofSaint-Mere-Eglise, where his missionwas to cut electrical wires overlookinthe beach, in anticipation of the invasion. Saint-Mere-Eglise was the first

village liberated on D-Day, June 6,1944. Al eventually attained the rankof Captain in the U.S. Army.

Sincerely,Freda Tanz1926 Francisco StreetBerkeley, CA 94709, (510) 540-98

Editor:We have exciting news about

plans to build a large monument tothe International Brigades near the

town of Marca, Catalonia. This note ian appeal for you to contribute fundto assist in the project.

Here is located the grave of JohnCookson, who was killed at the EbroFront in the last days of the Brigadesfight against Franco. By good fortunethis gravesite, one of the few, if not tonly remaining one in Spain, was no

LettersContinued from page 2

Dr. Edward Barsky

Continued on page


22/24


In Memory of a Veteran

Jack Shafran in memory of Harry Fisher

$100Reeann Halonen in memory of Oiva

Halonen $60

Leona Feyer in memory of Al Prago and

Ruth & Harry Fisher $100

Thelma Frye in memory of Peter Frye

$100

Ulrich Bodek in memory of Dr. GnterBoder, Thaelmann Brigade Veteran $100

Jeannette Dean in memory of Wilfred

Mendelson $50

Moe Fishman in memory of Gerry Cook,

Dave Gordon, Herman (Gabby)

Rosenstein, Don Thayer, Al Warren $25

From the estate ofSana Goldblatt $500

From the estate ofWilliam (Bill) Van

Felix $5,000

Dr. Louis Kroll in memory of Dr. Zachary

Stadt $50

In Memory ofMarcus Raijer in memory of my father

$75

ContributionsMary Boyer $20

Contributions

seen by the Franco marauders, who made every attem

to destroy all evidence of the volunteers.Different generations of local residents kept thegrave hidden and cared for over the years. HarryFishers son-in-law Geoff then traced it down a few yea

back and found a dedicated group of local residents whhad undertaken to rehabilitate the site. They posted asign with a moving obituary and Johns photograph.

Recently a dear friend from Barcelona, Juan MariaGmez Ortiz, translated into Spanish the collection of

Johns letters that I self-published in 1992 under the titRemembering John Cookson: a Wisconsin Anti-Fasciin the Spanish Civil War. Juan Maria coordinated witthe Marca leaders to hold a commemoration at the site

in July 2002 and wrote a detailed report that appearedin The Volunteer. My daughter, Julie Kailin, and son,

John Kailin, attended that commemoration.The Wisconsin Friends of the Lincoln Brigade

pledged $1,000 seed money last year to the monumentproject. Our friends in Spain were heartened to learnthat their small community of several hundred was

being joined by friends far away.Your contribution will be important to keeping tha

spirit going. Needs might include site acquisition,design of the site and of the monument, construction o

both, and on-going care. The first weekend in

November an association in Catalonia called NoJubilem La Memoria (roughly: They Cant EraseMemory) will unveil the monument during a weekenof commemoration of the 65th anniversary of theFarewell to the Brigades with an exhibition and a conference.

Please make out checks to Wisconsin Friends of theLincoln Brigade and mail to Clarence Kailin, 501 EvergreeAve., Madison, WI 53704. You can call me at (608) 241-282

Comradely,Clarence Kailin, VALB

When drafting your will, please

consider making a bequest to the

Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives

(ALBA).

For information contact: Executive

Director, ALBA-Room 227, 799

Broadway, New York, NY 10003

212-674-5398.

LettersContinued from page 21


23/24


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 Hernndezedited by Ted Genoways

The Wound and the Dream: Sixty Years of AmericanPoems about the Spanish Civil Warby Cary Nelson

Passing the Torch: The AbrahamLincoln Brigade and its Legacy of Hopeby Anthony Geist and Jose Moreno

Another Hillby Milton Wolff

Our FightWritings by Veterans of theAbraham Lincoln Brigade: Spain 1936-1939edited by Alvah Bessie & Albert Prago

Spains Cause Was Mineby Hank Rubin

Comradesby Harry Fisher

The Odyssey of the AbrahamLincoln Brigadeby Peter Carroll

The Triumph of Democracy in Spainby Paul Preston

The Lincoln Brigade, a Picture Historyby William Katz and Marc Crawford

EXHIBIT CATALOGSThey Still Draw Pictures: Childrens Art in Wartimeby Anthony Geist and Peter Carroll

The Aura of the Cause, a photo albumedited by Cary Nelson

VIDEOSInto the Fire: Women and the Spanish Civil War

Julia Newman

Art in the Struggle for FreedomAbe Osheroff

Dreams and NightmaresAbe Osheroff

The Good FightSills/Dore/Bruckner

Forever Activists

Judith 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_________

Ive 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

ALBAS TRAVELING EXHIBITION

THE AURA OF THE CAUSE

ALBAs 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 the

Cause exhibit, contact ALBAs executive secretary,

Diane Fraher, 212-598-0968; Fax: 212-529-4603; e-mail

[email protected]. The exhibit is available for

museum and art gallery showings.

BRING THIS EXHIBIT TO YOUR LOCALITY.


24/24

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

NON PROFIT ORGUS POSTAGE

PAIDSAN FRANCISCO, CA

PERMIT # XXXX

Jack Shafran and his son-in-law Bill Thom standing on Hill 666. While in Spain Shafran recounted one of his long-timeambitions, to visit Francos tomb and pay a special homage. See page 3.

the volunteer, september 2003

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