My brother went to Spain in 1937, as one of the youngest of the volunteers in ALB> He was killed there in 1938, just a few weeks before all Americans were repatriated. There is no question that I would have preferred for him to return alive, and yes, he was a Young Communist. But we need to be reminded that within a year we in the Western Allies were fighting the same war against the same Axis nations, that he volunteered against. It's not hard to find horror stories in any wars, or on any side, including the American troops. But these Americans, plus the volunteers from 60 other countries, many from Germany and Italy, by allmeans deserve to be lionized and honored and respected. There are all too few less selfish acts than their sacrifices.
12
The fight was not just against Gen. Franco, who overthrew an elected government to install a Fascist dictatorship, it was also a fight against Hitler and Mussolini. It was Hitler's Luftwaffe that bombed a town in the Basque Country, inspiring Picasso's "Guernica".
Thank you for your service, Del Berg.
Thank you for your service, Del Berg.
7
My uncle Thane Summers was with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and died near the Ebro River in 1937 on one of the last advances against Franco's Fascists. He was a firm believer in helping the Spanish people and democracy and did so against his own families wishes. I never met him but have always believed that had he lived he would have made such a difference in the lives of everyone he touched.
It is so wonderful to hear that there is still someone alive who believed as my uncle did. Maybe you stood side by side with him and saw what he saw that day he died. Thank you for being here still today to tell us all this story.
It is so wonderful to hear that there is still someone alive who believed as my uncle did. Maybe you stood side by side with him and saw what he saw that day he died. Thank you for being here still today to tell us all this story.
7
Thank you Mr Del Berg, the last of those grand ABRAHAM LINCOLN BRIGADE Volunteers for your life, your stubbornness, your hope and your heart.
5
By the way, anyone interested should read the book, Hotel Florida by Amand Vaill. Came out in 2014, its about Hemmingway, his girlfiend reporter Martha Gellhorn, photographers Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, and others. It is very hard to put down, wonderfully researched, and pays homage to all the honest people on both sides such as M. Del Berg.
2
There is this poignant exchange in Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, same setting:
Primitivo: But surely the big proprietors and the rich will make a revolution against such (income and inheritance) taxes. Such taxes appear to me to be revolutionary. They will revolt against the government when they see that they are threatened, exactly as the fascists have done here.
Robert Jordan: It is possible.
Primitivo: Then you will have to fight in your country as we fight here.
Robert Jordan: Yes, we will have to fight.
Primitivo: But there are not many fascists in your country?
Robert Jordan: There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes.
Primitivo: But you cannot destroy them until they rebel?
Robert Jordan: No. We cannot destroy them. But we can educate the people so that they will fear fascism and recognize it as it appears and combat it.
http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/11/audaciously-brazen-part...
Primitivo: But surely the big proprietors and the rich will make a revolution against such (income and inheritance) taxes. Such taxes appear to me to be revolutionary. They will revolt against the government when they see that they are threatened, exactly as the fascists have done here.
Robert Jordan: It is possible.
Primitivo: Then you will have to fight in your country as we fight here.
Robert Jordan: Yes, we will have to fight.
Primitivo: But there are not many fascists in your country?
Robert Jordan: There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes.
Primitivo: But you cannot destroy them until they rebel?
Robert Jordan: No. We cannot destroy them. But we can educate the people so that they will fear fascism and recognize it as it appears and combat it.
http://lifeamongtheordinary.blogspot.com/2012/11/audaciously-brazen-part...
4
Those who attack and criticize today the International Brigades, are the same ones supporting the economic measures that are throwing thousands of Spaniards to unemployment and poverty, measures that make thousands of families being evicted from their homes. Same measures that support bankers with billions and billions of euros, while there are thousands of children going to school with empty stomachs, and seniors looking for food in garbage bins. Larga vida a los heroes de las Brigadas Internacionales!!!
7
Why should this person be lionized any more than someone going to fight for ISIS? When will we be able to see the Spanish Civil War for what it really was- another amoral conflict with atrocities committed by both sides. The nationalists and republicans were far more committed to their inhuman ideologies than they were to the Spanish people. Good riddance to both.
2
Read "Spanish Holocaust" by Paul Preston.
It might inform you opinion of "moral equivalence".
Dirk
It might inform you opinion of "moral equivalence".
Dirk
6
Recording a person's recollections is not "lionizing" someone. I agree that the Spanish Civil War was terrible, the leaders on both sides cynical and ideologically blinded. The Republic was abandoned by England and the US because of its communist elements, the Nationalists supported by Hitler to his great benefit, and thousands upon thousands died cruelly and to little military purpose. One could go on and on, but there's no point to comparing this man's part to ISIS. The better lesson would have been for our government, and that it should not have volunteered to create a war of its own in Iraq, leading to the emergence of ISIS.
6
As far as I can tell, this essay was a straightforward report about one man's personal experiences during the Spanish Civil War. Not only is there no "lionization," but you want to demonize him for reasons that you do not explain. Insofar as your comparison between the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and ISIS, it sounds as if you missed school the day they taught 20th century history.
3
This article would inspire any person of conscience to set up another International Brigade in order to support another sovereign republic, struggling against fascist forces; The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
2
Wait a minute you think it is MADURO fighting "fascist forces?!" Check your premises.
1
What most people do not realize is that the Republicans were communist.
They wanted to install a Lenin communist paradise.
When people learn that the Republicans were Communists the change their mind about what a good thing the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was.
They wanted to install a Lenin communist paradise.
When people learn that the Republicans were Communists the change their mind about what a good thing the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was.
1
Marxist Leninists murdered tens of millions of people in the USSR. It's bizarre that adherents to that belief system are treated with respect by some.
True that there were communists among the Republicans, but there were also anti-communists. The Republican government of Spain had been legally elected. Franco was a Fascist, supported by the Nazis. I'm disturbed by the degree of ignorance of history demonstrated in several of these comments.
7
Thank you for your service, Del Berg.
15
Wonderful article.When I enlisted in the army in 1967 the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was one of a long list of "subversive" organizations we were asked if we had ever belonged to.If I had known what it was I would have held it as a badge of honor that I had been a member.
18
Didn't the US government brand people who served in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade as "premature anti-Fascists"? If you fought against Fascism in Spain in the '30s, in what was in effect the out-of-town tryout for three of the major belligerents in World War II, Germany and Italy on the rebel side and the USSR on the republican side, you were suspect in the eyes of the US government. Shameful that the US stood by during the conflict. You know, democracy and all that. A historian could tell us if US actions during the war were even more shameful that simply standing by. It was only okay for Americans to fight against Fascism once the U.S. had been attacked by one of the Axis powers.
9
Beautiful! Fighting the Good Fight!
10
Amazing.. What a wonderful story -- what a wonderful human being...
12
I was born in 1953 in Spain, and up to my teenage years nobody would talk about what happened during the Spanish civil war. Then, I started hearing comments here and there, and I could sense fear, anger and sadness in people's words. That made me realize how much my parents and grandparents had suffered during the war and the repression.
I lived the transition to democracy during my college years I then I learned about the International Brigades. I wish I had the honor to thank personally those volunteers willing to give their lifes fighting for freedom and democracy in Spain.
Thank you for your article
Adoracion Villator
I lived the transition to democracy during my college years I then I learned about the International Brigades. I wish I had the honor to thank personally those volunteers willing to give their lifes fighting for freedom and democracy in Spain.
Thank you for your article
Adoracion Villator
24
I know of the volunteers (not the same as enlistees, who paid and receive benefits) who fought Fascists in Spain from Orwell's fascinating memoir, "Homage to Catalonia":
"When I joined the militia I had promised myself to kill one Fascist — after all, if each of us killed one they would soon be extinct — and I had killed nobody yet, had hardly had the chance to do so."
It is fascinating to me and I think important for everyone that Orwell, the writer who is the greatest defender of the human spirit against totalitarianism and thus a humanitarian, was so willing to kill. It speaks to the fact that people ought not automatically conflate morality with pacifism. There is the good fight, and the just war. This concept is lost on too many people today, a product I think of the comfort of our lives, where almost every meal is a "fancy meal."
"When I joined the militia I had promised myself to kill one Fascist — after all, if each of us killed one they would soon be extinct — and I had killed nobody yet, had hardly had the chance to do so."
It is fascinating to me and I think important for everyone that Orwell, the writer who is the greatest defender of the human spirit against totalitarianism and thus a humanitarian, was so willing to kill. It speaks to the fact that people ought not automatically conflate morality with pacifism. There is the good fight, and the just war. This concept is lost on too many people today, a product I think of the comfort of our lives, where almost every meal is a "fancy meal."
7
• As the last living veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, I feel a little isolated....
I am elated to know there is someone still alive. I knew so many of them. Many became close friends. Many times I ran to catch up photographing as they marched in NYC and DC during the 80's and early 90's. I was active in their fundraising effort to send ambulances to Nicaragua during the CIA backed Contra war against the Sandinistas.
In 1986 I was invited to accompany them to Spain for a "repatriation" reunion commemorating the Internationals' contribution to the defense of the Spanish Republic. I met other grand old men, still passionately bristling with pride and boundless energy – the poet Rafael Alberti and, at a reception at PCE headquarters in Madrid, the mythical Dolores Ibárruri, "La Pasionaria", whose calls of "No pasrán" and "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees" animated them, a lifetime honour. She was then 91.
While there I collected photographic materials for a painting honouring them, THE RETURN: A Homage to the Veterans of the International Brigades on the 50th Anniversary of the SCW, which hangs at the VALB Archives at NYU's Tamiment Library.
http://www.atelier-rc.com/Return.html
I presented it at the 1987 yearly reunion (http://www.atelier-rc.com/Installations/Return.jpg), many of which I attended until I could no longer bear the loss of so many dear friends.
It is a pleasure and honour to know of you, MR. BERG.
To you, a resounding "PRESENTE!"
I am elated to know there is someone still alive. I knew so many of them. Many became close friends. Many times I ran to catch up photographing as they marched in NYC and DC during the 80's and early 90's. I was active in their fundraising effort to send ambulances to Nicaragua during the CIA backed Contra war against the Sandinistas.
In 1986 I was invited to accompany them to Spain for a "repatriation" reunion commemorating the Internationals' contribution to the defense of the Spanish Republic. I met other grand old men, still passionately bristling with pride and boundless energy – the poet Rafael Alberti and, at a reception at PCE headquarters in Madrid, the mythical Dolores Ibárruri, "La Pasionaria", whose calls of "No pasrán" and "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees" animated them, a lifetime honour. She was then 91.
While there I collected photographic materials for a painting honouring them, THE RETURN: A Homage to the Veterans of the International Brigades on the 50th Anniversary of the SCW, which hangs at the VALB Archives at NYU's Tamiment Library.
http://www.atelier-rc.com/Return.html
I presented it at the 1987 yearly reunion (http://www.atelier-rc.com/Installations/Return.jpg), many of which I attended until I could no longer bear the loss of so many dear friends.
It is a pleasure and honour to know of you, MR. BERG.
To you, a resounding "PRESENTE!"
15
I knew some of them too, and I always made a point to go over and say hello whenever I saw that purple and gold banner at a protest march. I think the last time I saw the VALB was at an anti-Iraq war demonstration about a decade ago.
3
Try reading the book "Two Communist Brothers from Washington New Hampshire and Their fight Against Fascism" Well worth the read especially the second half of the book about Homer Chase and his adventure in the Spanish Civil War.
4