Download - The Volunteer, July 1999
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
1/24
...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
Th eVo l u n t e e rVol. XXI, No. 3 Summer 1999
Chicago Friends of VALB-ALBA The Annual NY Reunion Ariel Dorfman:Sweet Circles News from the Basque Country Consul General of SpainEmilio Cassinello Fraser Ottanelli: A Plaque on a Wall in FlorenceHannah Creighton Clinic George Watt Awards
By Peter Carroll
Ever since Bill Clinton award ed posthum ousCongressional Medals of Hon or to seven AfricanAm erican h eroes of World War II, includ ing Staff Sergeant
Edw ard Ca rter, Jr., the ad ministration could take cred it for
correcting th e racial injustice that had dep rived b lack sol-
diers of equal treatm ent in the w ar against fascism. But
wh at the publicand the presidentdid not know w as
that the celebrated Sgt. Carter had been tw ice victimized:
Once because of racial discrimination in the Arm y and a
second tim e because of the color of his po litics. Carter had
da red to fight in the Span ish Civil War.
Last year, Carters family allowed me to examine a
suitcase full of docum ents that tell the story of his long,
lonely, and u ltimately futile effort to overcome the stigma
of having served in Spain. Then, this past Mem orial Day,
the r elease of Carter s FBI and military intelligence files
prom pted U.S. News and World Report to put Carters pic-
ture on the cover with the caption: Sgt. Edd ie Carter was a
hero. But w hen he came hom e, the Arm y accused him of
treachery. It was a lieone that took 50 years to expose.Carters prob lems began in September 1949, when he
learned that that the Army had rejected his application for
reenlistment. He then journeyed to Washington, D.C. to
From War Hero toBlacklist
THE LONELY ODYSSEY OFA LINCOLN VET
Continued on page 11
INSIDE
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
2/24
2 THE VOLUNTEER, Summer1999
Marv Gettleman is no longer a mem ber of The
Volunteers editorial board. He w ishes to thank the vet-erans of the Abrah am Lincoln Brigade for the
opp ortunity to assist them d uring the last two and a h alf
years in up hold ing the ideals of antifascist international-
ism they exemplified not only wh en they bravely
volun teered to fight in Spain against Hitler, Mussolini
and Franco, but also in their ongoing struggles over the
last six decad es. Salud ! to them and to their ind elible
legacy.
The VolunteerJournal of the
Veterans of theAbraham Lincoln Brigade
an ALBA publication
799 Broadway, Rm 227New York, NY 10003
(212) 674-5552
Editorial Board
Richard Bermack Peter CarrollLeonard Levenson Fraser Ottanelli
Abe Smorodin and Bill SusmanSubmission of Manuscripts
Please send manuscripts by E-mail
or typewritten and double-spaced, if possible. If you wish your
manuscripts returned, enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope.E-mail at:[email protected] or [email protected]
An Exercise inDemocracyby Abe Smorodin for the staff VALB
A
fter much discussion, th e staff of VALB decid-
ed to subm it a resolution on the
NATO/ Clinton bombings in Yugoslavia to its
mem bership. We had previously agreed in the
interest of unity to take no p osition on this issue,
but the long and prou d h istory of our organization
on matters of war and peace mad e it an imp ossible
position to m aintain.
Therefore the fol low ing resolution w as adoptedand forwarded to our membership:Be it resolved that VALB consistent with its record of
support for peace through the years hereby resolves that:
We call upon our government to stop the bombing ofYugoslavia now being conducted by NATO/U.S. forces
and call on all parties to begin negotiations.
Here are the results:140 Vets received the resolution
60 voted yes
14 voted no
1 checked both boxes
With the Pros and Cons came many com-
ments reflecting how deeply our comrades
had though t about the comp lexity of the sit-
uation in the Balkans. Despite the cessation
of the bombing, we u rge all Vets, particular-
ly those who did not respond to write to us
and in general stay in touch with ou r office.
A Salud to all our supporters!
From: Kol Ze'ev JerusalemMy u ncle-Henech Blankrot w as a Jewish volun -
teer of the Polish Brigade d uring the Spanish CivilWar. He w as born in Kalisz, Poland in 1907. I knowthat he w as killed in Zaragoza, Spain. Does anyone
know if there is a Jewish cemetery th ere? Or, even ifthere w as one m ain cemetery of fallen soldiers thatmay have includ ed Jewish soldiers? I was just toldthat he m ay have been killed in a m ilitary vehicleaccident.
Leon [email protected] Adum im, Israel
Dear Sir,I had an uncle who was a volunteer in Spain d ur-
ing the Civil War. His name was MaximilianFriedm ann an d h e came from Rum ania. We think thathe d ied in a concentration camp in France. Wouldyou know how I could find ou t what happ ened tohim?
Thank you!
Carin [email protected]
Let ter s to ALBA
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
3/24
THE VOLUNTEER, Summer 1999 3
MadisonPlans
MonumentLincoln Vet Clarence Kailinhas succeeded in gainingapp roval from the Mad ison City
Parks Com mission for the con-
struction of a monu ment to
honor Wisconsinites who served
in the International Brigades.
When I heard that Seattle had
erected a m emorial, Kailin told
a local reporter, I thou ght, its
time to do something in
Mad ison. This is a progressivecity. It only seemed right.
Kailin and the Parks
Commission have agreed to a
site near the citys old Ga tes of
Heaven synagogu e in James
Mad ison Park. The project has
won endorsement from n umer-
ous local and state leaders,
including Mad isons U.S. Rep.
Tammy Baldw in and Mad ison
Mayor Sue Baum an.
Sup porters of the memorial
still need to raise about $10,000
to complete construction that
will include a flagstone walkway
and an inscribed monu ment.
Contributors should mail checks
to Veterans of the Abrah am
Lincoln Brigade (VALB), c/ o
Clarence Kailin, 501 Evergreen
Ave., Madison WI 53704.
Ive w aited a long time to
see some recognition for all the
vets from Wisconsin, Kailin
add ed. But, more than that, Iwan t to see a monum ent to the
struggle for economic and social
justice that our fight w as par t of.
I want to see a monum ent
because thats a struggle just as
important tod ay as it was in 1937
and 1938.
ChicagoShoutsFrom the
WallReceptionFeaturingStudsTerkel
T
he Chicago opening of the
Shouts From the Wall
poster show featured a star-studd ed reception on
Saturd ay, Augu st 14 at the
Chicago Pu blic Library's
Harold Washington Library,
400 South State Street. The
opening reception w as co-sponsored
by the Ch icago Pu blic Library,
Chicago Friends of the Lincoln
Brigade, the Instituto Cervantes, the
Center for New Deal Stud ies,
Roosevelt University and the Mary
and Leigh Block Museum .
Stud s Terkel highlighted the p ro-
gram. Other speakers included
Congressman Dann y Davis, 7th C.D.;
Jam ie OReilly an d Michael Smith
with mu sic from their acclaimed
revue, Pasiones: Songs of the Spanish
Civil War; and Peter Glazer wh o pre-
sented Spain in the Heart, poetry
readings from the w ar.
Upcoming Chicago Events
Pasiones: Songs of Spanish Civil War,Sept 16, 5;30 p.m.Film:The Good Fight, Sept 22, 7 p.m.Painting and Writing While Bombs AreFalling: Art and Literature During theSpanish Civil War, by Prof. Cary Nelson,
Sept 25, 2 p.m.Film series Sept 28- Nov 30
including The Good Fight, and You areHistory You are Legend.
For Information:Chicago Friends of the Lincoln Brigade5320 N. Sheridan Road, #1902Chicago, IL 60640773-769-2665
Grave MarkerSought forEddieBalchowsky
Polly Con nelly, retired U AW
organizer, discovered th at
Lincoln vet Edd ie Balchow sky is
buried in a mar kerless grave in
Forest H ome Cemetery. Conn ellyis working w ith Chicago Friends
of the Abrah am Lincoln Brigade
mem ber Jeff Bech, a relative of
Balchowskys, to get a proper
grave marker.
Any one w ishing to don ate or
help with this cause can contact Jeff
Bech through CFLB.
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
4/24
4 THE VOLUNTEER, Summer1999
ALBA in Chicago
Milt Wolff Speaksat HemingwayCentennial
Oak Park, a near-west suburb ofChicago, was a beehive of activity in
mid-July during a week long celebra-
tion of the Centennial of the birth of
Ernest Hemingw ay. Milt Wolff, last
Comman der of the Abrah am Lincoln
Battalion add ressed a stand ing room
only gathering at the Oak Park
Library. Other speakers included
Brian Peterlinz, Chicago teacher an d
Co-chair of the Ch icago Friend s of the
Lincoln Brigade, and Lincoln veteran
Charles Ha ll. The aud ience was com-
posed of all ages, wh ich ind icated th e
intense interest in the legacy of the
International Brigad es and for the role
of Hemingw ay and other journalists.
Joe Powers Sr, an Oak Park r esident,
told the story of Than e Sum mers, a
family friend of the Hem ingway's,
and a gradu ate of Oak Park River-
Forest High School. Sum mers
volun teered for th e Lincoln Battalion
wh ile a stud ent at the Un iversity of
Washington and was killed in Spain
in March, 1938. Efforts are u nd erwayto find an ap prop riate form of com-
memoration, such as a Tradition of
Excellence awar d in h is honor, at the
high school.
The following d ay, at a literary
conference, I Knew Pap a: Friends
and Family Remem brances, Wolff
stressed the importance of
Hem ingways sup port and w ritings
for the cause of dem ocratic Spain.
The cast of Peter Glazers Heart of Spainwith Lincoln vets (seated, left to right)John Rossen, Carl Geiser, Charles Hall, Max Shufer, and Bob Steck.
Lincoln Brigade Commander Mil tWolff and Ernest Hemingway, 1938
Sixty years ago , on Apr il 22, 1939,
71 Am erican p risoners of war
marched across the International
Bridge from Spain to freedom in
France, after having been held as pris-
oners of war in the concentration
camp of San Pedro Cardena for over a
year. Only eight of that group survive,
and four of themCarl Geiser,
Charles H all, Max Shufer, and Bob
Steck met in Chicago . The reun ion
included events by the ChicagoFriends of the Abraham Lincoln
Brigade, such as a read ing of Peter
Glazer's Heart of Spain.
Heart of SpainReadings of the mu sical play
were performed at N orthwestern
University's Struble Theater. Written
by Peter Glazer with original compo-
sitions by Eric Peltoniem i, the play
combines original text with poetry,
mu sic and stories of the Spanish Civil
War. Glazer is interested in continuing
to developHeart of Spain and eventual-
ly would like to put on a full-scale
prod uction. But for now he said he is
happy with the students' work and
with the m usical as a staged reading.
The produ ction opened the week-
end of April 17-18.
How does art relateto history?Glazer also produced a symp o-
sium dealing with the relationship
between art and history. Are artistic
and cultural presentations created
du ring the times more authentic than
the trad itional historical narrative?
Continued on page 7
San Pedro Prison Vets Reuniona Big Success
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
5/24
THE VOLUNTEER, Summer 1999 5
New York Events
Consul General of Spain Emilio
Cassinello passed on special words of
thanks t o the veterans of the Abraham
Lincoln Brigade at the A LBA-V ALB
annual celebration in New Y ork, on
April 25, 1999, printed below.
There was a timetoo long atimein w hich in Spain th erewas d arkness at noon. For almost half
of the past hund red year s of this 20th
century, d emocracy w as seen as asickness by those wh o believed that
they had w on a sad and long civil
war, not kn owing that a civil war is
never ever w on. It is always lost, and
lost it is by all: by those w ho p roclaim
them selves the victors and , obviously,
by those w ho are the victims.
Precisely just the first day of th is
mon ththe past first of Aprila sad
ann iversary has gone by p ractically
un noticed: the 60th
anniversary of the
so called victory,
the victory of a fas-
cist takeover o f the Spanish p eoples
destinies by a m ilitary coup , and the
conversionin med ieval fashionof
the citizens into subjects.
On th e very same first days of
April, through out four d ecades, an
unrelenting celebration w ent on in the
streets and avenues of the Spanishcities, a perver se celebration of th e
loss of freedom, of the disap pearance
of the free spirit, a painful remind er of
the imp ossibility of challenging th e
official truth, how ever spiteful or lud i-
crous it might be.
So, we have rightfully ignored a
date that remind s us of the sinking of
Consul General ofSpain AddressesALBA-VALBAnnual
Celebration
Continued on page 6
The annual reunion of theAbraham Lincoln Brigade inNew York included a performance
by folk singer Odetta (top-right), a
speech by Consul General of
Spain Emilio Cassinello (top-left
with Bill Van Felix to his right), anda reading of poetry by Martn
Espada including a poem about
Abe Osheroff (Espada above with
Osheroff ), and a speech by
Congressman Jerold Nadler. The
winners of the Watt Awards
were also announcedsee story
page 17.
PHOTORICHARDBERMACK
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
6/24
civilized coexistence in Spain. A d ate
to be deliberately forgotten because
we, the new Spaniard s, have a clear, a
very clear conscience, that u pon the
remn ants and salvages of a civil disas-
ter, upon the wreck of a civil war,
nobody can construct anything m ean-
ingful. Upon a collective d efeat
nobody can build a futu re. Something
afresh had to be reinvented . Thu s, for
very p ractical reasons, nobody in this
new, contemporary, modern Spain,
has been w illing to even remember
what is better forgotten: the sham e of
the traged y, the ru thlessness, the injus-
tice, the death, the cruelty, the m isery,
all have to be forgotten; the oppres-
sion, the lunacy of many a human
soul, are not to be remem bered.
Those painful m emories have to
be forgotten. But w e have to d istin-
guish between m emories and lessons.
In tod ays Spain, for our own collec-tive health, the lessons of those years
have to be kept alive, retrieved an d
pr eserved. An d so it will be. Yet, after
20 years of dem ocracy, and already in
the thr eshold of the 21st century, one
can also assert that m emories have ful-
filled their sociopolitical role
including their therapeutic function.
Thus, the Spanish p eople have
come to the conclusion that w e can
call it quits with ou r strenuous, stress-
ful, tiring past. We better do it, if onlyfor what John Elliot advises us
Spaniards, pointing out that w e have
had a sickly tendency to dw ell on his-
torical catastrophes, warning usthe
same Elliotthat the obstinacy of
remembering the defeats of the p ast,
can up set the futu re. It is obvious
that we have good, practical reasons
to lay away, for good , the narcissism
of disaster, as Juan Mar ichal put it.
But there are other mem ories of
those fateful years that also coun t as
critical lessons, and that n ot only
deserve to be kept and rem embered,
but m ust also be honored. Those are
the memories that have to do with
commitment and conviction, w ith
bravery, with integrity and resolve.
Those are images that are still imp rint-ed in our eyes and mind s as acts of
compassion, care and love. I am r efer-
ring to the p resence, on Spanish soil,
of the International Brigades, and,
more specifically, of the Lincoln
Battalion. Some m ay say, patron izing-
ly and cond escendingly, that back in
the 30s you w ere young and impu l-
sive, as if you need ed to be excused
and justified for something you did
that w as weird an d exotic. But w e
know better.
You w ere there, in Spanish land s,
out of conviction, ou t of the explicit
belief in hu man dign ity: because free-
dom of spirit and solidarity overcame
self-interest, because for you (as I have
just read in a moving obitu ary of a
Lincoln Brigade m ember), legitimate
anger w as a form of love. And I canassure you (and it is all too painfu lly
obvious) that those attitud es and th at
resolve of the men and wom en of the
Lincoln Brigade, are an extremely rar e
thing in the history of mankind ,
wh ether past or present.
For that, all Spaniard s of good -
will, all of Spain, owes you a
perman ent debt of gratitud e. You kep t
us comp any in difficult times; you sac-
rificed you r lives; you came to ou r
rescue. It is not only a m ystical deb t, it
is a real cred it you have in the balancesheet of our recent history. You w ere
offered Span ish citizenship it was
the least we could d o. And just last
month, the General Archive on the
Civil War, being set u p in Salaman ca,
has includ ed a p rominent and specific
chapter on the International Brigades.
A llow me, at this point, to sharewith you an autobiographicalfootnote, foras it is imp ortan t for
todays and future Spaniards to have
the orderly rescue of the m emory I
have myself a personal debt with you.
I was born just 10 days before the
outb reak of the w ar, in July 1936, in a
small town of La Mancha, not far
aw ay from Albacete. Subsequen tly I
lived in exile, in Mexico, for 17 years,being part of the p ainful exodus th at
was provoked by the civil war. And I
have heard my father and m y fathers
friends tell, once and again, episodes of
the dark years, in wh ich ever so often
the lightning of your extreme bravery
shed som e brightness. You w ere part of
those stories and that history.
Thus, my imagination and m y
reasoning ow es you some of the first
6 THE VOLUNTEER, Summer1999
Consul General, NYContinued from page 5
The Amigos from Spain at the New York annual event.
In todays Spain, for our own collective health, the lessons ofthose years have to be kept alive, retrieved and preserved.
PHOTOERICLEVENSON
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
7/24
THE VOLUNTEER, Summer 1999 7
serious thou ghts of a youn g ad oles-
cent, pond ering wh at values in life
were w orth fighting for, what w as
hum an decency about -and how fun-
dam ental sanity lay in simp ly being
true to ones ideals. And then som e-
thing that may seem again anecdotal
but not for m e: I also still cherish at
heart the moving m emories of listen-
ing to an old worn record, smuggledinto Spain, with spirited, popular, mil-
itant songs, in one of wh ich you gave
your m ailing add ress your
parad eroen el frente d e Gandesa,
primera lnea de fuego.
Times have changedradicallychangedand than ks to the imag-ination and efforts of todays
Spaniards, the past h as gone by and
the wou nd s have all but healed, the
scars becoming pr actically invisible.
Today, on the footsteps of the 20th
Anniversary of the Spanish dem ocrat-
ic Constitution, w e, all contem pora ry
Spaniardsand you, our friends
have cause for celebration. Because, in
just tw o decades, things hav e taken aturn for the better, mu ch better. Not
only can w e be proud to be the eighth
country in the world by indu strial
GDP and a found er of the euro; not
only are we the eleventh countryin the world in terms of UNDPgeneral well-being indicators; but,above all we can celebrate that welive in a free, open society, in ademocratic country with gu aran-
teed individu al rights und er therule of law, with freedom ofspeechand full, unrestricted public liberties.
Less than a year aw ay from the
21st century, u nd er a m ature Consti-
tution, we have reasons to believe
and we shou ld act on such a belief
and h opethat our children, and our
grand children, and th eir sons and
dau ghters, will have as we dotodaythe same reasons to celebrate
for years and years to come. To close
these words let me sum u p stating the
obvious. The war is over. It has
already been over for decades. A new
Spain is on its feet.
But you, men and wom en from
the Abraham Lincoln Brigadeour
lasting friendsyou are not the past,
you are not on ly legend, you are n ot
only mem ories: you belong to ou r civ-
ilized fu ture. That is why a long letter
of gratitud e is still being w ritten by
the Spanish p eople, by all the
Spaniard s of goodw ill, to those of you
wh o came from afar to help u s in
those fateful years. A letter tha t no
longer has to be add ressed to any w arfront, any fire line. A letter that is still
flowing because our d ebt is a standing
debt of love, that has no exp iration
date and that cannot be canceled. As
the old Span ish saying goes, love can
only be repaid w ith love. And th at,
takes forever.
You w ill always have our gratitud e
and our hearts.
Such issues were hotly debated at
The Aesthetic and the Au thentic in
Representations of the Span ish Civil
War. Contributor and p rodu cer of
man y VALB events, Glazer contrasted
Lincoln vet Chuck Hall's person al
reflections on the w ar w ith film clipsfrom Joris Ivens 1937 documen tary
The Spanish Earth, and then slides of
poster, photographs, and art images
from the w ar, followed by a 1942
recording of the song El Qu into
Regimiento and a passage from
Edwin Rolfe's 1948 poem Elegia.
Art as a Weapon
ALBA H istorian Peter Carro ll
described how du ring the Spanish
Civil War art and culture were an
integral pa rt of the struggle. Films,posters, photograp hy, and poems
documen ted the horrors of fascism,
including th e first aerial bombings to
terrorize civilian popu lations.
A panel includ ing Dr. Scott
Cur tis, Assistant Professor of Radio/ -
Television/ Film at North western;
Laura Labau ve-Maher a Lecturer in
Hispanic Studies, David Mickenberg,
director of North western 's Block
Museum; and Dr. Michael Sherry,
Professor of History at Northwestern
discussed h ow th e denial of the
Spanish Civil War's significant p lace
in the stand ard histories of World
War II give add ed imp ortance to
stories, images, and artifacts for
understanding the War.
About 50 people attended the
event. Graduate stud ents and faculty
joined in d iscussion w ith veterans of
the San Pedro p rison, and CFLB mem -
bers. Even organizer Glazer was
particularly proud of this synthesis of
academia and living history.Scholarship can often be far too iso-
lated from its foun dations, its
substan ce, its sources, its inspirations,
its players--and in that sense, we are
also lucky and perhap s somewhat
chastened to have our witnessing of
history here today, he stated.
Chicago: Art and WarContinued from page 4
PHOTOTHESOSSENKOS
Lincoln Vets Moe Fishman (left) and George Sossenko (right) at a reception in thehome of Consul General Emilio Cassinello
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
8/24
8 THE VOLUNTEER, Summer1999
The Basque p roblem rem ains oneof the greatest challenges that con-fronts Spanish d emocracy, and in our
Pais Vasco (the Basque Coun try)
things are still far from ru nn ingsmooth ly. Our situation reflects a long
history of failure. During the 19th cen-
tur y, our p eople failed in its fight for
liberties and un iversal civil rights, and
the liberal revolution had ba rely start-
ed then. Ideas without acts and acts
without ideas. That was our history
accord ing to Karl Marx.
Not u ntil the second Republic of
1931 did the ideas of nationality and
liberalism again have a chance. But as
we all know, the d emocratic revolution
became a civil war, and we lost. Afterthe civil war, the clock was set back.
Und er Franco, the highly centralized
and dictatorial state ignored our tradi-
tional rights (the Fueros) and
und ertook, among other things, the
repression of ou r national language.
In this atmosphere of national
opp ression, ETA (Basque Land and
Freedom ) was born . Initially, it was
widely acclaimed as a revolutionary
grou p, finding its justification in the
resistance to Francos d ictatorship . But
subsequently ETA became a d rawback
for the fragile Span ish democracy. It
was only after Francos death that
ETAs terrorism becam e most active,
grad ually increasing its activities, and
refusing to ad mit that the dictatorship
was over and that we have a democrat-
ic state. ETAs strategy of provoking a
Coup dEtat that wou ld open the eyes
of the Basque work ing class and
wou ld drag th em into the fight, was in
the end destined to fail.
Actually they have failed beforethe supreme Court of History. ETA
has wasted m ore than two decades of
its militants an d of ou r collective d ig-
nity. One of the biggest problems of
Basque society today is the reconcilia-
tion of the victims and executioner s.
There are man y justifications for
ETAs violence: it is a just cause, our
rights have been supp ressed, one
thou sand reasons. But, still, ETA has
killed, often in cold blood, other
hu man beings for the crime of not
thinking exactly like them.
There is no p olitical ideal, not even
a d emocratic one, that justifies thedeath p enalty, much less without the
rights of trial and due process. Two
years ago the Basque peop le and all of
Spain took to the streets by the millions
to ask that ETA not kill the young
Basque council mem ber from the PP
(Popu lar Party) who they had kid-
naped . Two d ays later he was found in
a hole assassinated w ith a shot in the
back of his neck, and a true p opular
uprising took place to protest the crime.
The ETA side has its own dram as.
The policy of previous governmentshave dispersed 600 ETA prisoners in
Spanish p risons. This policy was
app roved by all the political parties,
including th e PNV (Basque
Na tionalist Party). The objective of
placing the prisoners in d ifferent pris-
ons all over Spa in was to break their
relation with ETA. Many p eople and
political parties disagree w ith this pol-
icy. In add ition, there is the horr or of
the antiterrorist-terrorism by the orga-
nization GAL (Antiterrorist Groups of
Liberation) created in the early 80s
with the sup port of high members of
government, which caused numerous
casualties in the ETA entour age andseriously weakened the found ations
of the new Spanish d emocracy .
The Basque coun try, Euskad i o
Euskalerria (we cannot even agree on
a nam e) is now immersed in a p rocess
that som e call a peace process and
others of democratic normalization.
More than a year ago ETA declared a
cease fire. Now , most p olitical and
social nationalist forces hav e reached
a p olitical agreemen t the so-called El
Pacto de Lizarrathat is satisfactory
to ETA too.
But th e pact is not acceptable to
the two strongest parties in the coun-try, the PP an d PSOE (Socialist party ).
These two p arties rejected the agree-
ment for tw o reasons. One problem is
territorial and reflects the claim a s one
of the most sacred aspirations of
Basque n ationalism that N avarra be
integrated in the Basque coun try
together w ith the three French-Basque
territories. Yet most p eople in those
territories do not vote n ationalist;
instead they vote for parties that do
not agree with that philosophy.
The other point of conflict iswh ether Spain w ill accept w hatever
decision the Basque p opu lation m akes
un ilaterally. In all the elections so far
the pop ulation of the current
autonom ous government have voted
roughly 50-50 for and against nation-
alism (in all its varieties, modera te or
otherw ise). In the case of secession,
that sup port w ould fall dramatically.
As for France, prospects for national-
ism are far d immer.
Probably the time h as come for
Basque nationalism to harvest the
fruits of its success in having resisted
uniformity, centralism, and dictator-
ship; accomp lished the sur vival of itsancestral language; given cohesion to
a small country; and obtained one of
The Basque Country: The end of a cycle
Init ially, it was widely acclaimed as a revolutionary group,finding its justification in the resistance to Francos dictator-ship. But subsequently ETA became a drawback for the fragileSpanish democracy.
Continued on page 10
By Kati Gutierrez
Kati Gutierrez is a high school historyteacher and member of the BasqueParliament, representing IzquierdaUnida (United Left). Translation providedby Professor Jose Maria Garcia of Bilbaoand Victoria Parraga, ALBA Associate.
Pais Vasco
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
9/24
THE VOLUNTEER, Summer 1999 9
by Fraser Ottanelli
For the stud ents of my Florida StateUniversity overseas program onfascism in Florence, Italy, it w as the
perfect historical link. Located in th e
citys med ieval heart, on the sid e ofthe building opposite the classroom in
wh ich I taught, was a plaque m arking
the spot where Alessandro Sinigaglia,
one of the city's most revered antifas-
cist resistance leaders, had been
gunn ed d own in February 1944 by
Italian fascists wor king for the N azis .
As an edu cator I cannot often
bridge the physical distance between
the classroom and the locale of perti-
nent historical events. Sinigaglia's
story w as the exception. H is militant
opp osition to fascism, from you thfulactivities in his native Florence, the
Garibaldi Battalion of the International
brigades during the Span ish Civil War
and his martyrdom, provided a
uniqu e personal history. The students,
from various universities in the
United States, were brought h ome to
the complex experiences and the p rice
paid by a generation of antifascists. In
addition, Sinigaglia's background
makes him stand ou t among the mem-
bers of th e Italian resistance: his father,
David, was an Italian Jew an d h is
mother, Mary White,was an African-
American from St. Louis who had
come to Florence to work as a m aid fora wealthy family in one of the v illas on
the northern slopes of the city.
While I know that there is more to
identity than genetic makeup, never-
theless, as an Italian American, I claim
Sinigaglia as "one of our own." Now,
with material draw n from various
archives in Italy and in Moscow, here
briefly is Sinigaglia's story.
A faded ph otographic portraittaken d uring th e Spanish civilwar provides some ind ication of
Sinigaglia's backgrou nd . Recalling his
bravery an d resolve, one of his com-
rades d escribed him as "of medium
height, strong, with a dark complex-
ion, an open and intelligent
expression, with eyes and cheekbones
resembling those of a Mongolian."Born in 1902, Sinigaglia matured in
the strong Socialist and Communist
culture of Florence's working class
neighbor hood s. We learn from h is file
in the archives of the Italian police
that at the age of eighteen he joined
the Arditi del Popolo, a paramilitary
organization, composed mostly of
Communists, to resist the bloody
Fascist offensive waged at the end of
1922 against wor kingclass organiza-
tions and activists in the period
previous to Mussolini's rise to power.
Following th e Fascist victory,
Sinigaglia became one of the leader s
of the city's Commu nist und erground
organization. Eventually, however, his
activities brought h im to the attention
of the infamou s OVRA, a special
branch of the Italian p olice in chargeof repressing antifascist activities.
Returning from a meeting, late one
night in Mar ch 1928, Sinigaglia found
three policemen w aiting for him in
A Plaque on a Wall in Florence
Alessandro Sinigaglia wearing the uniform of the Spanish Republi can navy stand-
ing between Giuliano Pajetta (r), political commissar of the XIIth, XIIIth and XVthbrigades, and an unidentified member of the International Brigades. Photographcourtesy of Instituto storico del la Resistenza inToscana
Continued on page 10
Fraser Ottanelli, vice-chair of ALBA,teaches U.S. history at the University ofSouth Florida and is writing a history ofItalian Americans.
As an educator I cannot oftenbridge the physical distancebetween the classroom and thelocale of pertinent historicalevents.
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
10/24
10 THE VOLUNTEER, Summer1999
front of his apartm ent building.
Surprisingly, they did not recognize
him an d he w as able to flee. Through
the Party's und erground network,
Sinigaglia illegally crossed th e bord er
into France and eventually mad e it tothe Soviet Union. In Moscow he
attend ed the prestigious Lenin School,
married a Russian w ho worked for the
Comintern and h ad a child.
By 1935 Sinigaglia was once again
involved in clandestine operations as
a mem ber of the Italian Comm un ist
partys und erground in Switzerland .
There he learned of the outbreak of
war in Spain and w as among the first
of the international volunteers to rush
in defense of the Republic in August
of 1936. In Spain Sinigaglia displayedun ique m ilitary an d p olitical skills.
Shortly after arrival, in light of h is ear-
lier experience as a subm ariner in the
Italian navy, he was assigned to the
Republican cruiser Mend es Nu ez.
His person nel record in the archives of
the International Brigades in M oscow
contains several reports he prepared
for Luigi Longo (Gallo), Inspector
General of the International Brigades,
on the morale and overall prepared-
ness of the Repub lican fleet.
Eventually he w as assigned as
liaison officer betw een the Spanish
Repub lican navy and Soviet military
advisers. How ever, his most imp ortant
job du ring the war was to su pervise
the clearing of the mines that the fas-
cist forces repeated ly placed along the
access channels to the port of
Barcelona. According to his personnel
record, in the performance of this task
he d isplayed great p ersonal courage
and technical expertise, repeated ly
placing h imself in harm's w ay and
devising n ew techniques to neutralize
explosive devices of varied types.
Following th e defeat of the
Republic, together with thousand s of
Spanish repu blicans and m embers of
the Intern ational brigad es, Sinigaglia
crossed the border to France and w as
interned in th e infamous Vernet con-
centration camp .
In 1941, following th e Germ anand Italian occupa tion of France, the
Vichy authorities hand ed h im over to
Mussolini's police together with most
of the other Italian volun teers, who
were then sentenced to four years of
internal exile on th e island of
Ventotene. This policy of bringing
Italian volunteers back to Italy and
confining th em in the same place was
to backfire against the Fascists.
In the su mm er of 1943 the Kings
decision to depose Mussolini led to
the r elease of political prisoners.Drawing on their military experience,
the Italian veterans of the International
Brigades provided the core around
wh ich the armed resistance movem ent
was established. Upon his release
Sinigaglia returned to Florence and was
at the head of the Comm unist party's
military organization where he played
a central role in organizing and leading
the urban partisan organization, the
GAP (Group s of patriotic action).
Totaling between 20 and 30 mem bers,
the GAP w ere divided into small cells,
unconnected to each other, so that in
the case of capture the entire organiza-
tion would not be jeopard ized.
Dur ing the w inter of 1943 and
1944 , the GAP carried ou t scores of
daring attacks against Nazi and
Fascist troops an d installations. Their
most spectacular feats were blowing
up the head quarters of the Fascist
par ty and executions of the city's chief
of police and a p rominent mem ber of
Mussolini's governm ent. Sinigaglia
carried ou t the dan gerous task of
maintaining contacts between the
leadership of the Comm unist party
and th e partisan units.
A marked m an, he was targeted
by the four saints, a group of Italian
fascists und er the comm and of the
Nazi S.S. After a long manhu nt they
found Sinigaglia in a restaurant in the
center of Florence dining w ith another
Italian Span ish Civil War vet. His com-
rade w as imm ediately captured and
later executed together with 65 parti-
sans. Sinigaglia overcam e his attackers
and fled. How ever, he got no farther
than a few hu nd red yards before he
was tracked down, woun ded and then
killed w hile lying on th e sidewa lk. In
his honor, the 22nd Garibaldi partisan
Brigade took the n ame of Brigata
Sinigaglia, and he was p osthumou slyawarded the Silver Medal for valor,
Italy's second highest military award.
As for my stud ents I hope that
standing on the spot w here "this guy
whose mother was from St. Louis"
was killed helped th em better und er-
stand the internationalist character of
the struggle against op pression.
the most advan ced au tonomous self-
governments in the world. We have
our ow n p arliament, the Basque gov-
ernm ent collects all taxes, has its ow n
police force, and comp lete au tonom y
in edu cation, public works etc. But itis time to get rid of some id eological
ismsits ethnicism, its ancestral
voices, its nation above th e rights
and the w ill of its citizens to the p oint
of justifying any hu man rights viola-
tion for the sake of that nation.
The Basque Coun try is now at a
crucial point. It can be th e time to
establish by consensus am ong u s
Basques a political fram ewor k in
which we can live in our d iversity, in
which the reconciliation and healing
of wound s can take place. But also itcan be the time for the sordid an d
fanatic fights in a battlefield ever
more divided in two irreconcilable
fronts.
Obviously we are for the first
alternative, but w e mu st adm it that it
is not going to be easy.
Drawing on their military experience, the Italian veterans ofthe International Brigades provided the core around which thearmed resistance movement was established.
BasqueContinued from page 8
SinigagliaContinued from page 9
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
11/24
THE VOLUNTEER, Summer 1999 11
plead h is case with the Ad jutant
General, but his request for an inter-
view was den ied. He app ealed for
assistance to the legal dep artm ent of
the N AACP, but they d eclined to help
because h is case involved civil liber-ties not civil rights.
Carter took his case to the Am erican
Civil Liberties Union,
wh ich agreed to
make a private
inquiry to the White
House. In 1950, one of
President Trumans
personal ad visors
reported that th e Carter
case w as officially
closed. No charges were
ever filed; Carter w asnever allowed to learn
what he had been
accused of doing.
The release of Carters
FBI files this year clarified
his pr oblem. As U.S. News
reported, there were two
grounds for questioning the
Sergeants loyalty in 1943. First,
Subject reported ly was a mem -
ber of the Abraham Lincoln
Brigade, having served for two
and a half years [sic] with said
Brigade in Spain. Second ,
Potentially adverseSubject is seem-
ingly poten tially capable of having
connections with su bversive activities
du e to the fact that he spent his early
years (un til 1938) in the Orient an d
has a speaking knowledge of
Hind ustani and Mand arin Chinese.
Although the story in U.S. New s
dep icted Car ter as a political nave, he
certainly knew tha t in going to Spa in,
he had violated State Departmentru les. Other Lincoln vets were treated
by the Army as prematu re antifas-
cistsa euphemism for
commun istand w ere denied offi-
cer promotions and overseas service.
The Road to Spain
Carters odyssey began w hen h e
followed his fathers missionary call to
India an d China in th e 1920s and 30s.
As a teenager in Shanghai, he stu died
the military arts at a Chinese academy
and had volunteered to fight against
the Japanese invad ers of China
between 1931 and 1935. From Ch ina,
he had returned h ome to Los Angeles
and soon afterward went to Spain. His
family believes he joined th e
International Brigades as a p rofession-
al soldier to fight th e good fight.Evid ence o f Carters service in
Spain remains sketchy. Aside from th e
listing of h is nam e on the official
VALB roster ,
there is no
other men-
tion of his
name yet
found in
the
archives. In a
1942 inter -
view, Carterreferred to
his
frozen feet in Spain, suggesting th at
he had participated in action arou nd
Teruel du ring the winter of 1938. In
1946, he told an other interv iewer for
Peoples World, a west coast commu -
nist newspap er, that when the fascists
broke throu gh the Repu blican lines in
March 1938, he had retreated all the
way to the French border and been
arrested in France. Thu s h is ser vice
in Spain p robab ly lasted only a few
months. We have not yet found infor-
mation about w hich u nits he served
with an d no surv iving Lincoln veteran
can remember him in Spain.
By 1939 Carter was back in Los
Angeles, where he married and h ad
the first of his two sons. When World
War II began, he enlisted in th e U.S.Arm y. His service in the segregated
army was limited to menial assign-
ments. After his un it was shipp ed
overseas, he repeatedly volunteered
for a combat assignm ent. His app lica-
tion w as finally accepted in 1945.
Down graded to a pr ivate, he got
his chance to fight in Mar ch 1945.
When the tank he w as riding on came
un der fire from a farmhouse in
Germany, Carter led a three-man
squad to locate the enemy. Almost
immediately Carters two comradeswere shot. He was left in an exposed
position, targeted by heavy m achine
gun fire. Five times he w as shot, yet
he u sed his marksm an skills to take
out an unknow n nu mber of German
soldiers.
Finally, the German s sent eight
soldiers to captur e him. Carter killed
six of them and captured the other
two. Carter, bleeding from wounds,
walked across a German field w ith his
bayonet stuck ag ainst the neck of one
German , his rifle pointing at the back
of the other. Carter was recomm ended
for the Medal of Honor; he got the
DSC instead.
After the w ar, Carter return ed to
Los Angeles, trying unsuccessfully to
start a small business. He also assumed
leadership of a local black business
association, aimed at en ding racial
discrimination.
Ebony magazine featured Carter
BlacklistedContinued from page 1
Continued on page 12
Peter Carroll, chair of ALBA, is theauthor of TheOdyssey of the AbrahamLincoln Brigade.
The Germans sent eight soldiers to capture him. Carter killed sixof them and took the other two prisoners....Carter was recom-mended for the Medal of Honor; he got the DSC instead.
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
12/24
12 THE VOLUNTEER, Summer1999
with six other African Am erican DSC
winners. The article quoted him say-
ing that black soldiers in World War II
proved that racial cooperation was
possible. He also said the arm y might
benefit from some imp rovement
about 99 percent imp rovement.In 1947, Carter accepted recogni-
tion from a local group of the American
Youth For Democracy and attended
their Welcome H ome Joe party .
Other guests included Hollywood
celebrities, such as Ing rid Bergman ,
and political rad icals, includ ing
Lincoln vet and screenwriter Alvah
Bessie (soon to achieve notoriety a s
one of the Hollywood Ten) and Pau l
Robeson. Carters attend ance at this
event is verified by th e report of an
FBI informant.By 1947, Carter decided to reen list
in the arm y. The m ilitary overlooked
his alleged offenses and a ssigned h im
as a weap ons instructor in a new ly
created N ational Guard un it for black
soldiers. But w hen the Guard pu b-
lished their roster of instru ctors,
Carters name was missing, foreshad-
owing his future p roblems.
Carter served well during the next
two years, receiving no warn ings about
impend ing problems. One day before
his reenlistment w as expected, the
army instead gave him an honorable
discharge. His pap ers were stamped
Not p ermitted to reenlist without
app roval of the adjutant general.When neither a personal appear-
ance nor the NAACP nor the ACLU
could persuad e the army to reverse its
decision, Carters life turn ed sou r.
Letters to his attorneys reveal a fru s-
trated and angry m an. He even sent
his DSC to a lawyer with the request
that he return it to the White Hou se.
When Ebony magazine prepared
to pu blish a sequ el to the earlier arti-
cle abou t black DSC winners in 1950
asking w here are they now ?Carter
could barely respond. He finally sent
a lame response that his work w as
confiden tial. The accompanying
photograp h shows the despair that
cloud ed h is life.When further ap peals to the gov-
ernment brought no response, Carters
anger turned to bitterness and dep res-
sion. He began to drink h eavily,
neglected h is appearance, and became
a problem for his family. In 1958, a
friendly physician wrote once more to
the ACLU, pleading for a reopening of
Carters case in hope that the restora-
tion of his military career w ould
restore his self-respect. The ACLU
could offer no hop e.
In 1963, at the age of 46, StaffSergeant Edward Carter, Jr. was dead
in Los Angeles. No obituary appeared
in the new spap ers; only his family vis-
ited the grave.
And there the Carter case rested
un til President Clinton m oved in 1996
to amen d th e errors of military justice
for African A mericans. The White
House ceremony blazed Carters
name on front pages; World War II
comrad es came forward to recall his
heroism and mourn his early death.
Only his family knew wh at the
government had d one to this prou d
veteran of two wars. We need to end
the hurt, his daughter-in-law told me,
to show the American people justwhat the army d id to Edw ard Carter.
We wish to r estore his dignity.
Veterans of the Lincoln Brigad e,
wh o won man y medals for courage
du ring World War II and w ho shared
with Ca rter the honor of being called
premature antifascists, welcome
him into their ranks.
BlacklistedContinued from page 11
We need to end the hurt, to show the American peoplejust what the army did to Edward Carter. We wish torestore his dignity.
Sweet
Invited to speak at the annualVALB reunion in Oakland, Californiaon February 28, 1999, the writer ArieDorfman began by describing theimpact of the Lincoln Brigade on hisimagination when, as a 9-year oldboy, he was taken by his father toSpain for the first time. As a youngman in the early 1970s, Dorfman helda government position in the leftistregime of Salvador Allende in Chile.
He was nearly killed and then forcedinto exile when General AugustoPinochet, with the aid of the U.S. CIA,toppled the government in Septembe1973. Now, as the legal system ofpost-Franco Spain attempts to bringPinochet to justice for crimes againsthumanity, Dorfman turned to thequestion: Why Spain?
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
13/24
My love affairwith theAbraham LincolnBrigade, and in
fact my debt to its
Veterans, started
many years ago,
wh en I was nine
years old. It start-
ed the d ay I stood
on the frontier of
Spa in in October
of 1951, the yea r I
visited Europe for
the first time.
My Argentinefather, a former
commun ist and
still very mu ch a
man of the left
like many of his
generation wh o
had Espaa en el
corazn, Spain in
their heartsmy
father had sw orn
that he would
never step on
Spanish soil until
Franco w as gone
or dead . But w e
swear many
things in life and
life makes
demands of us
that are not
always heroic or d efinitive; life ha s a
way of confronting u s with that Primo
Levi called the grey zones. My father
was w orking at the time at the United
Nations in New York and h e had p ro-fessional business to cond uct in
Madrid an d Barcelona and so we
came to the frontier of the coun try he
had never w anted to visit in his life
even though it had been at the center
of that life and on his mind ever since
its struggle against fascism in th e thir-
ties had inspired him and countless
millions around the w orld.
What I remember above all was
that frontier. We had been trav elling
from France and , because the tracks
were narrow -gauge on the Spanishside, it was necessary to descend in
Irun, I believe it was, and change
trains. My father took me by the hand
and w alked m e to the very edge of
Spanish territory. He crouched dow n
to my h eight, so he could look me in
the eyes and told me that this was the
place where the Republic had been
betrayed . Here, he said, right here, the
weap ons that the Repu blic had paid
for had been blocked by the French,
with the acquiescence of the English
and the Americans. Proclaiming theirneutrality, these countries, future
allies against Germany, had conspired
to starve the Repub lic, not realizing
that they w ere, in fact, encourag ing
the app easing of Hitler and Mussolini.
Did I know H itler and Mu ssolini?
I nodd ed my head solemnly.
Hitlers aircraft, my father said,
Mussolinis groun d troops w ere
engaged on the side of Franco. And I
knew w ho Franco was because he was
the hijo de p uta w ho governed this
land and wh ose name I shouldnt
mention w hile we were in Spain. Even
then, as a child, I was being trained , asmy own children w ould be many
years later in Chile, to hide m y
though ts from the men in pow er, to
hide w hat our family really though t
about Franco.
Franco, my father twisted the
word in his mouth as if it hurt him
merely to say it. Here is wh ere the
Second World War began, my father
went on. Never forget that here is
wh ere the Spanish w ere betrayed...
For m e, in 1951, the existence of theLincoln Brigades d id not w orkmerely as a legendary story of hero-
ism, of men an d wom en w illing to
give their lives for the cau se of democ-
racy while their governm ents stood by
and watched the Repu blic bleed to
death. Though born in Buenos Aires, I
was then a little yankee boy wh o
though t of himself as an American or
perhap s it would be more adequate to
amend that to read: from the N orth,
an American from the North. I refused
to speak Span ish, sang the StarSpangled Banner with fervor and
swore that N ew York w as the best city
in the best country in th e world.
Like any little patriot, I was
always looking for a reason to justify
my love of my adop ted homeland.
And yet, I was also the son of a father
persecuted by McCarthy, a witch-hun t
that wou ld eventually lead u s to aban-
don the Un ited States a few years later
and head for Chile. At nine years of
age, I was living an irreconcilable con-
trad iction: the coun try I considered
my ow n w as trying to exile my father
and might perhap s even kill him. Thefact that the very United States that
was houn ding my family and so many
of my familys left w ing gringo friend s
had also prod uced the Lincoln
Brigades, was a source of comfort to
me and also one of the first profound ly
political lessons I received in my life.
It confirmed m e in something I
THE VOLUNTEER, Summer 1999 13
Continued on page 14
CirclesbyArielDorfman
A sweet way for the pendulum of history to swing back, for abalance to be restored to the cosmos: that the Madrid which theVeterans defended in the battle of Jarama, that the Spain theyhad to leave against their will, be the final prison for General
Pinochet or, at least, the place where his trial will take place.
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
14/24
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
15/24
THE VOLUNTEER, Summer 1999 15
Nor does the Spanish connection
with Chile cease there: later, wh en
Allende became a perennial candidate
for president, his marches were
always pu nctuated by the songs of the
Spanish Civil War. We thought of our-
selves often, in Ch ile, as rep eating the
Spanish experience, but this time with
a happy ending.
While our adversaries used Spainas a warning, reminding us that what
had h appened there could happ en in
Chile. And , in 1973, it did . The coup
came, the massacres came, the perse-
cution came. And then, si Espaa
estuvo en el corazn p ara la generacin
de m i padr e, if Spain lived on in the
hearts of my fathers generation, Chile
found its way into the heart of my
generation across the planet dur-
ing the seventies and eighties.
Allendes democratic
road to socialism created thehope that there w as an alter-
native not only to capitalist
developmentor should I say
misdevelopmentbut also an
alternative to stalinist mod els
of society, a p roject that w as
crushed in part by U.S. inter-
vention just as the search for
socialism with the human face
was d estroyed in Prague by
Soviet tanks in m ore or less
the same years. And our
defeat in Chile, as the
Republics defeat in Spain, ush-
ered in long years of repression
around the world, concentration camps
and torture, censorship and exile,
disappearances and executions.
The fact that it shou ld be Spain thatis demanding General Pinochetsextradition, that it is post-Franco
Spain that is willing to judge those
crimes that our ow n Chile, because of
und erstandable flaws and w eaknessesin our transition to dem ocracy, has not
and probably w ill not be able to carry
out, is a cause of great satisfaction to
those who struggle for hu man rights
all over the world but m ust be particu-
larly satisfying to th e Veterans of the
Abraham Lincoln Brigade, who
watched Francisco Franco d ie in his
bed w ithout ever having been held
accoun table. The fact tha t [Pinochet]
the ideological heir to Franco, who
went to the Caud illos fun eral and
then h ad to leave hurriedly before
Juan Carlos was crown ed, the fact that
the Franco of our tim es is und er arrest
because a Spanish judge decided to
charge him w ith the murd er of
Spanish citizens and internationa l ter-
rorism an d crimes against hu manity,
has to have brou ght man y smiles toour Veterans who have, unfortunate-
ly, seen far too m any disasters all over
the w orld following the fall of the
Republic...
A sweet way for the pendu lum of
history to sw ing back, for a balance to
be restored to th e cosmos: that the
Madrid wh ich the Veterans defend ed
in the battle of Jaram a, that the Spain
they had to leave against their will, be
the final prison for Genera l Pinochet
or, at least, the place wher e his trial
will take p lace...
This does not attenuate the need ofthe people of the United States toadd ress the crimes committed in for-
eign lands in their nam e. There are
two Americas, the America thathelped to overthrow democracy in
Chile and the America that fought that
intervention. The Am erica of Nixon
and the Am erica of the Lincoln
Brigade. And th e America of the
Lincoln Brigade still has un finished
business at home, right here in the
United States.
It is not enou gh for Pinochet to be
tried for his crimes against humanity.
Hu manitythe hum anity of the
United States pu blicmust also
dem and that the America that put
Pinochet in power an d su stained h im
there for m any years, open its files, let
the world kn ow w hat those files hide
about th e d ictators hu man rights vio-
lations and , even more important, the
U.S. government mu st be pressured to
ask for the extradition of GeneralPinochet to the United States to face
trial for the m ur der of Allendes
Foreign Minister Orland o Letelier and
his American assistant, Ronnie
Moffett. If the U.S. is really interested
in fighting intern ational terrorism...
All [Presiden t Clinton] has to do is
instruct his Attorney General to
demand General Pinochets extradition.
Then the circle
wou ld be truly complete.
Think of the day w hen
the Veterans who are leftthe Veterans wh o crossed
the Atlantic to die and
live for Spain, the veter-
ans wh o fought their
own governm ent over
Vietnam and Nicaragua,
the Veterans wh o gave
me hop e as a child on
that frontier in Spain an d
inspired me as an ad oles-
cent and later as a
revolutionary in Chile
and even later as a wan-
dering bilingu al exile for
years and years, think of
those Veterans filing into a cour troom
in Washington D.C. and seeing the
self-proclaimed heir to Franco stand
accused of crimes against h um anity.
Then the circle that started in the
States and wove throu gh Spain would
be truly complete, would be incredi-
bly sweet. In a sense, the Brigad istas
wou ld finally have come hom e.
Ariel Dorfmans complete speech,
including his memory of first learning of
the Lincoln Brigade from his father, is
available as a CD recording for $16.50
(including postage). Make checks payable
to VALB, P.O. Box 884354, San
Francisco, CA 94188.
Ariel Dorfman with Bay Area post comander David Smith
PHOT
ORICHARDBERMACK
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
16/24
16 THE VOLUNTEER, Summer1999
by Dave Smith
WWOWIt w as an aw esome sight,
the 10x14 foot cabin , built in
1906, hanging from a crane 40 feet
above the g round . Bill Baileys former
home w as placed on a flat bed tru ckand hauled from Telegraph Hill to a
temp orary storage site in San
Francisco.
Both local newspap ers, the
Chron icle and the Examiner, covered
the event, referring to
Bailey as the leg-
endary w aterfront
labor leader. The
VALB cottage com -
mittee got the supp ort
of San Francisco
Mayor Willy Brown and help from theInternational Longshore and
Warehouse Union.
Baileys former neighbor, Peter
Dw arres, recalled his mem ories of the
former ILWU officer: He was ru gged ,
one of a k ind, ind ividualistic, a social-
ist, and a very fine gentleman. H e
gave the neighborhood character.
Since 1997 our Vets committee
has been involved with p lans for the
cottage. Without going into many
details, there is now a question about
the final resting place of Bills house.
A p roposal to move the cottage to a
nearby site has been sen t to the San
Francisco Board of Supervisors for
their approval.
Dave Smith is the VALB Commander ofthe Bay Area Post
TThe obituary of VALB AssociateHannah Creighton appeared in theWinter 98/99 issue of The Volunteer.Since then, Gene Coyle, Hannahs wid-
ower, and Dean Slocum organized aneye clinic in Cuidadela GuillermoManuel Ungo, El Salvador in Hannahshonor. Twenty-two volunteers from the
Pacific University's Los Amigos optome-try organization brought 10,000 pairs ofdonated prescript ion glasses, 450 read-ing glasses, medications, and examiningequipment to El Salvador. The clinic washeld in a school room in Marin,Californias sister city. In five days theclinic treated 2000 patients.
Most of t he patients only neededreading glasses. To test the strength,patients were given a needle andthread and then tried on differentglasses until they could thread the nee-
dle without difficulty.After the traveling eye clinic left,
the school build ing was renamed anddedicated to Hannah. The Bay Areapost is proud of the contribut ionsmade by Hannah and the dedicationof the clinic. It is another milestone inthe contributions of the Vets andtheir associates to the cause ofhumanity.
Bill Baileys CottageSeeks New Site
A Legacy of Hannah Olson Creighton
Bay Area News
Dean Slocum (left) and Gene Coyle
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
17/24
THE VOLUNTEER, Summer 1999 17
GGeoreorge Wge Watt Aatt Awwarardsds
Salaria Keeby Catherine Wigginton
They w ere there in Spain 1937-1938,
American Negroes. History has record-
ed it. Before that time, the leading
ambassadors of the Negro in Europewere jazz-band musicians, concert
artists, dancers, or other performers. But
these Negroes in Spain w ere fighters
voluntary fighterswh ich is wher e
history turned another page.
Salaria Kee was one of the 2,800
Americans w ho traveled to Spain in
1937 to volunteer for the Second
Spanish Repu blic. Sixty women and
ninety African-Americans were
included in that group. Kee was the
only African-American woman.
Kee arrived w ith the Second
Amer ican Med ical Unit in Spain on
Apr il 3, 1937. Her g roup set up a base
hosp ital in Villa Paz, near Mad rid,
and hosp ital beds imm ediately filled
with hun dreds of woun ded soldiers.The m edical site lacked both sufficient
skilled labor and many resources, but
Kee did not mind . Under these cir-
cumstances the American doctors and
nurses had to work quickly and effec-
tively. Hence, leadership and respect
were given based on m erit alone.
Kee's sup erior nu rsing skills resulted
in her appointment as head nu rse of
two w ards in the hospital.
Five m onths into her service, Kee
met an d fell in love w ith Pat O 'Reilly,
a wound ed Irish International brigader.
The two marr ied on October 2, 1937.
Four m onths later, in Febru ary 1938,
the med ical unit received ord ers to
move to the front, but in March a
bomb dropped by fascist planes over
her field h ospital converted her into
the p atient, no longer capable of mili-
tary service. Kee spent the n ext
several months in America fun dra is-
ing for the w ar effort, until the civil
wa r end ed in 1939.
Althou gh after the Spanish CivilWar Kee fell out of political activity,
she had established h erself in history.
Not on ly had she mad e a d ifference in
her ow n life by pu tting herself in a sit-
uation w here she experienced
equality, but she had also been a par-
ticipant in one of the greatest
struggles of the twentieth century.
Dr. Edward Barskyby Yossef C. Blum
Dr. Edw ard Barsky, a world-
renowned surgeon who devoted his
great talents to helping the Spanish
Republic and the Spanish refugees,
was an extraordinary individual.
After grad uating from Columbia
University of Physicians an d
Surgeons in 1919, he became a top
surgeon at Beth Israel Medical Center
in Manhattan. His medical expertise
was w ell established, and manyregarded him as one of the ablest sur-
geons in th e East. Yet, he did not limit
his app lication of the med ical model
to individ ual cases; he sought to aid
hum an beings on a grander, more
global scale.
Dr. Barsky helped form the
Am erican Med ical Bur eau to Aid
Spanish Dem ocracy, a relief grou p
that succeeded in raising over
$1,000,000, an extraordinary sum for
that time. Although he also was incharge of pu tting together a group of
doctors and nu rses to assist the
Abrah am Lincoln Brigade in Spain, it
came as quite a surprise to him wh en
he was called u pon to lead the med i-
cal effort in Spain.
Risking h is life on a da ily basis,
Dr.Barsky d escribed h is work in Spain
as "a forbidd ing workload u nd er
formidab le conditions." Despite all the
various problem s, Dr. Barskyinvented several innovative
surgical procedures that vir-
tually revolutionized th e
practice of war med icine.
After the war Dr. Barsky
devoted countless years to helping
Spanish r efugees. In 1941, he helped
found the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee
Comm ittee (JAFRC), an organ ization
devoted to imp roving the horrendou s
health and living conditions of the
refugees. While this organization was
initially successful, the JAFRC wasone of the first organizations to be
attacked by H UAC. Presented w ith an
order to produce the JAFRC's records,
Dr. Barsky led the comm ittee's refusal
and w as subsequently charged with
contempt.
Throughout the trial, the three
years of app eals, and his jail sentence
of five m onths, Dr. Barsky r eceived
wide sup port from many wh o felt he
had simp ly done nothing wrong; his
primary goal had been to save thou-
sand s of innocent lives.
Of Dr . Barskys sacrifice, Ernest
Hem ingway said, Edd ie is a Saint.
That's wh ere we pu t our saints in this
country, in jail.
ALBAs annual George Watt Awards are given to students for the best paperson the Spanish Civil War. The awards include a $500 cash prize. This yearswinners are Yossef C. Blum of Yeshiva University, New York, for an essay onDr. Edward Barsky, and Catherine Wigginton, Cole College, Iowa, for an essayon Salaria Kee. Summaries of the award winning essays are printed below.
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
18/24
18 THE VOLUNTEER, Summer1999
Spains Women Prisoners SpeakPrison of Women, Testimonies of War
and Resistance in Spain, l939-l975by Tomasa Cuevas. Translated andedited by Mary E. Giles.Albany State University of New YorkPress, 1998
by Shirley Mangini
In 1989, Mary Giles, a Professor ofHu man ities at California StateUniversity, Sacramen to, was in
Madrid researching d ocuments from
the Spanish Inquisition wh en she
came up on a book of prison testi-monies by wom en from the Span ish
Civil War, Carcel de m ujeres 1939-
1945 (Barcelon a: Sirocco, 1985)
compiled by Tomasa Cuevas. Giles
later found that Cuevas had pu b-
lished tw o other volum es: Carcel de
Mujeres (1985) and Mujeres d e la
resistencia (1986). She began corre-
sponding w ith Tomasa and they
agreed on a tran slation.
When they m et to work five
years later, Giles was overw helm-
ingly impressed b y this tiny spirited
woman w ho had endu red years of
torture and imp risonment, and in
her w aning years stil l had the sense
of commitment an d the energy
required to travel around Spain w ith
a tap e recorder in search of her lost
cellmates.
Mary Giles has accomp lished a
laud able feat. By selecting testimonies
from the th ree books (largely the first
two), editing and translating, them,
she has given the English-speaking
world the opp ortunity to read these
moving and tragic stories of solidarityand survival. In addition, while in all
three volumes Cuevas de-emph asizes
the importan ce of her ow n testi-
mon ies, Giles reorders her
intermittently rend ered life story and
brings it to the foreground . What we
have is both a tribute to Tomasa and
well-edited narrative of the life of a
woman w ho never wavered in her pur-
suit of a free Spa in.
Cuevas describes her early years
as the d au ghter of a chronically-ill
mother and a hand icapped fatherwho had to abandon her education to
help h er sick m other, thereby learn-
ing only elemen tary skills. At the age
of nine she was w orking, and shortly
thereafter began delivering messages
for the Commun ist Party, though she
later joined the JSU (the u nified
socialist and comm un ist youth orga-
nization). Her first arrest came in
1934, to be followed by oth ers after
the war wh en she worked with the
resistance un til she finally fled to
France in 1953.
Cuevas tells many stories about
her p light that are similar to those of
her p risonmates. Her life is the portrait
of a wom an of exceptional w ill power
who, though severely injured wh ile tor-
tured, never revealed the whereabouts
of her comrades. Tomasa married
another resistance member, had a child
and endu red countless emotional and
physical hardships as an und erground
activist. She describes the pa in of being
alone for years at a time, wh ile her
husband w as away on dangerous mis-
sions and her dau ghter was cared for
by family mem bers.
Yet her nar rative is not a plaint or
an ap ology, nor d oes it reveal any bit-
terness. It merely d escribes the life of
an ind omitable crusader wh ose exem-
plary life of commitm ent m akes her a
heroine of qu ixotic stature. Despite the
limitations of her writing skills and
her m eager financial resour ces,
Cuevas d id not hesitate to subsidize
her travels and the pu blication of the
transcribed testimon ies. She was con-
vinced h er goal was w orth every
ounce of strength an d every last pese-ta to br ing the voices of her cellmates
to print. She was right.
The book describes the peregrina-
tions of the wom en from prison to
pr ison, the hunger, the torture, the ill-
nesses caused by the abominable
Book Re v ie w s
They lost their voices, their freedom, their health, their familiesand their country. Fortunately, many of the survivors neverrelinquished their ideals and persevered and because ofTomasa Cuevas, who has acted as a medium for those silencedwomen, we are able to read their stories today.
For information about purchasing thisbook see page 21
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
19/24
THE VOLUNTEER, Summer 1999 19
SHOUTS FROMTHE WALLChicago
August 14 October 17Chicago Public Library
400 South State StreetChicago, IL 60606(312) 747-4876, TDD (312) 747-4969
DallasNov. 8, 1999Feb. 21, 2000DeGolyar LibrarySouthern Methodist University6404 Hilltop LaneDallas, TX
CarbondaleMarch 15, 2000-May 15, 2000The University MuseumSouthern Illinois UniversityCarbondale, IL
ALBAs photographic exhibit,The
Aura of the Cause, has been shown at
the Pu ffin Room in N ew York City,
the University of California-San
Diego, the Salvador D ali Museum inSt. Petersbur g, FL, the Fond a Del Sol
Visual Center in Washington , DC,
and the University of Illinois. This
exhibit, curated by Professor Cary
Nelson of the University of Illinois,
consists of hund reds of photograph s
revealing the Abrah am Lincoln
Brigaders, other international volun -
teers and th eir Span ish comrad es in
training and at rest, among the
Span ish villages, and in battle.
BostonSept. 1-30, 1999Goffman GalleryUniversity of MassachusettsBoston, MA
EugeneOctober 10-Nov. 20, 1999Cultural Forum, University of Oregon1585 East 13th Avenue
Eugene, OR 7403For additional information, contactJessie Johnson, Visual Arts Coordinator:
541-346-0007.
For further information abou t The
Aura of the Cause exhibit, and its com-
panion exhibit Shouts From The Wall,
posters from th e Span ish Civil War,
contact ALBAs executive secretary,
Diane Fraher, 212-598-0968. Both
exhibits are available for museum
and art gallery showings.
ALBAS TRAVELING EXHIBITIONS
BRING THESE EXHIBITS TO YOUR LOCALITYContact Diane Fraher, ALBA executive secretary: 212-598-0968; Fax: 212-529-4603
conditions and the hu miliations
inflicted on th em by righteou s prison
guards, often m erciless nuns. It offers
some of the most dramatic stories
repeatedly told by women w ho were
incarcerated during the regime: that of
Matilde Landa, who h elped m any
wom en elud e the death sentence and
wh ose own m ysterious death haun ted
her cellmates, and that of the 13roses, 13 teenage girls wh o perished
before a firing squad and wh ose
crime had been to collect money for
the Loyalists. It provid es the testimo-
ny of Rosaria la Dinam itera, the
young miliciana w ho lost her hand ,
mak ing bombs in the first days of the
war. We read of the escape of several
young w omen from the Le Corts
Prison in Barcelona an d Blas Rojos
eerie memories abou t life on death
row an d the horrific sound s of men
being tortured and killed.
Prison of Women is a major contri-
bution to literature on prison life
du ring the Franco Regime, especially
to the small body of wor k about the
women w ho suffered in myriad w ays
at the hand s of Franco's inquisitors.
They were women w ho had trans-
gressed and were to be "reformed."
They lost their voices, their freedom,
their health, their families and theircountry. Fortunately, many of the sur-
vivors never relinquished th eir ideals
and persevered and because of
Tomasa Cuevas, who has acted as a
medium for those silenced w omen, we
are able to read th eir stories today.
Shirley Mangini, ALBA Board member,is a professor of Spanish Literature atCalifornia State University, Long Beach,and the author of Memories of Resistance:
Womens Voices from the Spanish Civil War.
Official Web Site of thePilots Association of the
Spanish Republic
from: Henri San Benito
ADAR (Asociacin d e aviadores de
la Republica Espa ola)
I have the p leasure of annou ncing
the new incorporation on the web
of the O fficial Web Site of the Pilots
Association of the Spanish
Repub lic ADAR.
http://members.xoom.com/ADAR_ES/Index.htmI invite you to comm un icate with
us via Email
Salud
Henri San Benito
THE AURA OF THE CAUSE
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
20/24
20 THE VOLUNTEER, Summer1999
Adde d to Me m orys Ros te r
Franois MazouFranois Mazou, French IB veter-
an d ied at the end of July in Pau. As
commissar in the 6th of February
Battalion, pa rt of th e original 15th
Brigade, he was w ound ed an d left for
dead at Morata de Tajula. Wound edagain in the Ebro camp aign, he later
comman ded the IB hospital in
Figueras. He w as instrumen tal in
aiding Spanish refugees in the Gurs
concentration camp, and participated
in the French resistance on both sides
of the Pyrenees.
Active in IB veterans a ffairs, he
helped w ith the restoration of the for-
gotten IB section of the local cemetery
of Morata.
Sid LevineSid Levine, one of the original
contingent of volunteers who named
them selves the Lincoln Battalion, died
in California last July. Known for his
courage and skill with heavy machine
guns, he became comp any comman-
der at Brunete. In 1938 he w as
assigned to p olitical work in France,
but w hen he learned of the fascist
advances that sp ring, he left his joband returned to action in Spain. Many
vets remember his heroism du ring the
battalions last actions.
Anthony De MaioObituary next issue
Ruth DavidowIf there were Forever Activist
Awards, Ruth Davidow would get the
Red Star. After serving as a nu rse in
the Spanish Civil War, she used h er
med ical skill to serve the disadvan-
taged as a pu blic health nurse. In 1960
she jour neyed to Cuba, joining the
Public Health Organization in
Havan a, wh ere she worked for two
years. In 1965 she participated in the
civil rights movem ent in Mississipp i,
working w ith the Medical Committee
for Hum an Rights, during "Freedom
Sum mer." When N ative Americans
occup ied Alcatraz Island, they asked
Ruth to ru n the health care services.
She w as one of the few non-NativeAm ericans allowed on the island. She
celebrated her 85th birthday at the
Third International Women's
Conference in Beijing, wh ere she w as
a delegate. A key subject in several
docum entaries including, The Good
Fight, Their Cause was Liberty , and the
Academy Award nominee, Forever
Activists, Davidow became a film
maker herself, produ cing 21 films, on
subjects from health care to p olitical
activism. She was bor n in Russia in1911, and im migrated to the United
States when she was th ree. She grad u-
ated from Brooklyn Jewish H ospital
with a degree in nu rsing in 1936. After
the civil war she ma rr ied fel low
Lincoln Vet Fred Keller. David ow
died on June 28.
Grigore NaumGrigore Naum (Naum Rotstein)
was born in 1911 in Baltzi, Bassarabia.
He joined the youth movemen t and
organized anti-Nazi demon strations
for which he w as arrested and
expelled from engineering school.
When Nau m joined the
International Brigades he delivered
the design of a new w eapon, invented
by his older broth er, to Russian m il-
iary specialists in Spain. The w eapon
become know n as "The Katiousha."
Tragically, his brother w ould be
arrested an d shot in Russia by Stalin,
after inquiring about h is own d esign.Grigore was w ound ed in battle,
but w as rescued by the bravery of his
comrades. When the Republicans
were forced to withdr aw into France,
he w as sent by the French to Gu rs
prison cam p an d later to Djelfa in
French Sahara along with other
Romanians. When the camp was lib-
erated in 1942 the Romanian grou p
joined the fight on th e Russian front.
For his activity du ring the WWII he
was d ecorated as a war veteran by the
Romanian and European Community.
After the war Nau m became a man-
ager of a Pharmaceu tical Company. In
1992 he joined his family in SanFrancisco and became active in the
environmental movement.
PHOTORICHARDBERMACK
You don't have to be a VIPbecause I never wasandyou don't have to be the
smartest or the most success-ful. All you need is a greatcommitment to the lifeyou're living and thecommunit y you're in,and the rest of it is joy."
Ruth Davidow
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
21/24
THE VOLUNTEER, Summer 1999 21
BOOKS ABOUT THELINCOLN BRIGADEMadrid 1937 Letters from the Spanish Civil Wared. by Nelson & Hendricks (cloth) $35
Another Hillby Milton Wolff (cloth) $25
Our FightWritings by veterans of theAbraham Lincoln Brigade:Spain 1936-1939
ed. by Alvah Bessie & Albert Prago (pbk) $15
Trees Become Torches,Selected Poemsby Edwin Rolfe (pbk) $10Collected Poems of Edwin Rolfe (pbk) $21
From Mississippi to Madridby James Yates (pbk) $15
Spain, the Unfinished Revolutionby Arthur Landis (cloth) $25
Prisoners of the Good Fightby Carl Geiser (pbk) $15
Spains Cause Was Mineby Hank Rubin(new) (cloth) $29
Comradesby Harry Fisher (new) (cloth) $25
(ppb) $12
Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigadeby Peter Carroll (pbk) $15
Remembering Spain:Hemingways VALB Eulogyby Ernest Hemingway, Cary Nelsonand Milton Wolff (audio tape & pamphlet) $15
Prison of Womenby Thomas Cuevas $10
EXHIBIT CATALOGSThe Aura of the Cause, a photo albumed. by Cary Nelson (pbk) $25
Shouts from the Wall, a poster albumed. by Cary Nelson (pbk) $16
VIDEOSThe Good Fighta film by Sills/Dore/Bruckner (VCR) $35
Forever Activistsa film by Judith Montell (VCR) $35
You Are History, You Are Legenda film by Judith Montell (VCR) $25
POSTERSTwo Spanish Civil War posters (Madrid Lionand
Victoria) are available at $10 plus postage, and thanks
to Eva and Mark Fasanella, copies of five of RalphFasanellas posters ($20 each, plus postage). They are:
Subway Riders(1960); Family Supper(1972); The Great
Strike, Lawrence, 1912(1978); The Daily News Strike
(1993); South Bronx Rebirth(1995).
These books and tapes are available at the indicated
prices from:
Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
799 Broadway, R. 227
New York, NY 10003-5552
Tel: (212) 674-5552
Shipping cost: $2 per copy of book, album or tape.Make checks payable to ALBA.
Lincoln Brigade Video Wins PrizeThe Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a video produced last yearby Jamie L. Cromack of Phoenix, Ari zona, and broadcaston the High School Channel, has won a Telly Award fromthe Center for Creativity. The 25-minute productionincludes footage of the Spanish Civil War provided byALBA and interviews with vets David Smith and RobertSteck as well as ALBAs Peter Carroll. Copies of the videoare available for $15. Checks should be made out toALBA and sent to : ALBA, Box 1571, Tucker, GA 30085
-
8/14/2019 The Volunteer, July 1999
22/24
22 THE VOLUNTEER, Summer1999
Over two d ecades ago four veterans
of the Abrah am Lincoln Brigade
Bill Susman, Leonard Lamb, Oscar
Hu nter and Morris Brier created a new
organization: ALBA, the Abraham Lincoln
Brigade Archives, bringing in a group of
scholars interested in the Spanish Civil
War and the International Brigades.
From th e ou tset, one of ALBAs main
tasks was to help manage and expand the
Spanish Civil War archive hou sed at
Brand ies University in Waltham,
Massachusetts. Explicit in this u nd ertaking
were the ed ucational goals of preserving,
disseminating and transmitting to futur e
generations the history and lessons of the
Spanish Civil War and of the International
Brigades.
To carry ou t these go als ALBA, in col-
laboration w ith VALB, pu blishes The
Volunteer. ALBA also collaborates on the
prod uction of books, films and videos,maintains a w ebsite at ww w.alba-valb.org,
helps send exhibitions of photographs,
documents and artwork throughout the
United States and Canada, and organizes
conferences and sem inars on the Spanish
Civil War and on the role of the
International Brigades in that conflict, and
afterward . ALBA has established the
George Watt Memorial prizes for the best
college and gr adu ate school essays on
these subjects, and has d esigned a wid ely-
used Spanish Civil War high school and
college curriculum .
In the coming months an d years
ALBA will greatly expand its activity. To
do so effectively ALBA m ust h ave you r
sup port. Please fill out th e coupon b elow,
enclose a $25 check (or larger amou nt)
mad e out to ALBA and send it to us. It will
insure that those of you wh o are not veter-
ans of the A braham Lincoln Brigad e, or