New Biography of Franco Reveals Perspectives from His Only Daughter

A new biography of Franco by Stanley Payne and Jesus Palacios promises to reveal heretofore unseen aspects of Francisco Franco’s personality and life.

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2008/11/28/espana/1227863904.html

Garzon Withdraws Case

I’m not sure what to make of this at the moment, but it appears that Garzon has bent to the pressure to not stir the pot.  While he has left the door open for cases to be pursued by regional courts, I would expect only limited action in that arena.  Further analysis forthcoming, in the meantime these articles are available for you perusal:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5182162.ece

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/world/europe/19spain.html?hp

Abraham Lincoln Brigade Veterans and Supporters Celebrate 70th anniversary of Despedida

Thank you to the individual who forwarded me this article.
Farida Jhabvala-Romero, Nov 13, 2008 

Bruce Barthol and Heather Bridger perform Barthol’s lyrics “Taste of Ashes.” Photo by Richard Bermack

 

Hilda Roberts, one of the few surviving veterans and a prominent Bay Area activist, and her daughter. Roberts was a nurse in the Spanish Civil War. Photo by Richard Bermack.

 

The 70th anniversary of the farewell or despedida to the Spanish Civil War’s International Brigades – thousands of volunteers who fought for the Spanish democratic government from 1936 to 1939 – was celebrated last Saturday November 1st in San Francisco.

The non-profit Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives hosted the event as part of its efforts to disseminate the extraordinary history of the nearly 2,800 Americans who were part of the International Brigades. The North American veterans came to be known collectively as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, since the first of them served as the Lincoln Battalion of the 15th International Brigade.

“They were people who wanted to fight for international social justice,” said Richard Bermack, 58, author of The Frontlines of Social Change: Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and Art Director of ALBA’s journal The Volunteer. “They believed in freedom for everyone, that people are responsible for other people.” 

In July 1936, Spanish armed forces led by Gen. Francisco Franco rebelled against the elected Republican Government. When Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy provided military and financial aid to Franco’s forces – while the US, Britain and France declared neutrality and an arms embargo – an estimated 40,000 volunteers from 52 nations joined the war to defend the Spanish democracy.

The Brigades “were fighting against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy’s expansion through Europe,” said Peter Carroll, Chair of ALBA’s Board of Governors and author of The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. “Obviously, they also fought against Fascist racism. The Lincoln Brigade was the first fully integrated army of Americans – long before the US Army ordered desegregation.”

The Spanish Civil War, a brutal conflict with an estimated 500,000 to 1 million civilian casualties, increased tensions that lead up to World War II and is considered by some a first “modern war,” in part because of the weaponry and equipment used.

When it became clear that Western democracies would not help the Spanish Republic, the surviving International Brigades were pulled out of the conflict. On October 28, 1938, months before the defeat of the Republic and the beginning of Franco’s decades-long dictatorship, the city of Barcelona bid farewell to the Brigades during the Despedida parade.

“The Despedida was a very important event in Spain because it symbolized the struggle… it became clear what (the International Brigades) had done: take a stand for all humanity,” said Bermack. “It was also a bittersweet moment because they realized they had lost the war.”

During the anniversary celebration at Delancey Street Theater this month, original newsreel footage of the Despedida – screened for the first time in the US – showed thousands of people crowding Barcelona’s streets and cheering parading soldiers, who waved back and sometimes smiled. The film narrated the effusive and emotional signs of Spaniards’ gratitude and affection towards the departing brigadiers, who were declared heroes and showered with flowers.

“This is about honoring the incredible things they did,” said Joni Keller, whose parents Fred Keller and nurse Ruth Davidou were in the Lincoln Brigade. “It’s a poetic remembrance for the fact that they were there for their beliefs.” 

A similar sentiment was echoed by Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez, social justice activist and author of 500 Years of Chicano History In Pictures and Letters from Mississippi, on civil rights activists.

“I always loved the story about the veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade,” said Martinez, whose daughter Tessa Koning-Martinez participated in the event’s program. “I think about how people were ready to die… and there are still people like that in this country. I really hope that young people would respond today the way they did then.”

The reunion, attended by veterans, relatives and supporters, featured Tessa Koning-Martinez, Heather Bridger, Arthur Holden and Bruce Barthol, who read a script based on letters by members of the Brigades including Archie Brown, Milton Roberson, Ave Bruzzichesi and James Newgass. Images of these veterans were projected as background to the script, which was also based on additional documentary sources such as the celebrated farewell address of Dolores “La Pasionaria” Ibárruri from the Spanish Communist Party, and the writings of luminaries Ernest Hemingway and Dorothy Parker, who reported from the Spanish Civil War.

Barthol, who developed the script and is the resident composer for the San Francisco Mime Troupe, also performed his song “Taste of Ashes,” and “Viva la Quince Brigada,” a rallying song of the Brigades. 

“When I was a child in Madrid, there were walls in the city with bullet holes and I always wondered about that,” said Barthol. “Later I found what had happened and that’s how I got interested in the Brigades.”

To attend ALBA’s upcoming book launch party for War is Beatiful: The Journal of an American Ambulance Driver in the Spanish Civil War (New Press, 2008), based on a manuscript lost for 70 years, go to:
*City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco, on Tuesday November 18 at 7 p.m. 
*Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore in Berkeley on Saturday November 22 at 3 p.m.
 
For more information, visit www.alba-valb.org

The Economist Comments on Garzon’s Moves

There is not much that hasn’t already been said by someone else in this recent Economist article, but it’s worth a quick read.  One of the highlights is this brief and simple response to some of the questions I raise in an earlier post: “The judge has produced a fresh interpretation of [The 1977 Amnesty] laws. Where a victim’s body has never been found, he asserts, a crime of kidnapping continues to this day. So it is not covered by the amnesty. To those who argue that international laws on crimes against humanity did not exist when the civil war ended in 1939, he points to the precedent of the Nuremberg trials of top Nazis. ”

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12470581

And for those of you who want to delve into source materials, I found a copy of the opinion here:

http://estaticos.elmundo.es/documentos/2008/10/16/auto_memoria_historica.pdf