Testimony of Honor and Gratitude the Activist

Testimonio de honor y agradecimiento al Activista ; James Lardner 58 Battalion

El Credo de los Activistas

1. Asimilar con rapidez la ciencia military: Assimilate quickly to military science
2. Ayudar los demás combatientes a mejorar su técnica de lucha; Help all the other combatants improve their fighting technique
3. Cuidar las armas como mi propia vida, Take care of the arms as your own life
4. Conocer todas las armas de combate. Learn and understand all the combatant arms
5. Ser un campeón de Unidad, digno representante de Gobierno de Unión Nacional.; Become a champeon of Untiy honorable representative of the Government of the National Unionm.
6. Trabajar sin descanso para aumentar la capacidad política de los combatientes teniendo como base los 13 puntos de Gobierno de Unión Nacional.; Work tirelessly to increase the political capacity of the combatants, having as a base the 13 points of the Government of the National Union.
7. Luchar sin descano contra las derrotistas I provocadores; Fight tirelessly against the defeatists and the agitators
8. No estar satisfecho en tanto haya un luchador analfabeto; do not be satisfied if there is an illeterate fighter
9. Tener como consigna, ser el más fuerte en el ataque y el más firme en la resistencia; have as a slogan” be the strongest in the attack and the most firm in the resistence
10. No descansar en tanto quede un saldado que no sea ACTIVISTA; Do not rest if there is ever left a soldier who does not become an Activist.

James Lardner Papers

Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade:Dellums Bill on Veterans Benefits

"To amend title 38, United States Code, to provide for the entitlement to veterans' benefits of American who fought in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, and for other purposes."

This bill shows a large variety of 'celebrities' who were in favor of the war and who consented to everything happening in Spain. For exampple, Helen Keller and Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas displayed their approval of the war and their regard for the veterans.

"They have earned the right to wear the label "Pre-mature Anti-fascists" with prode, and they have earned the right to be fully recognized a Veterans of World War II." - Ronald Dellums

Favorite quote in the bill:

"The dead do not need to rise. They are a part of the earth now and the earth can never be conquered for the earth endures forever, it will outlive all systems of tyranny. Those who have entered it honorably, and no men entered the earth more honorably than those who dies in Spain, have already achieved immortality." - Ernest Hemingway, The American Dead in Spain, Feb. 1947

A Refugee from Red Spain by Virginia McKay

"We must work harder to spread the International Revolution, even if we have to sacrifice a population of 24,000,000."

That quote is the first thing that popped up to me when I was glancing over this folder; the deliberate willingness to sacrifice millions of people in order to win or fulfill a cause.

The story goes into detail about McKay's trials and tribulations she faced in escaping from Red Spain.Interestingly enough, she chooses to ignore most of the tribulations, relating the fact that once "rescues" by these sailors, the whole notion of the horror that she had been through disappeared. It seemed like once rescued she was having a party, indulging in gifts in a new carefree life style. Here is one quote that proved to me that all of this, however, was indeed a facade:

- Radio messages had been sent to their families informing them that they had been evacuated and were "doing nicely."

The Good Fight Prodcution Materials #1 Catholics and Protestants on the Spanish Civil War

Okay, so after watching The Good Fight and meeting with the directors, I am attempting to catch up on my blogs from the production materials. I decided to explore a folder concerning the Catholics and Protestants during the war. In the preface of the "Open Letters", the author describes how the Spanish Catholics published a pastoral letter in which they told their side of the Spanish Civil War and their reasoning for siding with not only Franco but also Fascism. In response to this, 150 Protestants drafted a letter, criticizing the Spanish Church. Here are important excerpts from the letter written by the Protestants:

* "Its apparent unwillingness to recognize the social and economic evils that have sickened SPain for generations is disquieting to those who feel that there can be no stability in the peninsula until these evils are eliminated..."
*Yet we cannot help being disturbed by the fact that no leaders of the Catholic Church in America have raised their voices n repudiation of the position taken by the Spanish hierarchy."
*"The Church never fails to teach submission and obedience as due to the constituted power, even those who hold and represent that power use it in abuse of the Church..."
*"It us sacrilege...to shoot, as at Badajoz, hundreds of men to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption."

Here, the Protestants attack the validity of the Catholics and likewise the positions and actions which they have taken during the war.

Songs of the War

I decided to explore music about the war, and one song that struck me in particular was a song in which the soldiers pleaded that they wanted to go home. I found this very interesting, because most of the volunteers went there on their own free will. Likewise, I don't think that the people who went voluntarily to Spain understood what they were getting themselves into; they were blindly going there without any knowledge. It makes me wonder that if they had previously known of their conditions and what was going to happen if they would have even gone in the first place. Also, if they had known how the war was going to turn out, would they have even made the long trek in which a lot of them lost their loves and were disconnected with their families?

When the War was over

After watching the video on what had happened when the war was over, I can better relate to how the generation of the people who were alive during the Spanish Civil War felt. According to one lady, people went to her door and remarked that Franco had won and that they did not know how they were going to react with Fascism. They also talked about how lucky they were if they or anyone they know made it out of Spain alive.

There were also pleads as to why nobody stood up against Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. People were also wondering why the United States did not intervene more. Also, there was a sense of fear in the people's voices, because they did not know what to expect in the future.

Why did the US not intervene more?
Why did they let Hitler and Mussolini get as much recognition with their iseas as they did?

A short letter by Selma Chadwick

I immediately skipped over this folder, I will be honest with you there. But upon further examination of it, I realized that there was more than meets the eye.

In Selma Chadwick's folder, there were three sole pieces of paper in it: a letter to Freddie. Though the letter is very short, it allows for lots of interpretation as follows:

1. Many times correspondence between soldiers in Spain and their families was elongated and the letters were thus not timely.
2. People felt bad about abandoning their home and their family and friends, but often felt it was necessary to do so.
3. Many military nurses were always overwhelmed with the amount of patients that they had to take care of.
4. The people who volunteered certainly did not live in the lap of luxury.
5. People try their hardest to forget the tragedies of war and somehow take glory in the things around them.

Rose Freed

Before going to work in Spain, Rose Freed, unlike many women during the Spanish Civil War, worked as a laboratory technician in none other than New York City, simultaneously taking classes at dare I say it, Columbia University. She remarks that her pay and her job was going very well when she decided to join the American Medical Bureau to Aid Spanish Democracy.

She claims that she is not a member of any political organization, but rather she understands "the suffering and misery of the oppressed and have always been with them." Yet, Freed admits that she went to Spain an anti-fascist, and that a year later, her beliefs were even stronger.

Because of her background in laboratories, Freed was put in charge of building a laboratory in order to give the doctors and nurses a place to do blood transfusions etc. Yet, like many other nurses, Freed argues that due to the lack of supplies, their work was always somewhat handicapped.

What was most interesting about Rose Freed's folder was the following phrase: "Every member of our groups has participated, not only in the duties of their professions, but in others as well. Doctors have assisted with road building and carpentry, and have acted as chauffeurs and stretcher-bearers when necessity demanded. Nurses have scrubbed the floors of the wards have done cooking dish washing, serving, yes, and road building too."

I fin that last statement absolutely astounding, because all of the other accounts of medical professionals do not give way to the fact that these men and women were more than what they appeared to be. Not only did they help aid the Spanish soldiers, but they also tried to help build back and give to Spanish society. It is incredible that these people had so much compassion for people that they barely, if even, knew.

**The picture attached is of Rose Frees and Langston Hughes. **

Continuation of the Frances Patai Papers

As I am browsing through the Frances Patai Papers, I come across a woman named Cleo Duncan. When I open the folder on her, the first thing that pops up about her says "seems like a koook" Obviously, whoever wrote this did not believe in the legitimacy of Cleo Duncan; on the same page, the author remarked that there was not a lot known about her, just very vicious gossip. Of course, this prompted me to look further into the folder.

Cleo Duncan was, like most women involved in the Spanish Civil War, a nurse. As claimed by a telegram, she was "neither poised, serious nor cultured and is entirely innocent of political convictions. But wait...wasn't everyone involved in the Spanish Civil War involved somehow politically with the Communist Party?

Reading on, it spoke about how Cleo Duncan was a relatively useless nurse, as she didn't speak Spanish, nor did she really contribute much to the war effort. On the second page of this telegram, however, it says that she was leaving Spain, and as she was awaiting transportation her arrest took place. Why would they arrest such a seemingly worthless person?? It just didn't make much sense.

Apparently, however, foreigners who desired to leave Spain in such a manner aroused suspicions in authorities, such as in the case of Cleo Duncan. Upon search of Miss Duncan, authorities found a letter addressed to a soldier in Spain.

Here are some question that Miss Duncan answered upon her questioning as given by her statement:

Why did you come to Spain? - Humanitarian reasons only.
How does Roosevelt send his info to America?- What information?
Is the Mayor a Fascist?- I don't know.


I think I am very interested in Espionage during the Spanish Civil War.

Marjorie Polon

So, I decided to read more about Marjorie Polon from the essay Professor Fernandez wrote and had published. I am very interested in women in the Spanish Civil War, and I thought that this would be a great start. Interestingly enough, though Polon was only 14 years old at the time, she was corresponding with men much older, some possibly twice her age. One thing that bothered me was the fact that the men wrote to her so roughly and crudely, treating her as an object rather than a person. Also, there does not seem to be a sense of personal divide; for example, the soldiers seem to pry into her business, expecting her to be so open with them as they are with her. The article continues to describe the relationship between Marjorie and the men, each of whom wrote differently to her; some wrote love letters, some wrote to her as a friend, and others just asked her simply for cigarettes. it is just so astounding to me how a 14 year old girl could keep up this facade for so long, and how the men she wrote to never realized her real age.

Roll Call

As I was stumbling through website links, I came across a list of all of the United States military men who fought in the Spanish Civil War. While I was looking over it, I began to notice that a lot of siblings, particularly brothers, often went off to war together. This brought a couple of questions to my mind:

1. How did these brothers leave and when they did how did their family take it?
2. Were they deployed to the same place; did they have the same reasons for going?
3. Whom did they tell they were going and why?
4. Did they both come back together?
5. Did they have the same similar symptoms and side affects of war as many of our present day war heroes have such as PTSD?

Yesterday, I decided to read into the Marjorie Polon papers. Specifically, I chose to read and focus on the letter from Bill Bailey to Marjorie Polon. Here's a recap of what it said:

Bill Bailey talks to Marjorie about how the soldiers from the United States are actively waiting for the time when they will be able to return to the United States, although nobody knows when this time will be. This statement from Bailey leads me to wonder how much the soldiers actually knew of their fate and actions in Spain. What were they told by the leaders, and what was kept secret?

However, the thing that struck me most about this piece was the description Bill Bailey gave of the way that the soldiers were received in Spain. The picture that he painted made it seem like the U.S. soldiers were almost god-like. He described the Spaniards as throwing rose petals among them as they marched through the streets. The divide between the Spanish people and the government is thus emphasized and made very apparent. But if the Spanish people knew that the government was so corrupt and hated it why didn't they do more to help, and why didn't the U.S. legally intervene. This letter made me upset and happy for the soldiers that went all at the same time.

A City Mobilized

Because my time is rushed, and it is hard for me to get into the library, I decided to watch the DVD on the Spanish Civil War. The first section that I decided to watch was entitled "A City Mobilized". It was interesting to hear the stories of these people who were teenagers during the time of the Spanish Civil War. In the section called Subway (Re) Collections, they talk about how they would take tin cans (or Jewish pushkeys) and beg for money in the subway. Though little coinage was collected during theses Depression times, people were still donating to the aid of the Spanish Veterans and Republicans. Likewise, many people pushed to "Lift the embargo" and allow the United States to aid the Spanish Republic.
I think that a main reason that these people even helped in times of depression was because they wanted to make sure that no nation fully accepted fascism; likewise, I feel as though the US citizens thought that by changing Spain, they could change their own nation, making Hoover's destruction unapparent. The Great Depression also made people very radical and there were many people unelmployedd, contrastingly enough hurting the progress of the Revolution. Towards the end of the war, their were strong anti fascist movements, etc.

Question:

If so many people were interested in aiding Soanish Civil War effort, why didn't they join groups, getadd, or get a job??

Frances Patai Papers

Today was the first day i spent in the archives. After much deliberation, I finally decided on Box #1 one of the Frances Patai Papers. After rummaging through the documents, I finally found two things in particular that stuck out: the Hilda Roberts Bell and the Ruth Davidow interviews and stories; I had decided to focus on women in the war effort, particularly nurses.

The picture included in this blog is of Hilda Bell, a nurse in Murcia who, in her spare time, wrote fictional stories about her life in Spain during the rise of fascism. Born in Pennsylvania in 1915, Bell was born into a poor, Jewish family speaking primarily Yiddish. During her late teen years and early twenties, she began to develop an interest in the conflict in Spain for not only political reasons but also for her humanitarianism reasons. Bell left the United States when she was only 21, having just joined the Communist Party in the United States.
In Spain, Bell worked primarily as a nurse for the wounded and injured soldiers. Interestingly enough, the United States' nurses were the primary people who taught the Spaniards how to read and write their own language. Through her work. Bell realized that the Spanish people took pride in every little thing that they did to help the war effort, even if it was just scrubbing down the hospital floors.
According to Bell, "The most difficult part of (her) Spanish Experience (was): Ingenuity, Improvising." Short of many necessary supplies, nurses had to make do with what they could. In regards to blood transfusions, many Spaniards had syphilis, and therefore, Bell had decided to give her own blood to the soldiers in need. However, despite the disadvantages and poor living conditions of Spain, Bell found more sexual equality in Spain rather than in the United States, as the doctors in Spain treated er more equally and fairly. Bell has also said that she has "no regrets. (She) would go again."

Ruth Davidow, like Hilda Bell was a nurse who was born in Volkasvik, Russia and emigrated to Brooklyn. Davidow was born into a poor, Jewish family, and had to work to put herself through school. Of her intervention in the war, Davidow said, "I don't think both sides are right; you have to take sides. There is only one side for me, the side with the people who are oppressed."
Upon arriving in Spain, Davidow came down with malaria, however, she claimed that she only cared about the soldiers' well being and not her own. When she completed her service in Spain, she too like Bell related that she would go back to Spain in an instant to be with the doctors and nurses she cared for and missed so much.

With the study of these two women and their role in the Spanish Civil War, many questions come to mind:

1. Why did these women feel this way about war when it was tearing apart the country?
2. Why did people in the US show so much opposition to them going to Spain, when they were helping fight against fascism?
And lastly,

Why does it seem like women were only given seemingly domestic roles and little gratification when the things that they did are equal to the fighting that many men did?