A message from the Madrid-based AABI International Brigades friendship group… After Poland, Croatia… Dragutin Bilić (1907-1937) was one of 1,500 volunteers of the International Brigades from Croatia. He died near Teruel in June 1937. During communist rule in Croatia (1945-1990), the main square in his native village of Betina was named Square of the […]
The IBMT-commissioned play about the International Brigades, ‘Dare Devil Rides to Jarama’, will be premiered on 24 September in Bedford at the start of a tour around theatres in Britain that will run until 3 December. Dates for this autumn leg of the tour have now been announced (see poster below). A second leg […]
By Angela Jackson Few people today know about Spain's civil war in the 1930s, even fewer know anything about the roles played in that war by women, and that British women were involved to a greater extent than would at first be supposed. When starting to research the subject almost 20 years ago, […]
IBMT Trustee Pauline Fraser shares more of her impressions from the recent IBMT-organised group visit to Alicante (see also ‘In Negrín’s final footsteps in Spain’)… The clock stopped at twenty to twelve The clock stopped at twenty to twelve on 25 May 1938 for over 300 victims of Mussolini’s air raids. It was […]
Historian Angela Jackson remembers the nurses, fighters and spies who were sisters in struggle IN 2002, I was asked by the International Brigade Memorial Trust (IBMT) to give the very first Len Crome Memorial Lecture. I spoke about a cave hospital in the Spanish civil war and the work of nurses who had […]
Pauline Fraser was one of a group of IBMT members who last month visited Spanish Civil War sites in the Alicante area. The group was hosted by the city’s Commission for the Recovery of Historical Memory and the Labour International Branch which is active among the local British community. This is her report. Alicante […]
Angela Jackson's novel Warm Earth is now available on Kindle. The 2007 paperback edition has been out of print for several years but a new generation of e-readers can now download the book from Amazon for £2.10 and enjoy this moving story of three very different women who went to Spain to help the Republic […]
ALBA, our friends in the US, have announced the death of Delmer Berg, the last Lincoln veteran. He was aged 100 and passed away on 28 February at home in California. The IBMT sends condolences to his family and friends, and pledges to keep alive the memory and spirit of Delmer and all those who […]
Ronnie Moran writes… I'm delighted to confirm that Glasgow City Council has identified a site for the blockade runners’ memorial on the Clyde walkway on the west side of the Jamaica Street Bridge. This is not far from the La Pasionaria memorial to the International Brigades and coincidentally across the road from the site […]
A Spanish-language version of the acclaimed International Brigades musical ‘Goodbye Barcelona’ is scheduled to open for a season at the Teatro Infanta Isabel in the heart of Madrid. Written by Judith Johnson and Karl Lewkowicz, the IBMT-sponsored musical was enthusiastically received by audiences at the Arcola Theatre in London in 2011. It has since then […]
Several IBMT supporters are urging fellow members to sign an online peition urging the rightwing town council of Tarbena, near Alicante, to reverse its decision to close the Casa Pinet restauarant. The restaurant is decorated with memorabilia of the Spanish Republic and is a popular stopover for Republican and International Brigade supporters. Its address is […]
From the Morning Star of Monday 8 February 2016 www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-9fd9-Life-and-times-of-a-working-class-hero#.Vri95sCLS70 TOM SIBLEY recommends an inspiring memoir by one of the heroes of the International Brigades who fought in the Spanish Civil War Proud Journey: A Spanish Civil War Memoir by Bob Cooney (Manifesto Press, £5) Eighty years ago the International Brigades were mobilised from volunteer […]
