International Brigade Memorial Trust
Hundreds of people are expected to attend the annual gathering on London’s South Bank this Saturday (4 July 2015) to pay respects to the legendary International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39.
Organised by the International Brigade Memorial Trust, the commemoration will take place next to the International Brigade memorial in Jubilee Gardens (off Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX) from 1pm to 2pm.
The park's memorial is dedicated to the 2,500 volunteers from the British Isles who defended the elected government of the Spanish Republic against Franco, Hitler and Mussolini. Of these, 526 gave their lives.
Speakers at this Saturday’s event include political commentator and activist Owen Jones. He will be joined by Carmen Negrín, grand-daughter of Juan Negrín, the last prime minister of the Spanish Republic, who is active in Spanish Civil War remembrance organisations in Spain and France, where she now lives.
There will be music from award winning “new wave” folk singer-songwriter Ewan McLennan.
Wreaths will be laid by, among others, representatives of the Catalan government’s delegation in London, Spanish exile and refugee groups and the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women. This will be followed by a minute's silence.
Only one British veteran of the International Brigades survives: Stan Hilton, aged 97, a former merchant seaman from Newhaven, Sussex, who lives in a nursing home near Melbourne, Australia.
