International Brigade Memorial Trust
Karl Lewkowicz, co-writer of the award-winning musical ‘Goodbye Barcelona’ writes about his trip to Mexico City, where a video of the show about a group of British International Brigaders was shown at the Ateneo Español de México on 30 August, and where he met Mexico’s last International Brigader…
It was a wonderful trip and I’ll be going back in November to do a reading - hopefully at the Centro Cultural de España, if we get permission,
and to try to consolidate plans for a production there.
It will be similar to the one that we did at Europe House in 2011: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT5j-DJSRFM
Mexican Historian Mario Ojeda, author of ‘Mexico and the Spanish Civil War (2016) and who studied with Paul Preston at LSE, has very kindly agree to give the historical context, as he did at the Ateneo Español – where they keep the records and documents of all the Spanish Republican exiles who went to Mexico.
This is the promo video from Mexico: www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-euyB-HJqM
The English version is here (there are some corrections to make on the subtitles): www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-euyB-HJqM
I was very fortunate to meet 95-year-old International Brigader Juan Miguel de Mora, who was completely lucid and gave me a signed copy of his account of his time in the Brigades, ‘La Libertad Sancho’.
He joined when he was 14 years old, becoming a commissar at 17, and has had a remarkable life and career. He was very emotional when I played him a video of the show and said he would love to be our guest in November. When I asked him about his life, he said he considered that the most important thing he had done was to fight in the International Brigades.
On the second presentation our special guest was Yoko Seguira, who is American Brigader Conlan Nancarrow’s widow.
Posted on 11 September 2016
Pictured below, Karl Lewkowicz (centre) at the Ateneo Español and with Internationbal Brigader Juan Miguel de Mora.
