Jarama 2016: honouring the Polish Dombrowski Battalion

By Seve Montero
Asociación de Amigos de las Brigadas Internacionales (AABI)
Madrid

We are rapidly approaching the departure date of the annual Jarama March (20 February 2016) and we want to remind you that Sunday February 14 is the deadline for those who want to book a place on the bus or at the restaurant. 

This year's commemoration is dedicated appropriately to the Polish Dombrowski Battalion. The current Polish government of the Law and Justice Party is pursuing a ultraconservative austerity policy of cutting social rights and freedoms,  We also fear that it supports the demonisation of the International Brigades begun in 1996, with the removal of the historical memory of the Polish volunteers  – called ‘traitors and criminals’ – who defended the Spanish Republic. 

With this march, we appeal to the strength of the Polish and Spanish peoples, like all peoples of the world, to oppose the aggressions of the reactionary right and the financial markets.

Jarama 2016 is honored with the presence of the son of the Polish Brigadista Tadeus Zbroinski who fought in the Battle of Jarama and two Polish friends of AABI who will come from Poland to show solidarity. In honor of those pioneers’ fight against fascism, we will establish a memorial on the grounds of the Jarama battlefield. We anticipate hearing the sound of the March of Dombrowski Brigade, performed by the AABI Choir.

We also report the activity to be performed on 14 Rivas in defense of the environment and the historical heritage of the war in Spain. These and other actions such as our march 20 February, are aimed at creating a historical park of the Battle of Jarama, a project that is now gaining new momentum.

We wish to express our support for the efforts of all the municipalities that are trying to advance the Republican debt to memory, especially in the city of Madrid, that is being furiously attacked by rightist nostalgia for Francoism. We especially express our solidarity with our colleague Mirta Núñez, Director of the Chair of the Memory of the 20th Century, who is being battered with multiple insults and slander despite (or because of?) her brilliant research and teaching curriculum . We are with you, Mirta.

 

Naprzód, robocza drużyno
o wolność Hiszpanii się bić.
Dziś może przyjdzie nam zginąć,
jutro znów wolnymi być.

Nie zbraknie z nas ani jednego,
by zniszczyć faszystów i zgnieść.
– Na front, Brygado Dąbrowskiego,
sztandar wolności swój wznieś! (2x)

A gdy ten bój zakończymy
i będzie zniszczony wróg,
wtedy karabin zmienimy
na młot i roboczy pług.

Nie zbraknie z nas ani jednego,
by zniszczyć faszystów i zgnieść.
– Na front, Brygado Dąbrowskiego,
sztandar wolności swój wznieś! (2x)"

Forwards, workers’ fellowship
on fight for Spain’s freedom.
Today maybe we’ll die
tomorrow we'll be free.

There won’t be anyone of us absent
to destroy and smash fascists.
– On the front, Dombrowski Brigade,
raise your flag of Liberty! (x2)

And when we finish this struggle
And enemy is destroyed,
then we will change the rifle
on hammer and working plough.

There won’t be anyone of us absent
to destroy and smash fascists.
– On the front, Dombrowski Brigade,
raise your flag of Liberty! (x2)