International Brigade Memorial Trust
Held in Stockton-on-Tees on Saturday 7 October 2023, the IBMT’s AGM received these messages from sister organisations…
AABI – Asociación de Amigos de las Brigadas Internacionales
We send you our fraternal greetings from Spain. The working class understood very clearly back then who was the oppressed and who was the oppressor, and they did not hesitate to drop their working tools in the factories and dockyards to take up weapons as tools in the fight against Fascism.
As we know, many of them left their blood and their lives on Spanish soil. Many survived, and they never forgot their unshakable commitment to defend freedom and democracy. It is our shared mission to pay tribute to these anti-fascist heroes and heroines.
Beyond frontiers, and despite the linguistic borders, these men and women offered one of the most glorious examples of the generosity that human beings are capable of. Thank you, IBMT members, for your continued support of our shared cause.
ALBA – Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives
ALBA, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives, brings you greetings on the occasion of your AGM being held this weekend. We applaud your ongoing work to honor and disseminate the legacy of the anti-fascism of the Fifteenth Brigade, of which the Lincoln Battalion was a part.
In an unprecedented act of working class solidarity, they joined with people from 53 countries to defend the legal, democratically elected government of Spain against the onslaught of world fascism.
Your important work helps to inspire the next generation to continue the struggle to realize the still relevant goals and social visions of the Spanish Republic and the International Brigades. As the growing threat of fascism confronts us once again, ALBA and the IBMT’s efforts to make this important history more widely known, provides us with role models – these heroes who were guided by altruistic motives to put their lives on the line for a more just and a better world.
La lucha continúa!
KFSR – Kämpfer und Freunde der Spanischen Republik
We, the members of the association Fighters and Friends of the Spanish Republic (KFSR) are sending you warm greetings on the occasion of your 2023 annual meeting. We are with you in our thoughts and thus express our respect for the comrades who fought and fell in Spain.
Our task and obligation is to not let up, to stand up for peace and humanity and to use all our strength to mobilise and never let the global warmongers reach their goal again.
The IBMT is doing very important work in this regard. Without the work of our international partner organisations, many people today would not know that more than 40,000 men and women opposed their own governments and rushed to help the Spanish Republic in the fight against the fascist aggressor.
A few years ago the KFSR began to document the origins and history of all the battalions of the International Brigades to be prepared historically and visually for an overall exhibition. We have made a start in 2023, together with our Italian friends of the XII International Brigade.
Let us always remember what we do in our organisations to preserve and keep alive the history of the International Brigades is to ensure their example of anti-fascism and international solidarity is not only remembered by us, but also passed on to future generations.
Our remembrance should not only be about the dead, but especially today about the living. Developments in the world do not let us rest. And it’s good to know that we are not alone.
Let’s join forces for this. Never again fascism, never again war! Salud!
Marx Memorial Library
The Marx Memorial Library & Workers’ School sends greetings to the International Brigade Memorial Trust’s 2023 AGM.
Our unique archives on the International Brigades and Aid Spain movement – letters, diaries and photographs donated by Brigaders and their families over the years – have a critical role to play in keeping the memory of the volunteers alive for generations to come.
We are proud of this work and look forward to continued collaboration with the IBMT in the coming months and years - including commemorating 85 years since the return of the Brigades this December.
¡No pasarán!
