International Brigade Memorial Trust
IBMT Scotland Secretary Mike Arnott reports on plans for the 18th annual commemoration of the Battle of Jarama. This, he says, is the available information as at 25 November 2025.
Thursday 19/ Friday 20 February
We understand that hosts AABI – the Madrid-based Association of Friends of the International Brigades – are proposing to organise a coach to Madrigueras from Madrid on Thursday evening for an overnight stay to spend all Friday there, returning to Madrid in the evening.
Madrigueras was used as a training base for the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, particularly for the 16th ‘British’ Battalion of the 15th Brigade. Volunteers gathered there in late 1936 and early 1937 for training before being sent to combat, notably at the Battle of Jarama.
The battalion was an English-speaking group made up of volunteers from Britain, Ireland and other countries, including Australia and New Zealand. Despite being known as the British Battalion, it was never solely British.
The town hosts a memorial museum to the Brigaders, located in an old municipal slaughterhouse on its outskirts. It houses a permanent exhibition by CEDOBI (Centre for Studies and Documentation of the International Brigades) of the University of Castilla-La Mancha. Various surviving buildings in the town associated with the Brigaders, include a former cinema used as billets and a church that was a canteen and social centre. There is also the street named ‘Avenida de las Brigadas Internacionales’, where a memorial to Tom Wintringham was unveiled in February 2017.
Friday 20 February
A number of IBMT comrades and others based in Scotland and from FIBI (Friends of the International Brigades in Ireland) are again planning a separate coach from Madrid to Tarancón on Friday morning to take part in the annual commemoration at the memorials in the municipal cemetery. These remember the 39 Scots who fell at Jarama, Tarancón’s civilian victims of the Franco dictatorship, those from the town who fell serving with Spain’s Republican forces and those Internationals and Spanish Republicans who died while being treated in the town’s hospitals. The event will be hosted by ARMH Cuenca, the local historical memory association.
Saturday 21 February
AABI’s 18thannual Jarama march will commemorate the role of the French Commune de Paris Battalion, part of the 11th Brigade. Expect a sizeable contingent from ACER, the French Friends of the International Brigades. We had assumed that the physical focus of the march would be likely to be near the Jarama river, and not in the vicinity of the British positions and the clenched fist memorial as in recent years, but the AABI website indicates the assembly point is the café (El Alto) by the cement factory near Morata de Tajuña at 10am. AABI’s coaches will leave from the Hotel Agumar in Madrid at 9am in the morning and return in the evening.
Sunday 22 February
It is assumed that AABI will also be organising a Sunday morning event in Madrid. In recent years this has taken place at Fuencarral Cemetery, although the University City has also been visited in the past. Details are awaited.
Those interested in attending are reminded that they will have to make their own travel and accommodation arrangements. We know that a number of those from the IBMT will be staying at the Hostal Persal, Plaza del Ángel 12, Madrid 28012 (www.hostalpersal.com/en/).
For those interested in the AABI events on Thursday/Friday in Madrigueras, Saturday’s Jarama march and the Sunday activity, please monitor the AABI website (www.brigadasinternacionales.org/) for updates. It is also here that details for getting coach and meal tickets for these events will be posted.
For those interested in the alternative Friday trip to Tarancón, email Mike Arnott at scotland@international-brigades.org.uk.
