We have plenty to look forward to in 2025, with the autumn looking especially busy.

In October, we’ll be in Belfast for the Trust’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) after 18 years away. I’d like to thank local members, particularly Lynda and Ernest Walker, of the IBMT-affiliated International Brigade Commemoration Committee, for their enthusiastic proposal – we know a warm reception awaits us!

Following the AGM, we hope to welcome back three leading historians of the Spanish Civil War – Helen Graham, Paul Preston and Richard Baxell – for what I’m sure will be another fascinating Len Crome Memorial Conversation.

Then November marks the 50th anniversary of Franco’s death, and we’ll be celebrating 50 years of democracy in Spain.

Thanks to your ongoing support, the Trust’s financial position is now improving and we can carry on our much-needed work.

As approved at the AGM, to continue our efforts (and to cover the increasing costs that we all face), membership subs will go up modestly this year: the individual rate from £25 a year to £27.50; the concessionary rate from £20 to £22.

Concessionary membership is open to anyone who receives long-term unemployment or sickness benefit, who qualifies for income or pension credits or who is on the minimum wage.

Another change means scrapping the household category of membership. This category was originally designed to avoid sending multiple copies of the magazine to the same address; however, it is no longer needed because the magazine is now sent out digitally or by subscription.

Note that these changes won’t come into effect until April, so you are welcome to renew at the current rates until then.

We know how fragile democracy can be. In the January issue of ¡No pasarán! you can read Juan López Páez’s report on how rightwing parties in Spain are manipulating Franco’s memory for their own ends. 

We owe it to the volunteers to keep their memory and spirit alive and to continue to share their fight for democracy and against fascism.

With your backing, our financial stability will translate into long-term health so that we can go on telling the stories of the International Brigades to future generations. 

Thank you so much for supporting us, Please, please continue to do so.

My very best wishes,

IBMT President Marlene Sidaway

Poet John Cornford and writer Ralph Fox were among 13 British and Irish International Brigaders remembered at an international symposium in Lopera, the town near Córdoba where they were killed during fighting 88 years ago.

Seven of the 13 killed were Irish, reflecting the high proportion of volunteers from Ireland in the 145-strong English-speaking No.1 Company of the mostly French Marseillaise Battalion that took part in the Battle of Lopera in December 1936. 

Until the creation of the British Battalion at the of the month, British and Irish volunteers were assigned to separate units in French and German battalions.

The symposium saw sculptor Frank Casey reunited with his relief portrait of John Cornford. He created the memorial in his studio in St Albans and it was shipped to Spain, where it was unveiled in 2019 in Lopera’s Jardín de los Poetas Ingleses (Garden of the English Poets).

This was the first time that the Scottish-born sculptor had seen his bronze tribute to Cornford – a Cambridge graduate and the great grandson of Charles Darwin – who died on 28 December 1936, the day after his 21st birthday.

Frank Casey beside his memorial bust of John Cornford.

Also commemorated in the town’s memorial garden is the novelist and biographer Ralph Fox, who was killed on the same day, aged 36. He was a renowned journalist, novelist, and historian, best remembered as a biographer of Lenin and Genghis Khan.  

The occasion was an international congress in Lopera on the International Brigades and the Battle of Lopera on 13/14 December. It brought together experts and writers on the International Brigades from several countries.

They included French historian Rémi Skoutelsky, Giles Tremlett, author of ‘The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War’ (2021) and local historian José Luis Pantoja Vallejo – the congress convener – who with brother Antonio has written a detailed study of the battle ‘La XIV Brigada Internacional en Andalucía’ (2006).

Ralph Fox is pictured (centre) on the poster for the event in Lopera.

There was also a session on the memory of the International Brigades, with representatives from memorial groups in France, Poland and Spain taking part, as well as IBMT Chair Jim Jump from Britain. Another speaker was Harry Owens of the Friends off the International Brigades in Ireland.

Speaking about how the volunteers are remembered in Britain, Jump said that interest and admiration for them remained high, with new books being written about then and new memorials being raised in their honour.

Jim Jump (standing) addressing the symposium, with pictures of John Cornford and Ralph Fox projected behind him.

‘They are held in great esteem for being the first Britons to fight fascism and for being proved right by history,’ he added.

Frank Casey said he was delighted to again see his memorial to John Cornford. ‘It’s in the right place, so near to where he died among the love trees.’

Casey is also known for creating the Blockade Runners Memorial in Glasgow in tribute too thew merchant navy crews who continued to sail ships to Spanish Republican-held ports despite attacks by German, Italian and Francoist planes and submarines.

This poem by John Cornford (above) dates from 1936, shortly before his death. It is dedicated to his girlfriend Margot Heinemann.

Heart of the heartless world,
Dear heart, the thought of you
Is the pain at my side,
The shadow that chills my view.

The wind rises in the evening,
Reminds that autumn is near.
I am afraid to lose you,
I am afraid of my fear.

On the last mile to Huesca,]
The last fence for our pride,
Think so kindly, dear, that I
Sense you at my side.

And if bad luck should lay my strength
Into the shallow grave,
Remember all the good you can;
Don’t forget my love.

This year’s Len Crome Memorial Conversation features a discussion between three leading historians of the Spanish Civil War: Paul Preston, Helen Graham and Richard Baxell.

They will be talking on the topic:
Public support and governmental obstruction: differing British responses to the struggle of the Spanish Republic.

The IBMT-organised event will take place from 2pm to 3.30pm on Saturday 9 November both online and ‘in person’ at the Marx Memorial Library, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU.

All three participants are prolific authors and internationally renowned experts on the Spanish Civil War and the International Brigades.

Paul Preston’s latest book is ‘Perfidious Albion: Britain and the Spanish Civil War’ (The Clapton Press, 2024). Richard Baxell’s latest is ‘Forged in Spain’ (The Clapton Press, 2023). Helen Graham’s sixth book, provisionally titled ‘Lives at the Limit’ will be interwoven biographies of five people who passed through the war in Spain.

Len Crome Memorial Conversation is named after the Lancashire GP Len Crome who became the chief medical officer of the Spanish Republic's XV Army Corps, including the 15th International Brigade. The annual event has been running since 2002, first as a lecture, then as a conference and now as an online conversation.

Attendance at the library or online is free, although the IBMT is recommending a donation of £10 to support the Trust's educational and commemorative work. Book your ticket here via Eventbrite.

Richard Baxell (top left), Paul Preston (top right) and Helen Graham speaking at the 2023 Len Crome Memorial Conversation.

The IBMT’s 2024 AGM will be held on 5 October from 2.30pm-4pm in The Stable, 3-6 Wadham Street, BS23 2JY.

All members can attend and take part in proceedings.

The AGM is part of a weekend of commemorative, educational and social activities in Weston-super-Mare and Bristol from the evening of Friday 4 October to Sunday 6 October, ending around midday.

Provisional programme

Friday
7pm: Reception at The Stable (use entrance at 129 High St, Weston-super-Mare BS23 1HN).
8pm: Evening entertainment, including a flamenco performance.

Saturday
11am: Talk by Dave Chapple about local Brigader Andy Andrews followed by a 15-minute break.
12pm: Talk by IBMT Archivist Alan Lloyd on the volunteers from South West England. 
1pm: Time to explore Weston.
2.30pm: AGM (see agenda below) in The Stable (see above).
4.30pm: Performance by Spanish guitarist.
5pm: Buffet.
6pm: Musical performance about West Country volunteers and the Basque children evacuees at the Clark’s family home in Street, Somerset, featuring poetry, live music, song and dance.
7pm: Social in the bar until late.

Sunday
9.50am: Meet at Weston-super-Mare station, Station Approach, Weston-super-Mare, BS23 1XY for 10.10am departure to Bristol Temple Meads station, Station Approach, off Bath Road, Bristol, BS1 6QF (journey time 34 minutes).
11.15am: Commemoration at the memorial in Castle Park, Broad Weir, Bristol, BS1 3XB (51.45558, -2.5895).

Agenda

1. Chair’s opening remarks
2. Approval of the minutes of the 2023 AGM
3. Matters arising from the minutes not otherwise on the agenda
4. Executive Committee’s annual report
5. Finance report, including 2023-2024 accounts
6. Election of two scrutineers
7. Election of four Executive Committee members (see below) 
8. Date and place of 2025 AGM
9. Any Other Business (previously notified)
10. Scrutineers’ report of election results
11. Chair’s closing remarks

Nominations for the Executive Committee

Nominations are invited for candidates to fill four vacancies on the Executive Committee. If necessary, a ballot will be held among members attending the AGM.

The vacancies arise because Alan Lloyd, Dolores Long and Luke O’Riordan will have completed their terms of office by the AGM. In addition, there is another vacancy because of an earlier resignation.

All IBMT members may nominate fellow members to serve on the EC. The EC members who are stepping down are permitted to stand for election along with other IBMT members.

Nominations must be made in writing and received by the Secretary by 8am on Saturday 21 September. The names of the candidates will be published on the IBMT website in advance of the AGM. Proposed agenda items must be received by the Secretary by 8am on Saturday 28 September.

Nominations and proposed agenda items sent by email will be acknowledged. Otherwise send them by post to: IBMT Secretary, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU.

Hotels

The Grand Atlantic is a 10-minute walk from The Stable, where the AGM will be held. Other options include the Lauriston, five minutes from the venue, and Premier Inn Weston-Super-Mare (Seafront), 10 minutes from the venue.

Published 13 August 202; updated 26 August and 30 September.

Jim Jump reviews ‘Spanish Sky Spreads Its Stars: The story of the Thälmann Battalion and the first Germans in armed struggle against fascism’ by Ewald P Schulz (International Brigade Commemoration Committee, Belfast, 2024).

More than 4,000 Germans fought in the International Brigades or in the anti-fascist militias and other Spanish military units during the Spanish Civil War. Over 1,000 of them gave their lives.

Their story is recounted in this booklet by Ewald P Schulz, a Berlin-based lawyer and journalist who is active in the KFSR, the IBMT’s sister organisation in Germany. The booklet’s title is taken from the song ‘The Thälmann Column’ by composer Paul Dessau and his wife Gudrun: ‘Spain’s sky spreads its stars over our trenches / And the morning already greets from afar’.

Usually known as the Thaelmann Battalion in Spain, the battalion was named after Ernst Thälmann, leader of the KPD German Communist Party. He was arrested as soon as Hitler took power in 1933 and executed on the Führer’s personal orders in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944.

As Schulz points out, the German volunteers differed from their British, Dutch, French and Scandinavian counterparts in that they were effectively homeless. Many were already in exile from Nazism and those who travelled to Spain from Germany could also not return home.

The same was true for the battalion’s Austrians following the Anschluss of March 1938, when Germany marched into Austria.

The decision to fight fascism in Spain – on occasions pitted against the airborne Condor Legion sent by Hitler to help Franco’s rebels – had a special meaning for the German volunteers.

‘For the first time they had the opportunity to stand up to the fascists and to oppose their violence,’ he writes. 

Between 60 and 70 per cent of the German volunteers were communists, the rest mostly social democrats, anarchists or supporters of other left organisations. ‘They were all united by the conviction that Spain should not suffer the same fate as Germany.’

Three Germans are given brief biographies. Hermann Drumm, a miner from Saarland in south-west Germany, was a member of the SPD social democrats and became a company commander before being killed, aged 38, at Belchite in September 1937.

Käthe Hempel (1911-1966) was originally from Waldheim, a town west of Dresden. In the summer of 1936 she was living in Switzerland, from where she cycled to Barcelona to take part in the planned People’s Olympiad, which was being organised as an anti-fascist alternative to the Berlin Olympics. She was a communist and served as a nurse in Spain.

Alois Weisberger (1904-?) was another miner from Saarland and was one of the few members of the Catholic Centre Party to join the Thälmann Battalion. The party, indeed, had voted in favour of Hitler’s Enabling Act that gave the Nazi leader untrammelled powers. After the war in Spain, Weisberger was interned in France and in 1943 handed over to the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp.

The German volunteers fought in all the great battles of the war in Spain: the defence of Madrid, Jarama, Guadalajara, Brunete, Teruel and the Ebro. Having no homes to go to after the International Brigades were stood down in September 1938, the Germans, along with the Austrians and Czechs, took up arms again in January 1939, bravely covering the flight of refugees towards the French border as Franco’s forces advanced through Catalonia.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the booklet is the account of what happened to the surviving Thälmanns after the war. Interned by the French in a network of camps, some managed to secure visas to Britain, Mexico, the Soviet Union and the US. Others were recruited to French labour battalions. Those still in the camps following the French surrender to the Germans in 1940 were sent to concentration camps, where many perished, or escaped to join the French Resistance.

After the defeat of Nazism in 1945, contrasting receptions awaited the veterans in West and East Germany. In the Federal Republic, they fell foul of the state’s official anti-communist ideology, which included the banning of the KPD in 1956.

While former members of the Condor Legion received pensions for their service in Spain, there was no such recognition for those who had fought fascism and Nazism in Spain.

In the GDR the International Brigade veterans were officially honoured. They served in leadership roles in the East German army as well as in the country’s police and in government positions. 

Some, Schulz acknowledges, were regarded with suspicion during the Stalin era, above all any who had lived in Western countries before returning to Germany. A few lost their jobs and were unjustly persecuted, such as prominent writer Walter Janka.

In contrast with West Germany, however, the volunteers in Spain entered the cultural canon of the GDR. ‘Countless books, songs and films were published. Streets were named after Spanish fighters. Medals were awarded and every child learned about the war in Spain at school.’

Born in 1968 in West Germany, Schulz says he only found out about the Thälmanns after 2000. Most older left-wingers in the FRG first came across their story through the songs of singer-composer Ernst Busch, two albums of which were released in the 1980s.

The songs had been recorded in Barcelona in 1938 with the help of an International Brigade choir. Some of the recordings were released in New York in 1940 under the title ‘Six Songs for Democracy’, with American actor, singer and civil rights campaigner Paul Robeson writing in the sleeve notes: ‘Valiant and heroic was the part played by the International Brigade in the glorious struggle of the Spanish Republic.’ 

Schulz’s text for this booklet is based on a talk he gave in 2023 as part of Belfast’s annual Féile an Phobail (People’s Festival). The event was hosted at the Shankill Library by the IBMT-affiliated International Brigade Commemoration Committee. The booklet also includes tributes to Manus O’Riordan, the son of Cork Brigader Michael O’Riordan, and Belfast-born volunteer Paddy McAllister.

Copies of the booklet can be ordered from the IBCC for £6 plus £2.50 p&p within the UK. Contact Lynda Walker of the IBCC for more details.

The IBMT's commemoration at the International Brigade memorial in Jubilee Gardens on London's South Bank on Saturday 6 July saw speeches by PCS General Secretary Fran Heathcote and historian Richard Baxell.

As is customary and led by IBMT President Marlene Sidaway, wreaths were laid and there was a minute's silence in honour of the more than 500 volunteers from Britain and Ireland who gave their lives in Spain and in memory of the 2,500 volunteers who served in the International Brigades.

Led by folk duo Na-Mara, everyone sang 'Valley of Jarama' and the event ended with a rousing rendition of 'The Internationale'.

In her contribution, Fran Heathcote noted the worrying rise of the racist far-right in Britain, in the form of the Reform party, which had gained 4 million votes in the general election held two days previously. The anti-fascist example of the International Brigades was therefore needed today more than ever.

'Europe and indeed the UK are heading at a startling rate towards fascism,' she said, 'with far-right parties sweeping up millions of votes. We need to get out into our communities and workplaces to spread the resistance to fascism. The parallels with the 1930s are there for all to see.'

Fran Heathcote.

IBMT Historical Consultant Richard Baxell spoke about the experience of the International Brigade prisoners during the Spanish Civil War.

In particular, he drew from the biography of Battersea volunteer George Wheeler, 'To Make the People Smile Again', which, among other things, describes the appalling conditions endured in the San Pedro de Cardeña prison camp.

The mood was lightened when he recounted the way that Wheeler and the other prisoners, were forced by violent guards to chant 'Fran-co! Fran-co!'. They did so with gusto, but chorusing 'F*** you! F*** you!' instead.

Camilo Morán, aged 4, and mother Noelia laying a wreath on behalf of the Spanish Communist Party. Looking on is Richard Baxell.

There was an emotional send-off for Na-Mara – Paul McNamara and Rob Garcia – who have announced they are giving up touring and playing live gigs and 16 years of doing so. As this would be their final performance at Jubilee Gardens, IBMT Secretary Megan Dobney presented them with flowers in the colours of the Spanish Republic.

One of the songs performed by Na-Mara was 'The Bite'. Introducing it, McNamara explained that the words were inspired by a reference in George Wheeler's autobiography to the small piece of wood he would put in his mouth before going into battle as something to clench while bombs and bullets landed around him.

IBMT Chair Jim Jump rounded off proceedings by underlining the importance of the IBMT's work, pointing out that memorials in Spain were still subject to attack and, more generally, there were moves to erase the role of the Brigaders from the 20th century's long war against fascism.

'In the IBMT we're fighting back with our schools project, providing teaching aids and lesson plans so that pupils can be taught about the International Brigades and the Spanish Civil War.'

Thanking the wreath-layers, he singled out Isabel García, Deputy Consul at the Spanish embassy in London. He said the IBMT applauded the efforts of the current Spanish government, through its Law of Democratic Memory, to recognise the crimes committed against the supporters of the Spanish Republic.

He went on: 'I was struck by the words of your prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, while visiting Franco's grotesque former mausoleum at the Valley of Cuelgamuros earlier this year, when he said "Sin memoria no hay democracia" – there can be no democracy without memory.'

Among those present in Jubilee Gardens were family and descendants of International Brigaders Felicia Browne, Jimmy Burns, Noel Carritt, John Cornford, Len Crome, Jack Edwards, Otto Estensen, Harry Fraser, George Green, Nan Green, Edwin Greening, Jimmy Jump, Lou Kenton, Johnny Longstaff, David Marshall, Patrick O’Sullivan, Cyril Sexton, Hugh Slater, Alex Tudor-Hart, Rob Wardle and Tom Wintringham.

All photos are © Andrew Wiard. See this link for more photos from the commemoration.

Jim Jump applauds the publication of a new booklet about the rail and maritime workers who first fought fascism.

They say the past never goes away and is still with us. That couldn’t be more true of the rise of fascism last century.

Everyone hoped this evil creed had been stamped out for good with the defeat of the Nazi war machine in 1945. But the fascist beast and its toxic ideology of race-hate, ethno-nationalism, militarism and hostility to organised labour has not gone away. 

Sadly, this makes the RMT’s new booklet, ‘They Shall Not Pass’, all the more relevant and important today.

Published in conjunction with the IBMT, it tells the story of the railway workers and seafarers who in the 1930s resisted fascism at home and, in the case of the Spanish Civil War, took up arms to stop Hitler, Mussolini and General Franco crushing the elected government of Spain. 

What stands out is that these workers recognised the true threat of fascism well before their political masters did.

It was ordinary people who stopped the British Union of Fascists (BUF) from marching through our towns and cities.

And it was ordinary people, including scores of members of the NUR and NUS rail and seafaring unions, who joined the International Brigades to fight the fascists in Spain. There’s a plaque with 120 names on it proudly on display at RMT’s head office.

Within the British establishment there was considerable sympathy for the way Europe’s fascist dictators banned trade unions and violently suppressed political parties of the left.

BUF leader Sir Oswald Mosley was an aristocratic former Labour cabinet minister with rich and powerful friends.

As ‘They Shall Not Pass’ describes, Britain’s would-be führer came unstuck when he sued NUR general secretary John Marchbank for slander. The BUF leader won a technical victory, but was awarded a laughable farthing (a quarter of a penny) in damages and was left with a massive legal bill.

Mosley’s High Court humiliation came in 1936. Things got worse in October of that year at the Battle of Cable Street. This was when the Jewish population of Whitechapel joined forces with local dockers, trade unionists, communists and socialists to prevent the BUF’s antisemitic Blackshirts from parading through London’s East End.

The cry of the anti-fascists was ‘They shall not pass!’, the same one used by the defenders of Madrid, ‘¡No pasarán!’. Many of the protesters at Cable Street were among more than 2,000 volunteers from Britain who joined the International Brigades to fight in Spain.

IBMT Chair Jim Jump (centre) with RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch (left) and RMT Assistant General Secretary Eddie Dempsey at the union's annual general meeting in Hull in July. Jump is one of the co-authors of 'They Shall Not Pass', along with Brian Denny and Steve Silver.

This was no gap-year jaunt. More than 500 of them made the ultimate sacrifice. NUR member Ginger McElroy from Wishaw was killed at the Battle of Jarama in February 1937 after being hit by a dum-dum bullet. The bloody battle saw the British Battalion lose more than 150 men. But they held the line to stop Franco taking Madrid.

Fellow railwayman Alwyn Skinner from Neath lost his life in the Battle of the Ebro in the summer of 1938, when Hitler’s bombers pummelled the British Battalion on the rocky slopes around Gandesa. The battalion suffered 90 fatalities.

Readers of this 36-page booklet will be moved and inspired by the exploits of many individuals described in it.

Jim Prendergast, one of the leaders of the Irish contingent in the International Brigades, fought bravely at Córdoba, Jarama and Brunete. In the 1960s he was the NUR’s Marylebone branch secretary and led the campaign that broke British Rail’s colour bar that excluded black workers from senior posts.

Jack Coward, one of several Liverpool seamen to fight in Spain, was captured at Calaceite in 1938 but escaped and fought behind the lines with Spanish guerrillas. When he was re-captured, he pretended to be deaf and dumb and eventually made his way home from enemy Spain on a British ship.

Spike Robson, a ship’s fireman from South Shields, led the NUS crew of the Linaria on strike in Boston, Massachusetts, to stop explosive materials being shipped to Franco’s Spain. 

‘We will not take out the ship if it means helping to kill people in Spain,’ Robson declared.

Arrested on their return home, the men ended up in court, charged under the Merchant Shipping Act and facing prison sentences. Robson was blacklisted from the shipping industry as a result

It’s often said that union members stand on the shoulders of giants – in other words our predecessors who fought for the rights we enjoy today and the principles that still guide us. Delve into this booklet and meet some of those giants from the RMT’s past.

Jim Jump is the chair of the IBMT and a former editor of the NUS/RMT journal, The Seaman.

‘The Shall Not Pass’ can be ordered from the IBMT Shop for £5 plus p&p.

Here’s an update from the Madrid-based Association of Friends of the International Brigades (AABI) on the campaign to stop Madrid City Council from building a waste recycling facility on top of a mass grave adjacent to Fuencarral cemetery (pictured above). The site is thought to contain the remains of some 451 International Brigaders, including several Britons.

We believe it is very important to keep you up-to-date on the activity that our association is deploying in relation to this issue. 

As we suppose you know from the great repercussion it has had in the press and the information we have been updating you with, a few months ago we determined the possibility of confirming the burial place of the 451 brigadistas originally buried in the cemetery of Fuencarral and whose graves were desecrated by the fascists after the war, and their bodies hidden in the area behind the enclosure. 

We got the Ministry of Democratic Memory involved, which contracted Arqueoantro to carry out archaeological tests to determine the location of the mass grave. Madrid City Council had been denying the necessary permission to carry out that operation, while requesting a geo-radar study in that area, in order, according to their own words, ‘to confirm that there was nothing’. 

According to the information that has reached us, it seems that the study confirmed that, as we have been stating, ‘there was something’. Since receiving the report in April, the city council, with Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida at the head, has denied any association or citizen access to the report, even the opposition groups (and paying no attention to the Transparency Law that requires them to make the report public). 

The excuses have included ‘the official in charge of these documents is not here’, as if they themselves were not in charge of the report.

Last week the council delegate of urban planning, Francisco de Borja Carabante, stated in plenary session that the conclusions drawn by some municipal technicians based on the data received from the geo-radar company ruled out the existence of earthworks in the area. 

The same was repeated by the mayor the following day. However, both the original report and the conclusions of these technicians have still not been made public or available to anyone except, apparently, to a journalist from El Mundo, who published some paragraphs that he says are original because he had access to the conclusions of the city council. 

Of course, the possibility of carrying out tests by the ministry, a much more effective and decisive technique, continues to be vetoed.

Given these facts and this repeated lack of transparency, we are forced to turn to the Prosecutor's Office of Democratic Memory to take action on what we consider a crime against the Law of Democratic Memory committed by the mayor of Madrid, the council delegate of urban planning and three other officials for concealment of data, obstructionism and prevarication. In the following link you can find information about the complaint and its terms.

This is a translation of our statement on thew matter:

The Association of Friends of the International Brigades (AABI) has denounced Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida, Council Delegate of Urban Planning Francisco de Borja Carabante, Council President of the Fuencarral District Board José Antonio Martínez Páramo, General Director of Cleaning Víctor Sarabía and Deputy Director of Cleaning Olivia Lombraña for an alleged crime of lying in order to conceal information about the existence of a mass grave of International Brigaders and for preventing the Ministry of initiating the proper testings in the field, as required by the Law of Democratic Memory.

AABI denounces the municipal council team for hiding the report prepared by the company Gama Geofísica because the results are contrary to its interest in developing a waste project in the district of Montecarmelo.

AABI argues that the five defendants are acting with ‘lack of transparency by hiding for more than 50 days’ the report of the company Gama Geofísica that was delivered on 26 April 2024 to the city council; Gama Geofísica had conducted tests with geo-radar and tomography during that same month ‘exclusively in the plot 26.2b of the Partial Plan of Montecarmelo’.

The report of Gama Geofísica concludes that there are indications detected by the geo-radar that determine a ‘high compatibility’ with the existence in that plot of a mass grave, which may contain the remains of the 451 brigadistas, and recommends archaeological testings.

For more background on this story, see these earlier reports on the IBMT website:

A Spanish newspaper is suggesting that the presence of a mass grave in Madrid containing the remains of 451 International Brigaders, including several Britons, has been confirmed.

However, the Madrid authorities are being accused of sitting on the report because of its inconvenient findings.

The site is next to Fuencarral cemetery, where the Madrid City Council, which is governed by the right-wing PP party, wants to build a waste facility.

A campaign led by Spain’s AABI friends of the International Brigades, which included a letter of protest from the IBMT, forced the council earlier this year to freeze its plans while a survey of the plot was undertaken.

The bodies of the Brigaders, which had previously been properly buried in the cemetery, were dumped outside its perimeter walls following Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War.

The El País daily reported on 28 May: ‘The possibility of the appearance of the largest mass grave found in Madrid after the civil war appears imminent in view of the report prepared by a Madrid company and delivered to the city council.’

It went on: ‘The results obtained in the geo-radar study are “highly compatible” with the probability that a mass grave exists, this newspaper has learned. The inspection was carried out on a 10,000 square metre plot where the city council plans the construction of a mega waste facility.’

Patricia Ure of the AABI demanded to know why the survey report was not being made public. 

‘Could it be that there are well-founded suspicions that the mass grave of the Brigade members exhumed and thrown into it is located there?’ she asked. ‘We think that in a short time there will be news because the city council will not be able to continue hiding the report.’

Among those who were buried at Fuencarral are the poet Julian Bell, Samuel Walsh, a cook from Newcastle, Arnold Jeans, a commercial traveller from Lancashire, and Edward Burke, from Croydon, a journalist and Unity Theatre actor.

Pictured above: a memorial plaque in Fuencarral cemetery to the British, American and Canadian battalions of the 15th International Brigade.

A major survey of where International Brigaders died in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War has established the names of 522 volunteers, including 86 from Britain and six from Ireland.

The findings were published in May by Memòria Democràtica, the Catalan government’s historical memory agency, as part of its Alvah Bessie Programme, named after a prominent US volunteer.

Details can be viewed online, with separate reports on the British and Irish volunteers who died or went missing in action. 

A comprehensive list of all 607 15th Brigade fatalities and MIAs during the 1938 Battle of the Ebro, including battlefield maps, is also available. The list includes British, Canadian, Irish, Spanish and US volunteers, as well as some from other countries.

Several volunteers were reported as having died in specific hospitals. These include, from Britain and Ireland, Daniel Boyle, Robert Glen, John McLennaghan, John Lobban, Henry McGrath and Sidney Lewis. In several cases Memòria Democràtica has uncovered fresh information about them.

Family relatives of those who died in Catalonia are meanwhile being invited to come forward and register in Memòria Democràtica’s Census of Missing People. They will have the option of providing a DNA sample for its genetic identification programme. 

IBMT Chair Jim Jump praised the excellent research being undertaken by the Alvah Bessie Programme. 

‘The Catalan government’s support for this project contrasts starkly with the attitude of the regional government of neighbouring Aragón,’ he said.

In April the IBMT joined in protests over plans by the right-wing PP-Vox coalition government to rescind the democratic memory law enacted by the previous socialist-led government. Around 150 British Battalion lives were lost in Aragón during the war.

All the findings of the Alvah Bessie Programme are published in Catalan and English on its website.

The picture above shows the plaque on Hill 666, near Gandesa, naming the British Battalion dead in the Battle of the Ebro.

The IBMT has added its name to a letter of protest to the regional government of Aragón for its decision to repeal a Law of Democratic Memory.

The law allows funding for the excavation of mass graves of the victims of Franco during Spain’s civil war and the subsequent dictatorship.

Aragón is run by a coalition of the rightwing PP and far-right Vox parties. It took office last year following elections that saw the socialist PSOE-led administration removed from office.

Enacted by the then ruling PSOE government, the region’s 2018 Law of Democratic Memory commits the government to recovery the remains of civil war victims and return them to their families.

Many International Brigaders were killed in Aragón and their remains lie in unmarked graves. More than 150 British and Irish lives were lost.

According to historian Paul Preston’s ‘The Spanish Holocaust’, 8,523 supporters of the Spanish Republic were executed behind Francoist lines between 1936-39. An unknown number of Republican soldiers were also killed in the province, which straddles the Ebro in north-east Spain.

The letter of protest to the authorities in Zaragoza, the regional capital, was coordinated early in April by the Madrid-based AABI, Friends of the International Brigades.

‘We request the restoration of the so-called Democratic Memory Law of Aragón as a means of finding a way to close the wounds of the past,’ says AABI in its letter. 

As well as the IBMT, others signatories include International Brigade memorial associations in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Serbia and the US.

The British Battalion saw action in Aragón at Belchite in the autumn of 1937, at Teruel early in 1938 and in the spring of that year in and around Caspe. At Teruel, fighting took place amid severe winter conditions (see main picture – courtesy of the Marx Memorial Library).

The 2023 Len Crome Memorial Conference, which took place on 11 November 2023, is now available to watch online.

The conversation between leading historians on the Spanish Civil War Helen Graham and Paul Preston, with Richard Baxell in the chair, charts the long roots of the Spanish Civil War.

Helen, Paul and Richard trace the conflict's origins back to the First World War – not only with attempts to wipe out the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 but also to double down on any socially levelling reform inside the developed industrial heartlands of Europe, including Britain.

Paul Preston is one of the world’s foremost historians of the causes, course and consequences of the Spanish Civil War. He is the IBMT’s Founding Chair.

Helen Graham is Emeritus Professor of modern European history at Royal Holloway University of London and is the author of ‘Interrogating Francoism' and ‘The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction’. She is also an IBMT Patron.

Richard Baxell is the author of 'Forged in Spain'. He is a research fellow at the LSE and the IBMT's Historical Consultant.

The video also features Peter Crome, who discusses his father’s life and legacy.

To watch the previous Len Crome Memorial Conferences online, go to the IBMTNews Len Crome playlist on YouTube.