¡NO PASARÁN! International Brigade Memorial Trust l 2-2018 l £5

Meet the last survivor

Is this Gerda Taro?

At the IBMT Paul Preston lecture day on studying the and understanding today

¡No pasarán! # International Brigade commemoration Saturday 7 July 2018 1pm-

2pm Wiard Andrew

Music l Speakers l Remembrance

International Brigade Memorial Jubilee Gardens London Southbank

Followed by an informal gathering at The Horse & Stables 122-124 Westminster Bridge Road London SE1 7RW

International Brigade Memorial Trust www.international-brigades.org.uk ¡NO PASARÁN! Magazine of the International Brigade Memorial Trust No.48 l 2-2018 Cover photo: Jim Jump

3 News l Len Crome Memorial Conference l ‘Deathbed photo’ of Gerda Taro La Comarca l Home town recognition for Douglas Jolly s A memorial to the was unveiled on 17 March in , Aragón, the scene of fierce clashes in March 1938 as Republican forces were pushed eastwards by a Francoist offensive 8 Profile down the valley. At least 13 members of the British Battalion were killed in the fighting, while l Geoffrey Servante: our last known veteran many others were listed as missing in action in Aragón. The new memorial was inaugurated by Aragón’s regional president, Javier Lambán, at a ceremony attended by visitors from Britain as well as 10 Secretarial notes Spain, France, Germany and the US. l On Spaniards in the death camps, and volunteers fighting with the Kurds

12 Interview New memorial in Leicester l Paul Preston

18 Books and the arts l Memories abstracted in art l Books from Sebastiaan Faber and Jane Lazarre, and a chapter by Katharine Campbell

22 Final word l Praise for ‘insurrectionary commemoration’

¡NO PASARÁN! (formerly the IBMT Magazine and the IBMT Newsletter) is published three times a year. Back numbers can be downloaded from the IBMT website. All content is the © copyright of the IBMT and credited contributors and cannot be reproduced without written permission.

Editor Jim Jump IBMT, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU 020 7253 8748 [email protected]

International Brigade Memorial Trust s IBMT President Marlene Sidaway unveils a new memorial plaque to the International Brigade www.international-brigades.org.uk volunteers from Leicester on 30 March in the city’s Market Place. It names the three local men killed in

¡NO PASARÁN! 3 NEWS At the IBMT lecture day

Professor Tom Buchanan talks about how fellow historian Jim Fyrth wrote his ground-breaking ‘The Signal Was Spain’.

The International Brigade Memorial Trust keeps alive the memory and spirit of the men and women who volunteered to fight fascism and defend democracy in Spain from 1936 to 1939

International Brigade Memorial Trust 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU Dr Emily Mason showed how propaganda for the Spanish 020 7253 8748 Republic made use of religious imagery. [email protected] www.international-brigades.org.uk Registered charity no.1094928

President Marlene Sidaway [email protected] Chair Richard Baxell [email protected] Secretary Jim Jump [email protected] Treasurer Manuel Moreno [email protected] Ireland Secretary Manus O’Riordan [email protected] Scotland Secretary Mike Arnott q TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady (second from right) called by at the IBMT stall at the North [email protected] West TUC conference in Southport on 24 March. Also pictured are (from left) TUC North West Regional Membership Secretary Mary Greening Secretary Lynn Collins, IBMT Trustee Lisa Croft and (on right) IBMT member Paul Ward. [email protected] Merchandise Officer Chris Hall [email protected] Film Coordinator Marshall Mateer [email protected] Education Officer Richard Thorpe [email protected] Other Executive Committee members Lisa Croft, Pauline Fraser, Alex Gordon, John Haywood Founding Chair Professor Paul Preston Patrons Professor Peter Crome, Hywel Francis, Professor Helen Graham, Ken Livingstone, Len McCluskey, Christy Moore, Jack O’Connor, Maxine Peake, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, Mick Whelan facebook.com/groups/7123291063 twitter.com/IBMT_SCW youtube.com/user/IBMTnews flickr.com/photos/ibmt

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t Ewan McLennan. Over 100 people attended this year’s Len Crome Memorial Conference in Bristol’s Colston Hall. Held outside London or Manchester for the first time, the IBMT’s annual lecture day on 24 March saw speakers and performers making contributions on the theme of the Aid Spain movement that mobilised support in Britain for the Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War. The audience heard Professor Tom Buchanan talk about how historian Jim Fyrth researched and wrote his book ‘The Signal War Spain: The Aid Spain Movement in Britain 1936-39’ (1986) and Amanda Boyd and David Nash. in doing so navigated through the complex political and personal issues of the day. Emily Dixon spoke about how the Christian socialist movement in Britain rallied to help the cause of s Some of the two dozen-strong contingent the Spanish Republic. from Britain and Ireland who attended this IBMT Film Coordinator Marshall Mateer year’s commemoration of the Battle of introduced the 1936 film ‘The Defence of ’. Jarama. They are pictured next to the Produced by Ivor Montagu of the Progressive Film memorial to Charlie Donnelly, the Irish Institute, the film was widely shown around the journalist and poet born in Dungannon in country to raise funds for medical aid and 1914, who was among the more than 150 humanitarian relief. Music was provided by award British and Irish killed in the fighting south winning singer-songwriter Ewan McLennan, folk east of Madrid in February 1937. Organised by duo Amanda Boyd and David Nash and by Bristol the Spanish AABI International Brigades The Red Notes. socialist choir The Red Notes. friendship group, the commemoration The Len Crome Memorial Conference is attracted more than 600 people from Spain named after the Lancashire GP who became the and around the world, who on 16 February chief medical officer of the Spanish Republic’s XV trekked across the battlefield before many of Army Corps. This included the 35th Division, of them enjoyed a communal lunch laid on by which the mainly English-speaking 15th the Rivas Vaciamadrid town council. On the International Brigade was part. The day was day before, several participants attended a introduced by Len Crome’s son, Professor Peter gathering at nearby Tarancón, where there is Crome, who is an IBMT Patron. a memorial to the 39 Scots killed at Jarama.

s Jeremy Corbyn (left) said he was ‘delighted’ to welcome representatives from BCA’37UK, the association for the Basque refugee children who arrived in Britain in May 1937 during Franco’s offensive in northern Spain. Carmen Kilner Sánchez (right) and Paco Robles (centre), one of the niños evacuated from Spain, were hosted at the House of Commons by the Labour leader on 21 February as his guests for Prime Minister’s Question Time that day. Jeremy s Kiri Tunks (left), the incoming President of the NUT section of the NEU Corbyn has on several occasions made reference to the fact that his parents teachers’ union, shows support for the IBMT at our stall at the NUT conference met at an Aid Spain meeting in London during the Spanish Civil War. in Brighton over the Easter weekend. With her is IBMT Trustee Pauline Fraser.

¡NO PASARÁN! 5 NEWS Gerda Taro’s parting shot

By Jim Jump Her body was later taken to Paris, where tens of thousands attended s this (left) a photo of her funeral on 1 August 1937. renowned photographer Gerda In oral testimony in the archives ITaro (pictured right) on her of the Imperial War Museum, Dr deathbed in Spain? The person John Kiszely recalled in 1992 that tending her is undeniably Janos while working at a frontline (John) Kiszely, a Hungarian hospital during the fighting at International Brigade doctor who Brunete he had treated a severely later settled in Britain. His son, injured woman. ‘She was a retired British Army general Sir reporter, a newspaperwoman but I John Kiszely, tweeted the picture did not have a clue who she was in January, sparking an online when somebody took a picture of debate as to the identity of the me cleaning her up, the blood patient. from her face, but I did not know Taro was accidentally run over who she was, nor did the person by a Spanish Republican tank who took the photograph.’ Only during the west later was he told that she had been of Madrid in the summer of 1937, the ‘wife of the famous wartime suffering fatal abdominal injuries. photographer Robert Capa’. Plaque honours medical pioneer (and Gerda Taro’s doctor) in his New Library Marx Memorial Zealand home town

By Mark Derby Cromwell’s historic precinct. Born in 1904, Douglas Jolly long process of historical gained a medical degree at Otago rediscovery reached a University, left for London to A significant milestone on qualify as a surgeon and, shortly 23 March this year. In his before graduating, went to Spain hometown of Cromwell, Central as part of a British universities s Douglas Jolly (foreground, right) tending a patient in Spain. Otago, a plaque was unveiled to medical unit. For the next two the battlefield surgeon Douglas years, holding the rank of continued to campaign for the lieutenant-colonel with the Royal Jolly, described by his British lieutenant in the Spanish Republican cause both in Britain Army Medical Corps, earning a colleague, Dr Archie Cochrane, as Republican Army, he was posted and New Zealand, but the military OBE. A 1945 letter from ‘the most valuable volunteer to to wherever the fighting was outbreak of the Second World War his commanding officer indicates come [to Spain] from the British fiercest and greatly contributed to meant that he soon returned to the his contributions to battlefield Commonwealth’. developing techniques and UK. At lightning speed he wrote a surgery during the war: The plaque stands beside the systems for treating the victims of medical manual, ‘Field Surgery in You have: front door of the former Grain & an entirely new form of Total War’, which summarised the l Developed the two-stage concept Seed Store, established by Jolly’s mechanised warfare. lessons he and his colleagues had of wound treatment to a truly Scottish-born grandfather in 1870 Along with all other foreign learned in Spain. It remained astonishing level of success; and now a popular café on the volunteers, Jolly was withdrawn influential for the next 25 years. l Perfected the use of penicillin banks of Lake Dunstan in from Spain in late 1938. He Jolly spent the war as a and established its role in the

6 ¡NO PASARÁN! International Brigade Memorial Trust

Not everyone is convinced, If the photo had been taken at however. Fellow Taro biographer Torrelodones, says Olmeda, Taro’s Fernando Olmeda is more severe abdominal wounds would doubtful. He draws attention to have been more apparent in the inaccuracies in the caption on the photo. He also thinks it odd that, back of Kiszely’s copy of the photo, given Taro’s fame, such an which identifies ‘Mrs Frank [sic] apparently professionally taken Capa’ in ‘June 1937’, when in fact photo should not have been Taro died on 26 July of that year. published at the time. He also The location on the points out that no other eye- handwritten caption is given as witnesses refer to a photographer Torrelodones, where there was a being present at Torrelodones or medical reception unit. From El Escorial. there many of the injured were So, is this photo a remarkable taken to the ‘English Hospital’ at discovery, as many people believe? El Escorial. This is what happened The woman pictured certainly Though not married to Capa, to Gerda Taro on the night of looks like Gerda Taro, but there Taro and Capa were lovers and 25/26 June and she was operated are inconsistencies and gaps in the both were deeply committed to on by New Zealand doctor story of the photo itself. The s Dr John Kiszely (right) on a return the Republican cause in Spain, Douglas Jolly before dying. debate will no doubt continue, and visit to Spain with International politically and professionally. Confusingly, the same photo we will probably never know for Brigade nurse Thora Silverthorne Gerda Taro’s biographer Jane appeared in 2006 in a Spanish sure. What isn’t contested is that (centre) and Moisès Broggi, a Rogoyska believes Kiszely’s publication about the medical Gerda Taro, who died aged only 26 Catalan surgeon in the International account – along with the obvious services of the International and who was, along with Robert Brigades medical services. The physical likeness with Gerda Taro Brigades. The caption to that Capa, an anti-fascist Jewish photo is believed to have been – is ‘persuasive evidence’ in favour photo names Dr John Kiszely, but refugee from central Europe, taken in in 1973 during the of the photograph being of the not his patient, and says it was remains one of the greatest ever shooting of a documentary about famous photographer. taken at El Escorial. war photographers. the Spanish Civil War.

Roehampton, south London. He trauma care is fully recorded and died in retirement in West recognised. A full-length Horsley, Surrey, in 1983. biography commissioned by the Twenty years later, several University of Nebraska Press will factors contributed to the draw on the lifelong personal restoration of his status as an archive preserved by Bidda Jones, internationally significant medical supplemented by research in a pioneer and humanitarian. A number of countries. retired orthopaedic surgeon, Several speakers at the Patrick Medlicott, began unveiling noted disturbing promoting the idea of a memorial similarities between present-day to Jolly in his home town. Another geopolitical conditions and those New Zealand surgeon, David which led to the civil war, and Lowe, discovered an extraordinary urged those present to follow cache of his personal papers in the Douglas Jolly’s example. He was a s Left: Jolly’s International Brigade carnet and (right) the new plaque for him possession of his step-grand- committed anti-fascist who said: on the Grain & Seed Café in Cromwell. daughter, Bidda Jones, in ‘My sympathies were completely Canberra, Australia. with the [Spanish Republican] treatment of war wounds; prominent and permanent place in These independent efforts government; that was why I went l Reduced mortality and the archives of war surgery. resulted in the project to install to Spain, and I saw nothing there morbidity for most types of war That final prediction proved the plaque. This was unveiled at a which altered my mind.’ wounds to a level rarely equaled greatly premature. In the postwar moving ceremony attended by and never surpassed in any period Jolly ceased practising local mayor Tim Cadogan, acting l Mark Derby is a New Zealand campaign in history… surgery and his innovations in Spanish ambassador to New historian and author of several books It will of course be for the trauma treatment and Zealand, Vicente Maz Taladriz, on New Zealanders in the Spanish historian to assess the worth of rehabilitation were largely and many of Jolly’s relatives from Civil War. Information and contacts for your contributions in relation to forgotten. He remained working in around the country. Douglas Jolly’s forthcoming biography advances in all theatres of war but England, eventually as chief Work continues to ensure that are welcomed and should be I am confident… that the record of medical officer of Britain’s largest Douglas Jolly’s contribution to emailed to David Lowe (david.lowe@ your fine work will find a limb-fitting hospital in military medicine and civilian svha.org.au).

¡NO PASARÁN! 7 GEOFFREY SERVANTE I heard on the radio that there were no more International Brigaders left, and I said to myself, ‘Well, that’s nonsense. There’s still me.’

By Richard Baxell Geoffrey admitted that he was only Geoffrey, who was by his own Electrical and Mechanical 18 years old, and was consequently admission utterly ‘sozzled’, did his Engineers. After demobilisation, he ver the last few years, refused admission into the British valiant best to aim the gun, but the worked for Marshalls, several announcements Battalion, which was then being shell missed its target by miles. reconditioning military lorries, Ohave mourned the passing slaughtered on the Brunete For this, Geoffrey was punished joining Vauxhall in 1957, where he of the last of the British volunteers battlefield. Instead, he was posted with six extra guard duties. ‘It was remained until he took early in the Spanish Civil War. First to a much less hazardous unit, an a very lax discipline,’ he laughed. retirement 20 years later. there was David Lomon, then artillery battery currently in Only later did he discover that he Only in 2009 did Geoffrey Philip Tammer and most recently training in Almansa, some 70km had inadvertently scored a direct discover via the radio that the Stan Hilton, all of whom were east of . hit on a fascist officer’s car, Spanish government had offered hailed as ‘the last of the last’. In The Anglo-American artillery blowing him, the car and his aide- citizenship to surviving veterans of fact, none of them was. As a recent unit, known as the John Brown de-camp to pieces. the International Brigades. When article by Carmelo García in The Battery, was commanded by an his daughter Honor contacted the Times revealed, 98-year-old veteran Estonian-born American called hen the majority of the Spanish embassy, Geoffrey was Geoffrey Servante is alive and well, Arthur Timpson, who had been International Brigades invited to London to sign the living in a nursing home in the trained in artillery in Moscow. W were withdrawn at the declaration entitling him to his Forest of Dean. Alongside Geoffrey were four end of 1938, the battery members Spanish passport. He still retains an Geoffrey’s Spanish adventure other English volunteers, all under remained in place, seemingly interest in Spanish affairs; he is a began in the summer of 1937. He the watchful eye of their sergeant, forgotten. Only in early 1939 were strong supporter of Catalan was drinking in a Soho pub, when David King, a Communist Party they withdrawn to Valencia, then independence and voted in last he overheard a man claiming that it branch secretary and former on to . From there, a year’s referendum. Geoffrey was no longer possible to join the Royal Marine from Skipton in narrow gauge railway took them remains extremely proud to have International Brigades, as the Yorkshire. Initially posted to the half-way to the frontier and they fought for Spanish democracy and Spanish border had been closed. ‘I Extremadura front in south-west then had to walk the remaining has no regrets. Well, perhaps one. bet I can join,’ declared Geoffrey, Spain, the battery was transferred 80km, harassed constantly by When he returned from Spain and impulsively. When the man insisted to Toledo in December 1937, Nationalist aircraft. Safely across triumphantly called into the pub to that there was ‘no chance’, where it remained for the duration the frontier, Geoffrey and his collect his winnings, Geoffrey was Geoffrey refused to believe him, of the war. comrades enjoyed a huge breakfast, saddened – and perhaps a little vowing: ‘I’ll bet you a hundred quid With ammunition extremely courtesy of the International Red disappointed – to discover that his I can do it.’ scarce, the men rarely did much Cross, before they were repatriated fellow gambler had passed away. So Geoffrey was hardly a typical more than take the occasional pot via Paris and Dieppe. he never did get to see his £100. volunteer for the International shot at the enemy lines. However, Within a year, Geoffrey was Brigades. Brought up in London, Geoffrey recalled that on one of back in uniform, having been called l Historian Richard Baxell is the IBMT he had been educated by Jesuits the few occasions when they were up into the British Army. He had a Chair. He interviewed Geoffrey and had never joined a trade union called upon, the battery members relatively good war, spending three Servante at his retirement home in nor a political party; ‘I wasn’t had just taken the opportunity to years in Egypt with the Royal Army Gloucestershire (where he is pictured politically inclined at all,’ he polish off a barrel of local brandy. Ordnance Corps and the Royal right) on 25 January 2018. confessed. However, he had served briefly in the Royal Marines and his Geoffrey prior experience working on the Servante in Canadian Pacific line helped him his youth, secure passage on a boat to Spain. and (right) When they docked in Valencia his Spanish in June 1937, Geoffrey jumped Communist ship and accosted a local, repeating Party card. the only Spanish phrase he possessed: ‘¡Internacional Brigadas!’ Surprisingly, it was enough to land him a rail ticket to Albacete, the headquarters of the International Brigades. Interviewed there by a political commissar,

8 ¡NO PASARÁN! International Brigade Memorial Trust Photo: Richard Baxell Photo: Richard

¡NO PASARÁN! 9 SECRETARIAL NOTES

s Anti-fascist Spaniards celebrate following liberation from the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1945.

Republicans in the Nazi camps Go-ahead for closer

udging from coverage of this year’s Holocaust sizable and distinct national grouping with clearly ties with local groups Remembrance Day (27 January) in the defined anti-fascist politics. The attack on the IBMT Trustees have agreed new JSpanish media, there is a growing, if still Soviet Union in June 1941 motivated them to guidelines to support the growing number inadequate, acknowledgement that many help create a resistance and solidarity of local and regional International Brigade thousands of exiled Spanish Republicans were organisation. commemorative groups. also sent to the Nazi slave and extermination By 1943 Auschwitz was functioning as a death The guidelines were drawn up at a camps during the Second World War. camp as well as a slave labour facility, writes meeting of the IBMT Executive Committee The numbers of Spaniards who perished are Barnett. Early that year the Kampfgruppe on 3 February, at which Trustees tiny when compared with the millions of Jews, Auschwitz (Combat Group Auschwitz, KGA) was welcomed the creation of local groups Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and others who formed among the forced labour prisoners and its and agreed it was important to help their were murdered or starved to death by the Nazis. committee absorbed Spaniards, Yugoslavs, work and campaigning activities. French, Czechs, Romanians and Germans, Under the guidelines, independent ‘Through a hole in his pocket the including many individual Jewish socialists and groups will be encouraged to affiliate to International Brigader and Jewish communists. the Trust. This will give them the benefits The KGA attempted to save lives by altering and rights of IBMT membership, as well communist David Szmulewski work lists and sharing the meagre food and as the facility to buy IBMT merchandise at took photographs showing bodies medical rations. It also organised clandestine discount prices for resale for their own being burned next to a Marxist discussion circles and shared treasured fundraising. crematorium.’ copies of smuggled literature. Crucially, it The contact details of member groups excelled at accumulating facts and figures of Nazi can also be publicised by the IBMT and But their presence in the camps as political atrocities. One prisoner preserved 350 pieces of they will receive priority assistance in prisoners is significant, not least because it correspondence, and reports then reached researching International Brigaders from undermines the myth, perpetrated by Franco London, containing statistics and information their area. and his apologists to this day, of Spanish about the mass execution of Jews and others. As an alternative to establishing an neutrality during the Second World War. A KGA communiqué threatening the SS independent group, activists can be Dig deeper, and it’s interesting to note the guards at Auschwitz was broadcast on the BBC, convened by their regional IBMT role of these Spanish Republicans, together with and several of them then changed their names. Trustees to form a local IBMT supporters’ International Brigaders, in the underground The KGA arranged cameras to be smuggled into group. resistance movement inside the camps. the camp. Through a hole in his pocket the There are currently independent Their story was explored in an article International Brigader and Jewish communist International Brigade groups in Belfast, published for Holocaust Memorial Day in David Szmulewski took photographs showing Hull, North Lanarkshire, the North West, Jacobin magazine in which Marcus Barnett bodies being burned next to a crematorium. Oxford, Reading, Rotherham and Wales, details this important chapter in anti-fascist Barnett’s full article can be read online on the with more informal groups of activists in history. In the early days of the Auschwitz camp, Jacobin magazine’s website (www.jacobinmag. other towns and cities. for example, when it was used primarily for com/2017/01/holocaust-auschwitz-kga- See the link to the guidelines on the political prisoners, Spanish Republicans were a prisoners-communists-resistance). ‘About’ page of our website.

10 ¡NO PASARÁN! Jim Jump [email protected] Support the Sympathy, but no support International Brigade for Britons fighting Isis Memorial Trust

ews that two Britons who The latest casualty among them l Join the IBMT by completing the membership form or go to have taken up arms against is Anna Campbell, from Lewes, www.international-brigades.org.uk/catalog/membership to join online. NIsis in Syria are being Sussex, who died on 15 March, l Make a donation to the IBMT (and sign the Gift Aid declaration below) or charged under terrorism legislation aged 26. She was the eighth Briton go to www.international-brigades.org.uk and click the donate button. has once again invited comparisons to be killed, and the first woman. between the International Brigades Fighting what some Full name in Spain and those volunteers who commentators call the clerical fight on the side of various factions fascism of Isis, Anna and her Up to three more names (for household membership)* in the Middle East. comrades can arguably claim to be 1 Earlier during the Syrian conflict the closest in spirit to the the individuals most commonly volunteers who went to Spain, 2 likened to the International though many in the IBMT would Brigades were the young British still disagree – not least because 3 Muslims who joined Isis or other our charitable status means we Saudi and Western-backed Islamic have to remain strictly neutral on fundamentalist groups trying to contemporary conflicts. Address topple the Syrian government. The This is the message we have IBMT repeatedly and vehemently conveyed to the family of James rejected any such comparison. Matthews, who earlier this year The two who have now been approached the IBMT to support Postcode charged are Londoner James his case. In a letter to the family, Matthews and Aidan James, from IBMT Chair Richard Baxell Liverpool. Both enlisted in the explained that he hoped for a Email* ‘positive outcome’ in the courts. But the IBMT ‘is not in a position to make a public statement Additional email(s) for household membership* officially declaring support’. He added: ‘However, as you would expect, given the level of Phone* YPG, which is battling Isis and official prejudice against British other forces in order to create a veterans of the war in Spain, the Kurdish statelet, called Rojava, in plight of [James Matthews] and Membership: tick category (annual rates) northern Syria. According to others who have been fighting o £25 Individual newspaper reports, British against Isis drew much sympathy. o £17.50 Concessionary (unwaged/on benefits/minimum wage) volunteers in the YPG are in the A number [of Trustees] expressed o £30 Household ‘International Brigades of Rojava’ – their personal support and may o £……… Affiliate: union/etc branches under 500 members: £30; over 500 and have a unit named after former well add their names to your members: £50; for national and regional unions and other organisations, see RMT union leader Bob Crow. petition and share it.’ rates online (www.international-brigades.org.uk/membership).

*Optional; members with email receive a regular IBMT e-newsletter. Please pay your 2018 IBMT subscriptions on time Donation o £5 o £10 o £25 o £50 o £100 o £250 If you haven’t yet paid your IBMT membership subscriptions for 2018, please o other (please state amount) £……………… do so as soon as possible. Payment is due from 1 January and prompt renewal helps us continue our work of keeping alive the memory and spirit of Gift Aid declaration Please complete if you are a UK taxpayer: I wish this the International Brigades. Remember too that if your membership lapses and all subsequent payments to the IBMT to be treated as Gift Aid donations. you’ll no longer receive this magazine or our e-newsletter. The annual rates are £17.50 (unwaged etc), £25 (individual) and £30 Signature (household). Send cheques to IBMT, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU. Also, please consider making a donation and paying your subs by Direct Debit. Date Full details of our rates, including those for non-UK residents in sterling, euros and US dollars are available on our website (www.international-brigades. org.uk/content/new-membership-subscription-rates). If you’re unsure whether Send completed form to: IBMT, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU. you are paid-up, email [email protected] to check. Make cheques payable to the IBMT.

¡NO PASARÁN! 11 INTERVIEW

Paul Preston (left) is recognised as the world’s foremost historian of the Spanish Civil War. His prolific output of books, stretching back over four decades, has played an important role in raising and reshaping public perceptions of the war and 20th century Spain. In this exclusive interview for the IBMT, he talks at length about his personal commitment to unearthing and explaining what happened before, during and after the civil war and why those events still cast such a shadow over modern Spain.

Born in Liverpool in 1946, Paul Preston is Professor of Spanish History at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he is the director of the Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies. He is also the Founding Chair of the IBMT, having chaired the initial meetings in 2000 that brought together International Brigade veterans, families, friends and historians to create the International Brigade Memorial Trust.

His latest book is ‘The Last Days of the Spanish Republic’ (2017). Among others are ‘The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth- Century Spain’ (2012), ‘We Saw Spain Die: Foreign Correspondents in the Spanish Civil War’ (2008), ‘The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution and Revenge’ (2006), ‘Doves of War: Four Women of Spain’ (2002), ‘¡Comrades! Portraits from the Spanish Civil War’ (1999), ‘A Concise History of the Spanish Civil War’ (1996) and ‘The Coming of the Spanish Civil War: Reform, Reaction and Revolution in the Second Republic 1931-1936’ (1978). He is also the author of two major biographies, ‘Juan Carlos: A People’s King’ (2004) and ‘Franco: A Biography’ (1993).

Paul Preston is interviewed here by Jim Jump. The interview took place at the LSE on 8 March 2018.

12 ¡NO PASARÁN! International Brigade Memorial Trust

Caballero, was a total disaster, that he was an appallingly bad war leader. By contrast, over time my admiration for Juan Negrín has just grown and grown. So, within the Republic, my views are now much more nuanced, much more critical, especially regarding the atrocities, even though MAKING these crimes are often unfairly pinned on the Republican authorities. No, they took place within the Republican zone where law and order had broken down. The idea that they were countenanced let alone encouraged by the Republican authorities is absolute nonsense. Overall, looking at both sides in the war, I’m HISTORY also much more ready to see good and bad on both sides. Not everyone on the Republican You’ve never shied away from taking a and imprisonment. They did immense damage side was an angel; nor was everyone on the partisan view of the Spanish Civil War and to the Republic in terms of its possibility of Francoist side a villain. make no secret of your support for the securing foreign aid. Obviously the anarchists’ Spanish Republic. Has that fundamental view that they should be allowed to make their What about the International Brigades? view changed at all over more than 40 revolution is nuts. Short of being able to say to When they came back from Spain they years of scholarship? Franco: ‘Can you just hold on for another five were denigrated and regarded with great First of all I would dispute that thinking the to six years until we’ve made the revolution and suspicion. Now they’re generally admired. Spanish Republic was in the right and the then we will go back to war?’, it was just utterly Do you think historians like yourself have Francoists were in the wrong is partisan. No- unrealistic; ditto for the POUM. had any role in that transformation? one, for example, would dream of accusing As far as certain individuals are concerned, if I would take no credit for any of that. I think anyone of being partisan for writing in a way you take my book ‘¡Comrades!’, which has that Richard Baxell is the person who should be that was critical of Hitler. Yet, amazingly, to be portraits of various people, the person who taking credit or Angela Jackson, Linda critical of Franco can still invite accusations of comes out best is the socialist Indalecio Prieto. Palfreeman and other people who have done bias. The reasons are obvious. They are about But now I’ve arrived at a different conclusion. hard research. I have to say also that I’m the way his reputation was enhanced during the Prieto was wonderful for the Republic until he amazed and full of admiration for what the Cold War. This meant he always enjoyed a good got the hump for being excluded from the IBMT has achieved. press, obviously in Spain, but also in Britain. My ‘A Concise History of the Spanish Civil But there is nothing much that has altered my War’ is dedicated to the International Brigades view of Franco over all those years. ‘No-one would dream and that goes back to my friendship with people In terms of the origins of the war, I can see of accusing anyone of like Bill Alexander and Dave Marshall. I knew more clearly now that the Republican lots of them and had a wide-eyed, fan-like politicians made mistakes. That was to be being partisan for admiration for them. I always thought the expected. They came into power facing writing in a way that whole idea of the International Brigades and horrendous problems, with no experience their sacrifices and so on were just amazing, whatsoever. was critical of Hitler. and of course I’ve tried to express that in my As for the internal politics of the Republic, books. there are all kinds of nuances that have shifted Yet, amazingly, to be There’s still an awful lack of understanding on my part. The idea that the POUM [Partido critical of Franco can of the Brigades as well. I’m thinking of people Obrero de Unificación Marxista] were hard- who want to say: ‘They’re just like the foreign done-by victims doesn’t last very long the more still invite accusations jihadis.’ Rubbish like that, along with some of you read. While I’m deeply aware of the way of bias.’ the American research about the ‘Comintern that the POUM were smeared, I’m also aware Army’, has to be combated. that they did things that could very easily be government in April 1938 when Prime Minister I’m not a military historian, but the Brigades construed as sabotage: pulling troops back from Juan Negrín took the not unreasonable view seem to have been used like shock troops that the front and so on. Last week I had an amazing that he could not have a defeatist as his could be easily sacrificed, in much the same three hours with a young Spaniard who is doing Minister of War. Prieto never forgave Negrín way as the Francoists used the Moors. As the research on the Fifth Column of Franco and accused him of being a puppet of the war went on it became more difficult to rotate supporters in the Republican zone, and the communists and so on. I’ve come to see that troops. But the International Brigades were information he has on links between the what Prieto was doing was preparing for a harder done by than almost any other unit – POUM and the Fifth Column is just hair- future following a Franco victory when you taken out after a month in the field, told they’d raising. I’m looking forward to his PhD. were never going to be able to survive in exile if have a week off and then two hours later I’ve also become much more critical of the you were known to be pro-communist. they’re back, that kind of thing. It makes me anarchists and specifically of the chequistas who It didn’t take me very long to reach the wonder what exactly was the attitude of the carried out extra-judicial executions, torture conclusion that Negrín’s predecessor, Largo CONTINUED OVERLEAF

¡NO PASARÁN! 13 PAUL PRESTON

FROM PREVIOUS PAGE How did you begin studying the Spanish general staff of the Republic to them. I can’t get Civil War in particular? a clear view of that, though they were clearly After Oxford I did an MA at Reading University. seen as dependable and politically committed. It comprised two options. I did left-wing literature of the interwar period and the Spanish What drew you to becoming a historian and Civil War. The left-wing literature part was a to take a special interest in Spain and 20th doddle for me, because it was basically about century history? books that I had been devouring for years. I was I think it goes back to the fact that I was born manically obsessed with the likes of John in 1946 in Liverpool, which had been a target Steinbeck and his contemporaries. during the Blitz. The surrounding areas had The Spanish Civil War was taught by Hugh been badly bombed, including the house that I Thomas, who in 1961 had written ‘The Spanish was brought up in by my grandparents. Luckily Civil War’. I’d read a couple of books, but didn’t no-one was killed – it just so happened to be really understand anything. Thomas was, in his one night when they were all in an air-raid way, a brilliant teacher. He didn’t really give a shelter. Growing up in the late 40s, the Blitz hoot, but was eccentric and amusing and there and the Second World War were on everybody’s were only four of us on the course. It was a great lips. As kids our games would be British versus experience, not least because of all the people Germans and we would all be running up and Thomas knew and brought into the classes to down the street being Spitfires and talk to us. Messerschmitts. When I was about 10 or 11, I Thomas encouraged us especially to read the began making Airfix airplane model kits. I got left-wing books. We were pushed into answering s Paul Preston (second from left) in Madrid in really hooked on the Second World War and the basic question on the left – war or 1978 with Felipe González (right), leader of the started to read quite serious books about it. revolution. The book that had the biggest impact PSOE socialist party and the future prime minister Then I was lucky enough to get a on me was Gerald Brenan’s ‘The Spanish of Spain. scholarship to Oxford. Being a scum of the Labyrinth’, which I still think is a fabulous book. earth working-class Scouser in Oxford wasn’t Subsequent research has questioned much of it, way possible, which was to read a book that I but it remains amazingly perceptive. Thomas’ had to read, an unspeakable book, by Santiago book too has many qualities. There are things in Galindo, very pro-Franco. I read it with a ‘With the Spanish Civil it that I would dispute. But every time I take it dictionary and of course learnt a lot of Spanish War you don’t have to off the shelf I’m always tickled by the way he along the way; not how to pronounce it, but I writes – it’s very colourful – and I still think, combined that with going out drinking with choose. You get despite the fact that much of it is from an English Colombian students in the bar and bit by bit I everything: Stalinism, middle-class perspective, that it’s a great book. began to speak a few words. Then in 1969, I There was never any question about which think it was the Easter holidays, I went to Spain Trotskyism, fascism, side to be on, the Spanish Republic versus for the first time, to a village called Arroyo de la Franco – it was obvious who were the goodies Miel. By then I was hooked. My friends would communism, Hitler, and the baddies. That was not a question, even go into Torremolinos for a rave, and I would go Mussolini. It’s fabulous – for Thomas. But there was an issue about into the local village. In those days it was rare for whether the goodies were the anarchists and the a foreigner to learn Spanish, so a crowd would and here I am nearly Trotskyists and the baddies were the gather, and I would be trying to order things and 50 years on and I still communists. That was the standard view at the saying ‘tengo sed’ [I’m thirsty] and I’d go back to time. So I read Gaston Leval and a whole pile of the bar the next day for a coffee and by then I think that.’ stuff on anarchists, collectivism, quite a lot on could say ‘tengo hambre’ [I’m hungry]. the POUM and so on. ‘The Grand Camouflage’ I decided I wanted to do a PhD and I went very common in those days and it was actually a by Burnett Bolloten was a big influence. back to Oxford, supposedly to be supervised by horrible experience. There are lots of Raymond Carr. I had read Carr’s ‘Spain 1808– wonderful things about Oxford. It’s a lovely Is this when you realised that researching 1939’, which I found very hard going and even place to be, and the libraries are mind- and writing about the Spanish Civil War now find pretty knotty. But he was in America boggling. You could go to lectures by some might become your life’s work? most of the time. Carr let me down in many pretty amazing people – Isaiah Berlin was There came a point, probably after about a term ways. I had this awful contretemps with him absolutely fantastic. But the teaching overall at Reading when I thought, this is great. I’d spent because I wanted to work on the direct origins of was diabolical. Also, there was hardly any ages in Oxford thinking what the hell to do next, the civil war. I saw him before he went off and contemporary history taught. There was what to choose. But with the Spanish Civil War he told me: ‘No, you can’t do that.’ He always got enormous stress on Anglo-Saxon, medieval and you don’t have to choose. You get everything: his students to study what he was interested in, British history and very little 20th century or Stalinism, Trotskyism, fascism, communism, and at the time he wanted someone to work on European history. The nearest to what I wanted Hitler, Mussolini. It’s fabulous – and here I am the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, which I to do, which would have been the origins of the nearly 50 years on and I still think that. started. I went to Madrid and began doing Second World War, was the origins of the First At Reading I also realised that I had to learn research, but I never got the hang of it. Funnily World War. Spanish and I set about doing it in the daftest enough it’s a topic that I’m now writing about,

14 ¡NO PASARÁN! International Brigade Memorial Trust

s Paul Preston (seventh from left) on 28 October 2000 at the meeting in London, which he chaired, at which it was agreed to create the International Brigade Memorial Trust. Pictured with him are several International Brigade veterans, along with family members, historians and representatives of the Marx Memorial Library, where the meeting was held.

but there is a lot of material available now that ‘Homage to ’, which takes the wasn’t then. I decided that what I wanted to side of ‘revolution’ over ‘war’, as you put it, write about were the right-wing conspirators, the and paints the Spanish Civil War as a people behind the conspiracy that led to the civil conflict between two unappealing war. I did some quite useful work on them and extremes who between them crush a noble then Carr came back and, in a very insensitive people’s revolution. Do you think Orwell’s manner, says: ‘You can’t do that, find something views, which tend to remove the Spanish else.’ So I began looking at a group called the Civil War from the context of the wider mauristas, the followers of Antonio Maura, who world war against fascism, are a factor in were key to the Primo de Rivera dictatorship. why the war in Spain is so rarely or poorly But I couldn’t find my way around the archives. taught in schools? Then in 1971 there came a point, away from I don’t think that is much to do with Orwell. Carr, when I thought, to hell with this, I’m going The dominant figures in the historiography of to do what I want to do and started to study the the interwar period tend to be either British, Second Republic and that became my thesis and American or German scholars and there is this my first book. notion that what’s important is a line that goes s With Santiago Carrillo (centre), leader of the PCE By now I was way behind in my PhD and my from London to Paris with a bit of a dip to Spanish Communist Party, and Nicolás Belmonte. grant had run out. I was having to earn a living in Rome and then to Berlin and Moscow. Spain Madrid, but absolutely loving it. I was doing all doesn’t even come into it. That is partly because kinds of things. I was a film extra in ‘Nicholas these people aren’t specialists. Just to cope with and Alexandra’ and taught American students. In the hard detail of British foreign policy, German 1973 Hugh Thomas went on sabbatical and I foreign policy, French, Italian, Russian foreign Andrew Wiard Andrew had two years as a temporary lecturer at Reading policy is a monumental task. Yet the Spanish as his replacement. Then in 1975 I was lucky Civil War is effectively the first battle in the enough to get a lectureship at Queen Mary Second World War, and appalling mistakes were College, University of London, on condition that made in British foreign policy at the time. I finished my PhD within a year. It was As I put it in ‘A Concise History of the published as ‘The Coming of the Spanish Civil Spanish Civil War’, the British ruling War’ in 1978 and got a rave review by Carr in classes put their class prejudices ahead of their The Observer, which, I don’t know, might even strategic interests. It was Churchill who went have been an apology of sorts. from class prejudice to strategic interests. He kept changing his mind and ended up, s Addressing the IBMT’s annual commemoration One of the books you must have read early from having been a fervent Franco supporter, on London’s Southbank in 2016. on in your studies is George Orwell’s CONTINUED OVERLEAF

¡NO PASARÁN! 15 PAUL PRESTON

FROM PREVIOUS PAGE What he actually witnessed and describes, do this in Britain, but the audience stood up at to being a supporter of the Republic. the excrement in the trenches, the rusty cans, the end and clapped for about 10 minutes. That failure on the part of the ruling classes the lack of food, the wasted bread, the mud in There are some wonderful scenes in the film, might explain something about how British your boots, all of that is brilliant, absolutely for instance when Loach gets real village small- historians see the war in Spain. But for the most superb reporting. What it was actually like to be holders to pretend what it would be like at the part they’re not really that interested. on the streets of Barcelona during the May time and to act out the issues of land reform; You need to be a historian of Spain to start Days is also great. that is absolutely brilliant cinema. The film seeing it and particularly to be a historian of the The political interpretation, however, is captures something very important and the international dimension of the Spanish Civil utterly inappropriate in many ways. Orwell framing of it is stunning, with at the start the old War. For instance, the conventional wisdom is leaves Spain in June 1937 and his book is man, who is this hero of humanity, dying in that the Germans and Italians intervened in published the following year. In it he’s saying Thatcherite Britain and then at the end the Spain because of ideological solidarity and in things which are taken by readers to explain Spanish earth being tossed on his coffin. order to try out weaponry. I don’t think that’s why the Republic loses the war nearly two years But there are things that I’m not so sure true. What they were doing is seeing how far after Orwell left Spain. That’s simply not valid. about: the American who shows up in jackboots they could challenge British and French What I’ve discovered recently is that in 1940 is shocking, even though I accept there were hegemony and change the international balance Orwell, as a journalist, is introduced to Juan some International Brigaders used as internal of power. This comes out at a meeting early in Negrín, who is in exile in London, and they have police in the Republic’s army; also, the depiction the war between Franco, Göring and Mussolini, a long series of conversations. But Orwell of the POUM volunteers as a group of really doesn’t mention his links with the POUM. He groovy, beautiful people. I wrote once, and this ‘My main argument keeps that quiet and years later when Negrín made some people upset, that this is Cliff finds out he is shocked. Negrín is a very Richard’s ‘We’re all going on a summer holiday’ against the film, as well reasonable person, but he ends up saying that, if meets the Spanish Civil War. But my main Orwell had been honest with him, their argument against the film, as well as with as with Orwell’s book, is relations might have been different. However, Orwell’s book, is that, if you knew nothing about that, if you knew in 1943 Orwell writes this long article, ‘Looking the Spanish war, you would come away from the Back on the Spanish Civil War’, which is film thinking the Republic was somehow nothing about the actually very good – and very different to defeated by Stalin and not by Franco, Hitler, Spanish war, you would his book. It clearly reflects his conversations Mussolini and the British establishment. with Negrín. . come away from the Another discovery I’ve made is a letter in The Spanish Civil War continues to cast a December 1938 from Orwell to Frank Jellinek, long shadow over Spanish society. Yet other film thinking the an Austrian sociologist who had been in Spain. countries suffered a comparable collapse in Republic was Orwell confesses that most of what he wrote in the 20th century and all seem to have ‘Homage to Catalonia’ about the POUM he recovered better than Spain. What is it somehow defeated by didn’t believe. He thought they were wrong at about the Spanish experience that is so Stalin and not by the time and he thinks they are wrong now, but different? he felt he had to write what he did in the spirit That’s a really easy question to answer. In Franco, Hitler, of fair play. Germany, Italy, Japan and other countries the Mussolini and the After the Second World War, Orwell fascist or the extreme rightist experience is becomes very anti-communist and he writes brought to an end by external defeat. In British establishment.’ ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘1984’. He also corrects countries like France, once the occupation had ‘Homage to Catalonia’, but surprisingly, given come to an end, they could go back to the sort when Göring effectively says to Mussolini: what he has learnt from Negrín and what he of democracy they had had before. In Germany ‘Come on, we’ve got to hurry up. There is no really thinks about the POUM, he only makes there is a very serious government-sponsored way the British and French are going to carry on relatively small changes. One of my conclusions process of de-Nazification, overseen by the letting us do this.’ is that, even though Orwell knows he was wrong occupying powers. The same is true of Italy about many things in ‘Homage to Catalonia’, he and Japan. You’ve recently published couple of very doesn’t make the necessary corrections because That doesn’t happen in Spain. Franco strong critiques of ‘Homage to Catalonia’. those things he wrote in 1938 have by now literally gets away with murder during and after What’s the reason for this? aligned themselves with what his anti- the Second World War because the eyes of the One of my constant beefs is that people read communist readers are thinking during the world are on other things. Franco’s links with one book, usually ‘Homage to Catalonia’, and Cold War. the Axis are quietly forgotten. During the Cold think they have the right to pontificate about War, when it’s believed that Western Europe is the Spanish Civil War. Yet Orwell is only in Do you regard the film ‘Land and Freedom’ at any minute about to be invaded by the Soviet Spain for six months. The idea that he’s totally in much the same way as Orwell’s memoir? Union, Franco becomes a better bet than honest isn’t sustained by a detailed reading of If you know nothing about the Spanish Civil wanting the Republic back. After all, the his book. He says himself that his Spanish was War, the Ken Loach film is a great movie. I can Republicans are allegedly the puppets of appalling and his Catalan was non-existent, yet remember seeing it in Spain after it first came Moscow. This is done even though there is a he relates in detail conversations that he could out in 1995 in a cinema full of Spaniards who degree of distaste on the part of much of the only have had in Catalan. were weeping with emotion. They don’t tend to British establishment, and of course the

16 ¡NO PASARÁN! International Brigade Memorial Trust

Labour Party doesn’t cover itself with glory asking questions and you get the movement for novels of Pérez Galdós to see that in Spain there vis-a-vis Franco, because Ernest Bevin as the recovery of historical memory and the push is a huge tradition of corruption, that you go Foreign Secretary goes along with the to find where the bodies of Franco’s victims are into public service for private gain. It’s one of establishment line. buried. But there are problems. People are the ways in which you can survive. Franco has, from 1937 in those areas where dying out. DNA testing costs a fortune, as do The corruption under Franco was rampant he’s already in charge and from 1939 in all of the excavations, and the new law makes no and actually a lot of recent research has shown Spain, total control of essentially a terrorist provision for any of that. Many municipalities how Franco was personally involved. If you’d regime. There is a huge investment in terror, a are opposed to it and say that in any case they asked me about this when I was writing my viciously repressive state apparatus and total can’t afford it. With the economic crisis and biography of him I would have said: ‘Well, control of the education system and the overall, Franco wasn’t corrupt,’ although I media. Until his death there is a great national would have added: ‘He didn’t need to steal, brain-washing. ‘To this day there are because he thought it was all his anyway.’ But He dies in 1975 and there’s a very complex many Spaniards now we know he was stealing as well. process until elections in June 1977. In those There were also mistakes made by the post- 18 months, and even indeed for a long time brought up thinking Franco democratic regime. There are specific after, no-one wants to rock the boat. There is Franco was a good legal issues, such as the law that allows the fear of another civil war or another dictatorship. status of land to be changed and the powers that The left goes easy and doesn’t push for historical thing, that the local mayors have been given to do that – which memory and recognition of what went on under can lead to backhanders. Franco. The October 1977 Amnesty Law Republic was prevents any judicial proceedings against the responsible for the Given what you’ve just said, and what we perpetrators. There is also the fact that over saw with the independence referendum in those 40 years of dictatorship there are nearly civil war and so on.’ Catalonia last October and the very heavy- three generations of people who’ve been taught handed response from Madrid, do you that Franco was a wonderful man, that he saved massive unemployment, people have more think Spain can be regarded as a mature Spain from the bloodthirsty hordes of Moscow. immediate problems. democracy? That doesn’t go away when Franco dies; nor I don’t think it’s easy to make comparisons. Just does it go away when there are democratic You’ve always been a defender of the think about the antics of politicians in this elections that bring in a very conservative and transition, saying just now that it was a country over Brexit. Don’t get me wrong – I am limited democracy. The transition is a miracle miracle under the circumstances. But do absolutely appalled by the things that have gone under the circumstances, but the new you think that el pacto del olvido [the pact on in Spain, but I am absolutely appalled too by democracy and the early governments are made of forgetting] and other shortcomings the things that are going on here. I always used up of Francoists. They’re not going to start a you’ve just alluded to have anything to do to say when talking to Spaniards that the process of counter brain-washing; that never with some of Spain’s current problems – the difference between Spain and Britain was that happens. To this day there are many Spaniards constitutional crisis centred on Catalonia, we have this concept of being able to agree to brought up thinking Franco was a good thing, the political corruption scandals and the disagree. That simply does not exist in Spain. that the Republic was responsible for the civil ongoing memory wars? Spaniards are Manichean: those who are not war and so on. The way those three issues intertwine is very with me are against me. But that’s true here In the mid 1970s there were still many complicated. For instance, there are people on now because of Brexit. I am an absolutely people who remembered the war. The women the left who would be fervent advocates of fervent remainer, but I could also rant and rave whose husbands, fathers, brothers and sons died exposing more of the crimes of Franco, but who for some time about the faults of the European in the war or were murdered are not going to are equally strong supporters of Prime Minister Union, which is a fat bureaucracy that doesn’t say anything because they have lived in terror. Mariano Rajoy for his hard line over Catalonia. listen to people, and that’s part of the problem. Their children have been brought up in silence That’s not about the Spanish Civil War. Why is I’m writing a book at the moment, which is and they are told: ‘Whatever you do, don’t that? First of all there is a historic anti- supposedly a history of Spain from 1874 to the mention that we were Republicans,’ or ‘Don’t Catalanism which has been stoked up by the present day. I don’t want simply to do a resumé speak Catalan in school.’ government and the extreme right over the past of everything I’ve written, so, after much thought, What might be a bit more difficult to explain 10 years. Some of the things you hear people I’ve come up with what I see as the three themes is why this has gone on for so long. I can saying in this regard are truly appalling. The of Spanish history during that period. They are remember being asked in the late 1980s by a generating of anti-Catalan sentiment is partly corruption, the incompetence of the political Spanish journalist how long the hatred would about masking corruption, but it’s a two-way class, and the consequential breakdown in social continue and I said confidently that it was all a street, because there has also been massive cohesion. The title is ‘A People Betrayed’. I’m matter of time and that time would heal corruption in Catalonia. not half way through, but sometimes I feel I’m everything. It has taken a hell of a lot longer. Where does the corruption come from? writing an editorial for The Guardian. It’s Perhaps it’s not as burning an issue as it was That’s one of the things I’m struggling with at exactly what we’re living through here. when the Law of Historical Memory, for all its the moment. Corruption in Spanish politics Just to go back to your question, if we start huge limitations, was passed in 2007. But I think goes back centuries. There is a notion, which trying to compare Spain with other democracies part of that is because of the economic crisis used to be the case in Britain – but is less so all within the European Union, then what about that followed. It’s not really until the end of the the time – that you go into public service for the Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary or Poland? Spain 20th century when the grandchildren start public good. But you’ve only got to read the CONTINUED OVERLEAF

¡NO PASARÁN! 17 PAUL PRESTON BOOKS & THE

FROM PREVIOUS PAGE considered one of the favourites was one by licia Monedero is a London-based has monumental problems, but name me a Steven Pinker, arguing that humanity is just Spanish artist, teacher and tutor. country that hasn’t. getting nicer and nicer and I’m thinking: ‘How AHer main interest is in trans- could you possibly think that?’ generational memory and the role that Finally, given that the Spanish Civil War I still get very angry. I’m absolutely fierce on family and events play in our lives. Her saw the agonising defeat of the Spanish the mistakes of British foreign policy and I learnt latest project is to create an exhibition Republic, terrible repression and four a lot while writing ‘The Last Days of the Spanish expressing her gratitude to the British decades of brutal dictatorship, has there Republic’. One of the things that I really can’t volunteers for their participation in the been any emotional cost to you personally get over is that any general book on the Spanish Spanish Civil War. She has already started from your scholarship? Has it affected Civil War sees General Casado, who led the to create a body of work for the exhibition, your view of humanity, or can you detach coup against Negrín at the end of war, as a good which she hopes will help remind future yourself from all of the horrors that thing because he supposedly heroically stopped generations of the generosity and solidarity you’ve studied? the communists from taking over. That’s of the International Brigades. Central to the That’s a really good question. It’s certainly the nonsense. The invariably cited source for this is project, she says, is her focus on those case, for instance, to think of an extreme case, Casado’s memoirs, which are completely made families whose relatives took part in the when I was writing ‘The Spanish Holocaust’, up – just like the fake books of Walter Krivitsky conflict in whatever capacity. Gabrielle, my wife, on numerous occasions and Alexander Orlov. As I tried to show, Casado’s ‘These families’ values have often been would come home and I would literally be motivation was much more selfish. He was shaped by the war in Spain and the weeping. I mean that book is horrific. How the hoping to be able to stay in Spain, to keep his experiences and sacrifices of their family rank, keep his pension and so on. At the end of members who took part,’ she explains. ‘So the war what happens is the anarchists, who are to pay tribute to their memory and continue ‘I still get very angry. part of Casado’s junta, do absolutely nothing to spreading the word – not just about the I’m absolutely fierce facilitate evacuations and save lives. But Casado Spanish Civil War and the role of British and his friends all get away to England, including volunteers – but also the resurgence of on the mistakes of the anarchist chequistas who were responsible fascism today – I would like to meet or talk British foreign for murdering hundreds if not thousands of with the descendants of those volunteers.’ people in Madrid. The British government lets She continues: ‘At various IBMT events policy…’ them in, though they didn’t want Negrín, an I have seen how some people are overcome internationally respected physiologist, a man with emotion remembering what happened hell can people do such things? I don’t know who speaks eight languages, who is as cultured in Spain 80 years ago and it always touches how I wrote it. I do not know how people can as it is possible to imagine. I’ve found documents me. I believe our relatives’ memories and read it. from Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax basically experiences, whether we know much about I only put stuff in the book that I could prove, saying: ‘We don’t want that hooligan Negrín them or not, become also ours and stay with as it were, but I had many people writing to me here,’ yet they allowed in these killers and set us throughout our life. at the time. To take one example, a woman them up. One even gets a restaurant in Regent ‘My grandfather fought on the Madrid wrote to me and she said: ‘When I was three, the Street. It just leaves you frothing at the mouth front when he was only 17 and survived. Falangists came and they threw us all out of the with indignation. Other families were not so lucky. In Spain house and then they put my parents and my So, has all this had an emotional impact? It’s older brother back and they set fire to the house probably driven me into reading detective stories and left me on the street to watch.’ Can you and watching sit-coms on TV. After the horrors imagine? of my work I don’t have much emotional room When ‘The Spanish Holocaust’ was for anything but light entertainment, so that’s an Many fronts shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and the impact. I’ve also learnt a lot about politics and papers were talking about which book was likely about relationships, but as a historian your in the battle to win, the other book along with mine that was career should teach you about life. for history

‘Memory Battles of the Spanish Civil War: History, Fiction, Photography’ by Sebastiaan Faber (Vanderbilt University Press, 2018, £33.50).

18 ¡NO PASARÁN! ARTS International Brigade Memorial Trust Inspired by memories Exhibition to pay tribute to spirit of the volunteers

With The Young’uns s ‘NUWM Hawick’ (2018, digital print) pays The Young’uns met up with IBMT activist tribute to those workers in Hawick who brought Duncan Longstaff (second from left) in Bath a mill back to life to send scarves, gloves and on 21 March during their nationwide ‘Ballad blankets to Spain. on Johnny Longstaff’ tour named after Duncan’s father. Johnny Longstaff, from t ‘Journey’ (2017, ink and embroidery) is inspired Stockton-on-Tees, fought in the International by the British volunteers who undertook the Brigades and was also a veteran of the anti- difficult journey across the Pyrenees to reach Spain. fascist Battle of Cable Street in London in October 1936. Pictured with Duncan are: Sean today there are many families whose stories objects or letters from relatives could form Cooney (left) and (from right) Michael Hughes are still unresolved. For me, highlighting who part of the exhibition or inspire an artwork. and David Eagle. was on the side of justice and made the For her art, Monedero uses different forms The trio’s latest album, ‘Strangers’ (Hereteu conflict their cause it is very important.’ of drawing, with media such as graphite and Records), has won the 2018 BBC Radio 2 folk Alicia would like to create pieces of work inks deployed either in isolation or with over- music award for album of the year. It includes that reflect an aspect of each volunteer or printed material to produce her images. ‘Cable Street’, a song written by Sean Cooney their relatives. She is looking for people who She says she is especially interested in what about Johnny Longstaff. Another Cooney would like to share their memories and has been forgotten or hidden and, by composition, ‘Bob Cooney’s Miracle’, is based experiences through conversation or by ‘investigating the relationship between on an episode in the life of one the leaders of exchanging correspondence (email photography methods and drawing’, bringing the British Battalion during the Battle of the [email protected]). Also, personal such memories ‘back to the surface’ of her art. Ebro in 1938.

hen General Franco For them, difficult and painful Civil War’ has bravely ventured. died in November 1975, memories, like the thousands of Laid out in five main sections, Whe was convinced that unmarked graves by Spanish ‘Memory Battles of the Spanish his regime would continue after roadsides, are something to be Civil War’ is an attempt to find him, that ‘everything is tied down unearthed, not forgotten. answers to three key questions: and well tied down’ (todo está Unsurprisingly, efforts to How have fiction and photography atado y bien atado). Yet within establish the truth behind the shaped memory? How has three years Spain had – surprisingly murder and persecution of democratic Spain dealt with the peacefully – been transformed into thousands of Spaniards have legacy of the civil war, the a democracy. This transition, encountered considerable dictatorship and the transition? however, demanded a huge resistance from certain quarters. How have media producers and sacrifice from the victims of Consequently battles over very academics engaged with the Francoism, asking them to set aside different historical interpretations, process of ensuring that Spain their grievances and sign up to el the so-called ‘memory wars’, are progresses as a unified functioning pacto del olvido, the pact of currently being heatedly fought out democracy? forgetting. within Spanish culture and society. Sebastiaan begins an erudite, Fearful of sliding back into victims, far removed from the years It is onto this battlefield that wide-ranging and thought- dictatorship, Spaniards kept the of civil war and dictatorship, are Sebastiaan Faber, co-editor of provoking discussion with a pact, though two generations later proving to be less restrained than ALBA’s excellent magazine, The re-examination of the work and the consensus has essentially their parents and are demanding Volunteer, and author of ‘Anglo- impact of Robert Capa, Gerda Taro broken down. Grandchildren of the answers. American Hispanists of the Spanish CONTINUED OVERLEAF

¡NO PASARÁN! 19 BOOKS & THE ARTS

FROM PREVIOUS PAGE ‘Javier Cercas offers English. Cercas offers good advice, and David Seymour (‘Chim’), and noting that ‘the first thing to do Following in the great Catalan photographer good advice, noting when reading a novel is to distrust Agustí Centelles. He amply that “the first thing the narrator.’ The same could be her father’s demonstrates how the meaning of said of history itself, of course, an image changed dramatically to do when reading a where the eminent EH Carr during the war, depending on its novel is to distrust famously advised students to ‘study footsteps use and its context within a the narrator.” The the historian before you begin to photographic montage. However, study the facts’. ‘The Communist and the the author is no doubt correct same could be This book should prove to be of Communist’s Daughter: A Memoir’ when he argues that, fascinating said of history great interest to anyone interested by Jane Lazarre (Duke University though they are, the images are in the historiography of Spain and Press, 2017, £22.99). unlikely to actually change itself…’ provides ample evidence that historians’ views of the civil war. artists and writers are not neutral ane Lazarre here weaves a The second section of the book ‘reframing’ the past. As you’d bystanders in these contemporary complex and fascinating tackles the central theme of expect from this stellar collection of ‘memory wars’. It also asks Jmemoir of her father, the life- historical memory and the voices, there’s much of interest intelligent questions of historians long communist, party organiser conflicting narratives that exist in here. Ángel Viñas is in typically and academics. What is their role and Spanish Civil War veteran, Spain, the argument between the bombastic form and I enjoyed in all of this? Should they just William Lazarre/Bill Lawrence. value of recovering historical Helen Graham’s optimistic comment from afar? Or should She does it in the form of an inter- memory and the dangers of assertion that history ‘is the they positively engage? generational dialogue. reopening old wounds. As the ultimate antidote to any kind of Sebastiaan Faber’s involvement Her father came to the United author states, witnesses to the past, over-simplification’. While all with the Contratiempo collective States at the beginning of the 20th including historians, can also be historians choose the stories they and the open-access Universidad century, to escape the pogroms in witnesses in a trial of Francoism. want to write about, that doesn’t del Barrio in Madrid show his Tsarist Russia. Already enthused Books such as Paul Preston’s ‘The necessarily prevent them from views clearly enough and will, I by the ideals of communism, he Spanish Holocaust’ certainly doing so fairly and – relatively – suspect, chime with many joins the US Communist Party and provide ample evidence for the objectively. members of the IBMT. As the becomes a full-time organiser. prosecution. After a discussion of the author states, ‘fields like history and He volunteers for Spain in Alongside Helen Graham, contribution of three Spanish politics are not just too important December 1936, leaving New York Ángel Viñas, Gabriel Jackson, and intellectuals, the book’s final to leave to the experts; they are harbour on the SS Normandie Pablo Sánchez León, Paul Preston section examines the role of fiction. fields that should be of interest to bound for Le Havre. Arriving in appears in the third section, an It concludes with a look at some of everyone because they are Spain, he becomes a commissar examination of how current the work of Javier Cercas, who has everyone’s concern.’ with the Lincoln Battalion. Almost historians are interpreting, or been widely translated into RICHARD BAXELL a year later, in October 1937, ‘Bill

Donald Hutchison: An unusual man

‘A Cherry Dress’ by Peter Bild and intriguing overview of her uncle’s protest against Hitler outside the Irene Messinger (eds.), (V&R shadowy life. There is more to German embassy in London and unipress, Göttingen, 2018, €40). come, Katharine has told the IBMT, jailed for one month. From then on as she is also working on a full his movements and activities were he convoluted and biography of the family member monitored by the British secret mysterious life of British who was one of the first Britons to services. Tvolunteer Donald Gabriel volunteer to fight the fascists In Spain he was known as Hutchison Douglas (1915-1981) is following Franco’s military revolt in Donald Hutchison. In ‘Boadilla’ told in this newly published book the summer of 1936. She hopes to Esmond Romilly remembers ‘Dan’ about his first wife, Anita Bild, a include some ‘juicier details’ of a life as a ‘cheerful and good-natured’ Jewish refugee from Vienna whom that took Uncle Donald from Londoner. He first flew as a he married five days before the London to Madrid, Berlin, Warsaw machine-gunner in the Republic’s outbreak of the Second World War. and Geneva. airforce, before transferring to the volunteer Renée Durrmeyer, a Donald (pictured right) was gay, but Born in Ilfracombe, Devon, Fifth Regiment and then to the cousin of his wife-to-be, Anita Bild. wedlock saved Anita from Donald arrived in Spain in August Thälmann Battalion, when he Following a brief stay in deportation to Europe and Nazi 1936. His studies at Cambridge suffered a serious hand injury in England, Donald returned to Spain persecution. University had been cut short. He fighting in the Casa de Campo, in July 1937 and worked with Jim His story is told by Dr Katharine was already a communist with an Madrid, in December 1936. Ruskin in the signals section of the Campbell, who in an aptly titled anti-fascist record, having been Coincidentally, his injured hand British Battalion, before being chapter, ‘An Unusual Man’, gives an arrested in December 1933 at a was dressed by Austrian communist repatriated in May 1938. In London

20 ¡NO PASARÁN! International Brigade Memorial Trust

describes the profound friendships communists and their ideas. She blamed him, unfairly, for her formed between men who knew has experienced the elation and mother’s death. She peels away the nothing of each other before comradeship, but also ostracism hurt and then reveals the layers of Spain. and a sense of being different to misunderstanding, exploring his The author, his daughter, visits other children, of learning to lie to life and her own relationship with Spain in 2013 to retrace her the FBI agents arriving on the him and his politics. In a father’s footsteps, curious to know doorstep looking for her father. meticulous, elliptical way, she how modern-day Spaniards reflect builds up a fascinating interlace on the civil war, if at all, and what ‘For her, it is also an between the personal weft and the their attitudes are. For her, it is political warp of both their lives, also an attempt to relive history attempt to relive and in doing so creates a fitting and gain a deeper sense of what history and gain a monument to a selfless and heroic Spain meant to her father. The US communist. Spanish Civil War, she writes, deeper sense of When she visits modern-day ‘had its mythic place in our what Spain meant to Spain to retrace her father’s childhood’. her father. The footsteps she finds those battles of Back in the US, Bill Lawrence the 1930s still resonating today. would spend time in prison as a Spanish Civil War, Into this rich fabric of his East result of his activism and, in the she writes, “had its European Jewish heritage and 1950s, he falls foul of the deeply-held communist beliefs, Lawrence, the popular and McCarthy witch-hunts and is mythic place in our she introduces an Afro-American hardworking American Political threatened with deportation for childhood”.’ element through her marriage to a Commissar of the International refusing to testify against his black American from the deep Brigades base’ left Spain after comrades. She writes movingly of her south and bringing up two mixed- months of ‘unstinting and fruitful The postwar splits in the US turbulent relationship with her race children. activity’. Communist Party and the later father, of her rebellion during her This is a memoir rich in Once back in the US he Khrushchev revelations cause him teenage years, but also of his intelligent reflection of an aspect continued working for the Spanish great heartache as well as the loss unstinting love for her. This book of US political history that receives cause and, in early 1938, still of friends. To compound his woes, is an attempt to discover who her little airing; an elegantly written hoping for victory, he wrote his wife dies of cancer when their father really was, the significance and moving account. ‘Democracy’s Stake in Spain’. two daughters are quite small, of his life and his contribution as a JOHN GREEN Here, he recounts stories of leaving Bill to bring them up by communist to US society. individual soldiers, most of them himself. The author also attempts to l A shorter version of this review involving heroic deaths, sacrificing Jane, his elder daughter, has come to terms with her teenage appeared in the Morning Star on themselves to save others and he grown up surrounded by rejection of her father, when she 15 January 2018. he worked for the Czechoslovak Donald had cited the benefits of the France and England, in 1960 he Refugee Trust, while raising funds communist system in Poland, and eventually settles in Geneva, making for Republican Spain. his disillusionment with the Labour a living as a freelance interpreter During the Second World War government in Britain that had with the United Nations. There he he served briefly in the RAF but “begun, step by step, to submit its lived for the rest of his life, bringing was forced to leave, possibly foreign policy, defence plans and its up two adopted Ethiopian brothers, because of his Communist Party economic policy to the United Girma and Moges. He married membership. Then, as a merchant States, that is, to a small group of briefly again in 1975, this time to an navy deckhand, he was suspected multimillionaires’ families who rule American woman wanting by the British secret services to be the United States”.’ residency in the UK. acting as a communist courier. However, with ‘typical paranoia’, In 2014, Katharine managed to The war over, Donald pops up in writes Katharine, the Polish state track down her adopted African Berlin in 1946, while en route to security service mistrusted him, cousins. One is now a corporate jet Warsaw. In the occupied German saying he was very articulate in pilot, the other an economist with city he is arrested in undisclosed using communist vocabulary, but the International Labour circumstances and only released they were unsure of his intentions. Organisation. They both recalled following an appeal to his brother, He was suspected of spying, that Donald spoke to them about who happened to be the military he works for various German and partly due to his contacts with two things in particular: Poland and governor of the British zone. Polish communist publications and George Scott, the British consul the Spanish Civil War – underlining His links in London to the pro- applies to become a Polish citizen. in Katowice. yet again the powerful and lasting communist Friends of Democratic But, as his niece recounts, the Spurned by both sides in the impact that the Spanish Civil War Poland had already attracted the Polish authorities were suspicious. Cold War, Donald left Poland in had on so many lives. attention of MI5. Once in Poland ‘In his interview for citizenship, December 1951. After interludes in JIM JUMP

¡NO PASARÁN! 21 FINAL WORD International Brigade Memorial Trust

By Pete Morgan

ebruary this year saw the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory at Stalingrad – widely Frecognised as the decisive moment in the defeat of Adolf Hitler and his allies. Despite its importance, the anniversary passed without any notice here. This overlooking of the Soviet contribution to the Second World War is pretty routine in Britain. It’s a contemptible oversight, not least in Pete Morgan as an undergraduate at how hypocritical it is. Wadham College, Oxford, with a display From Downing Street to my street in south he created to mark last year’s 80th Manchester, we Brits tend to explain our s Local hero: Albert anniversary of the Battle of Jarama. commemoration of those who fought against the Charlesworth. Nazis and the other Axis powers by saying they ‘fought for our freedom’. We’re right to do this. Bringing the fascists down was a noble fight and In praise of the IBMT’s act of… it ennobled those who took part in it. Why then do official commemorative acts in Britain only properly recognise the service of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces? INSURRECTIONARY If the worthiness of these men and women is truly derived from their having contributed to the defeat of Hitler and his gangsters, then Red Army troops are no less deserving – likewise COMMEMORATION Greek partisans, Chinese soldiers, African- American pilots, and millions more. place in Britain’s commemorative routines refute the idea that the British state was the first The same is, obviously, true of the because of the pressure of subsequent Anglo- to stand up to fascism, but their history draws International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War: Russian rivalry both during and after the Cold attention to the inconvenient fact that, before men and women who marched to Spain to fight War, for example. Russia could not and cannot be Britain stood up to the Axis, it spent several years on the first frontline against fascism. represented as good. But why have the doing everything but. These soldiers get no more official recognition International Brigades received this same That’s why, if we leave collective in Britain than the Red Army. And in this case, cold-shoulder from British officialdom? remembrance to the state, the International the (superficial) excuse of ‘they’re not British’ There are several reason why the volunteers Brigade volunteers would fade away. They make does not work. Britain was one of the top 10 as history, memory, and symbols deter the British the state look bad and – even though they show nationalities represented in the Brigades, with state. For one thing, they ruin the congratulatory the very best of the British people – that’s too story Westminster tells itself that Neville high a price to pay for Whitehall functionaries. ‘The IBMT keeps in view Chamberlain’s government was the first to take a This is the cardinal virtue of the International stand against fascism when on 3 September 1939 Brigade Memorial Trust. Operating in the field of the women and men of the he declared war on Germany for invading civil society, totally independent of the Brigades, whose memory Poland. Before the USSR, before the USA, Great government, it is performing an act of Britain stepped into the breach. insurrectionary commemoration. It keeps in view would otherwise be The existence of the International Brigades the women and men of the Brigades, whose dimmed…’ spoils this picture. Volunteers began moving memory would otherwise be dimmed, their toward Spain as early as the summer of 1936. legacy uncherished and unknown. 2,500 troops from our shores fighting Franco and With Franco marching on Madrid, thousands Not unlike the volunteers themselves, the his allies Hitler and Mussolini. answered the plea of the Republican government. Trust sees the British government doing There’s a lesson for us in this official silence One was the 21-year-old Albert Charlesworth conspicuously nothing and so takes matters into toward our heroic Brigadistas. We cannot afford of Manchester, who sailed to Spain motivated by its own hands. Where those Brigadistas who to delegate the organisation of our practices of the notion that ‘the whole thing was absolutely fought Franco saw fascists advancing and remembrance to the state; especially to a state so unjust for a military man to try and overthrow the declared ‘they shall not pass’, the Trust sees them dominated by conservative forces as ours is. legal government, and especially when that legal getting more and more distant in time and Why is the British state so bad at government was a government of the people.’ declares ‘they shall not pass from memory.’ As commemoration? Because it has historically had But while legions of its citizens were taking an outsider, this is why I’m grateful for the work a particular set of political priorities concerned action, the British government resolutely did the IBMT does. with self-protection and legitimation, which nothing but appeal for ‘non-intervention’. It was mould how it deals with the past. one of the worst excesses of the Tories’ l Pete Morgan is a graduate history student at Oftentimes, the result of this ‘moulding’ is appeasement of fascism in the 1930s. University College London. He also blogs for the silence. The Soviet role in fighting Hitler finds no The International Brigades, then, not only Radical Tea Towel Company.

22 ¡NO PASARÁN! Merchandise from the IBMT

Proceeds help fund the commemorative, educational and publicity work of the International Brigade Memorial Trust.

Keyring in colours of the Free postage & International Brigade flag: Replica of the Spanish Republic: Large flag of the mainly English-speaking IBMT badge: Solid metal packing on goods badge size (5.5cms diameter). 15th International Brigade, which included badge with International Women’s t-shirt: Fitted t-shirt featuring £3.99 plus £2.99 p&p. the British Battalion. Based on the flag of the Brigade medal in centre totalling £30 or names of British nurses who served in Spain. Spanish Republic. 150cms x 87cms. and ‘International Brigade more. Made for the IBMT by t-shirt specialists £10 plus £3.99 p&p. Memorial Trust’ around Philosophy Football from ethically sourced the edge. cotton. ‘International Brigade Memorial Trust’ £3 plus £2.99 p&p. Send orders, on sleeve. Available in XXL (size 18); XL (size including your name 16); L (size 14); M (size 12). and address, a size £15.99 plus £4.99 p&p. and colour where appropriate, and a cheque payable to Mug: On one side the the IBMT to: IBMT International Brigades three- pointed star and on the Merchandise, 37a reverse the words of La Clerkenwell Green, Pasionaria: ‘You are legend’. London EC1R 0DU. £9.99 plus £3.99 p&p. Tin-plated badge: Shows

image of La Pasionaria and in the background the medal For multiple orders in given to International the UK up to a value ¡No Pasarán! bag: Ethically sourced jute bag Brigaders when they left of £30 (excluding (30cms square, 18cms across). One side Spain. In Spanish Republican printed, other blank. Robust, useful for any colours. p&p) calculate total shopping trip and a great way to show £1.99 plus £2.99 p&p. p&p by taking the support for anti-fascism and the IBMT. highest p&p among £4.99 plus £2.99 p&p. items ordered, halving the p&p of the remaining items Brooch in colours of the and adding them Spanish Republic: Bespoke together. perspex laser-cut brooch designed for the IBMT in art British Battalion t-shirt: In red or grey and deco style. 6cms x 4.5cms. made for the IBMT by t-shirt specialists For orders outside £9.99 plus £3.99 p&p. Philosophy Football from ethically sourced cotton. British Battalion banner on front and the UK or to pay by ‘International Brigade Memorial Trust’ on credit card or PayPal, sleeve. Available in: S (36inch/90cms chest);

M (40inch/100cms); L (44inch/110cms); go to our website: XL (48inch/120cms); XXL (52inch/130cms); Clenched fist sculpture: www.international- fitted women’s (34-36inch/70-90cms). Volunteers for Liberty plate: Highly Life-sized sculpture in brigades.org.uk/ £15.99 plus £4.99 p&p. decorative commemorative plate made in specially treated concrete. merchandise.php Staffordshire by Heraldic Pottery exclusively for Based on the clenched fist where there are the IBMT. Fine bone china. 26.5cms diameter. created by sculptor Betty Rae also other items Re-issue of the much sought after 50th for the top of the pole of the Three-pointed star anniversary plate produced by International original British Battalion listed for sale. International Brigade Brigade veteran Lou Kenton. Includes mount banner. 23cms high. The brooch: Bespoke perspex for wall display. clenched fist was the iconic laser-cut brooch designed for SPECIAL OFFER: £19.99 plus £5.99 p&p. salute of the Popular Front the IBMT. 4.5cms x 6cms. and is still used by anti- £8.99 plus £3.99 p&p. fascists around the world. £29.99 plus £7.99 p&p.

15th International Brigade t-shirt: With flag of 15th International Brigade, which included British, Irish, American, Canadian and Commonwealth volunteers. ‘International Three-pointed star International Brigade Brigade Memorial Trust’ on sleeve. Available in earrings: Bespoke perspex laser-cut earrings Earrings in colours of the S, M, L, XL, XXL and fitted women’s size International Brigades designed for the IBMT. 2.5cms x 3.5cms. Spanish Republic: Bespoke (see British Battalion t-shirt for size details). keyring: In Spanish £7.99 plus £3.99 p&p. perspex laser-cut earrings SPECIAL OFFER: £13.50 plus £4.99 p&p. Republican colours. designed for the IBMT in art £3.99 plus £2.99 p&p. deco style. 3cms x 2.25cms. £8.99 plus £3.99 p&p. International Brigade Memorial Trust Keeping alive the memory and spirit of the SAVE THE DATE volunteers who fought fascism and defended democracy in Spain from 1936 to 1939 The IBMT’s Annual General Meeting will this year be held Help us inspire new generations with the story of the International Brigades in Hull on Saturday 13 October. All members are invited to l To give a donation go to www.international- brigades.org.uk and click the donate button attend and to enjoy a weekend of commemorative l To become a member go to www.international- and social activities. brigades.org.uk/catalog/membership International Brigade Memorial Trust ¡No pasarán! 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU 020 7253 8748 [email protected] www.international-brigades.org.uk They shall not