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5. Documentary evidence & witness accounts 

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• The Spanish Civil War  Very good site by Cary Nelson of the University of Illinois. Includes an overview of the war, a photo essay, a chronology, posters, flags, letters by American volunteers, poems, as well as articles and speeches by George Orwell, La Pasionaria, Ernest Hemingway, Bernard Knox and Tony Hendra.
• Dreams and Nightmares In 1976 the International Brigade Association celebrated its 40th Anniversary Reunion.  In response to this event, the Sound Archive of the Imperial War Museum began an oral history project on the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Listen to oral extracts from some of the interviews with International Brigade veterans.  The Spanish Civil War sound collection is largely made up of interviews with British people who served with the International Brigades.  There are also recordings of medical aid workers, non-British volunteers, Spanish soldiers and Spanish civilians and refugees. The collection contains very few interviews with soldiers who fought with Franco's forces. Appeals for Nationalist veterans have yet to yield a response.
• Spain, 1931-36, From Monarchy to Civil War, An Eyewitness Account  by Ronald Hilton Professor Emeritus, Stanford University.
• Germany and Italy recognise rebel government UK Guardian newspaper report of 19 Nov 1936 
• Prisoners shot at as reprisals for air raids UK Guardian newspaper report of 31 Aug 1936

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• A Day Mournful and Overcast... An account of the Iron Column. A personal account of a liberated prisoner’s experience as a fighter during the Spanish Civil War and Revolution of 1936-9 in the anarchist militia unit called the Iron Column prior to its incorporation into the Communist-run Republican army
• Emma Goldman papers. Goldman was a sixty-seven years old anarchist when the Spanish Civil War erupted in July of 1936. It was less than a month after the tragic suicide of Alexander Berkman, her closest comrade and "chum of a life-time." The promise of an anarchist revolution in Spain revived Goldman's broken spirit. Despite her advanced age, Emma hurled herself into the Spanish cause with an enthusiasm reminiscent of her early activist years in America. This exhibition shows her papers and writings in facsimile as well as in text.
• Internet archives of Albert & Vera Weisbord. Essays by these leading Communist Radicals of the 1930's. Point of note: be patient, download is slow. Articles are contemporary to the war and include:
  • The Spanish Revolution
  • Long Live The Spanish Socialist Republic
  • Two Visits to Barcelona
  • The Huesca Front in Aragon
  • Barricades in Barcelona
  • Collectivization in Catalonia
  • The P.O.U.M. in Spain
  • Unique Problems of the Spanish Revolution
  • The Spanish Revolution at the Crossroads
  • The Underground Railway To  Spain
  • Outcast Spain
  • Covering the Evacuation of the Refugees
  • Perspectives of the Spanish Revolution
  • The Fight Within the Spanish Left
  • An Analysis of the Barcelona May Days
  • The Provocations of Bourgeois Democracy in Spain
• Altavoz del Frente Republican Songs from the war on the  website Canciones republicanas de la guerra civil española. (See also Music section below)

  

casahistoria home                              visit caféhistoria for updates and current topic news

 

6. Visual & literary materials 

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• Images from the Spanish Revolution of 1936 A selection of photos, mostly without context.....
• Shots of War: Photojournalism During the Spanish Civil War Good article and materials on this crucial aspect of the war. From the Southworth Collection At the University of California at San Diego. (mostly 1936-1939; facsimile images). Hint: Click the tabs for the images...
• Proving that Robert Capa’s “Falling Soldier” is Genuine: A Detective Story Excellent article by Richard Whelan for PBS, very well illustrated to outline then demolish the argument that the famous Capa photo was fake. See also

  New evidence on mystery of famous 'faked' soldier photo Andrew Johnson article (Sept 2008) describes further evidence to deny the Capa “faked photo” story

• They Still Draw Pictures is a digital reproduction of the 1938 book with the same title of childrens drawings done in Spain during the civil war. The book was first published in New York by the Spanish Child Welfare Association of America for the American Friends Service Committee in 1938. A very interesting resource

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