This is a great video about Scottish anarchist Ethel MacDonald who was in Barcelona between 1936 and 1937, working with the CNT. In the crackdown after May 1937 she assisted the escape of anarchists wanted by the Communist secret police and by helping anarchists escape Spain, she became renowned in the British press as the “Scots Scarlet Pimpernel
This is a great slideshow of photos of Anarchism in Spain between 1936 and 1939. El Público
In the above photo, peasants arrive in Barcelona from the Aragonese front in 1936. The photo is in Plaça Catalunya.
I love this version of Ay Carmela in Serbo-Croat
A short letter from an Amercian member of the POUM describing the Stalinist repression in Barcelona in 1937
http://orwell.ru/a_life/Spanish_War/english/e_harry
Dear Marty:
The P.O.U.M. has been suppressed. Its paper and plant, all institutions and buildings seized. All occupants arrested. Most of the leaders including Nin have been jailed.
Every foreigner not a Stalinist is suspect and scores and scores have been arrested.
Hundreds arrests take place. The streets bustle with armed assault guards and a Hitlerite tenor prevails.
All prisoners are held incommunicado; a gigantic frame-up is being concocted. The charge: Criminal political conspiracy with the German and Italian fascists.
I’ve been running around like a hunted rat. Detectives have appeared at my hotel. Fortunately, the clerk speaks English and gave me warning. …
Interesting piece on the CNT film industry during the Spanish Civil War
Collectivized Creativity: The Rediscovered Films of the CNT | Film International
It was in August 1936 that the SUEP decided to create a ‘Committee of Cinema Economy’ in order to define the goals and decide on the administration of the amusement industry within the revolutionary movement. Early in 1937, SIE Films (‘Union of the amusement industry’) was created, and it was under its label that most of the CNT films appeared. As Prost observes in his documentary: ‘Right from July 1936, the anarchists decided to work within this essential dimension of the culture industry that is the cinema’. The film industry was therefore collectivized by the CNT, and its members produced and directed documentaries, newsreels and fiction films, all of which are anchored in the events of the war and revolution. They made no less than 200 documentaries and eight fiction films.
Mother nursing a baby while listening to political speech, near Badajoz, late April–early May 1936. By David Seymour.
Penny Feiwel obituary - The Guardian Nurse who volunteered to serve on the Republican side during the Spanish civil war
Puerta del Sol, Madrid scene of the 2011 protests, after being bombed in 1936-37. Forms part of an excellent set
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nite_owl/3648322692/in/set-72157620116063488
Remarkable photo of CNT workers and student volunteers off to defend the reservoirs in the sierra north of Madrid. The photo was taken on 28 July 1936, a week after the military rebellion was defeated in the city. Thanks to Glenn for sending me this.
Was Gerda Taro murdered by Stalinists? This article in the New Statesman by Robin Stummer, based on an interview with Willie Brandt, thinks so.
Gerda Taro was a fearless, pioneering chronicler of the Spanish Civil War. Robin Stummer uncovers evidence to suggest that her unflinching pictures led to her murder. Read
However….
In an interview with the Spanish daily El País, a nephew of a Republican soldier at the Battle of Brunete explained that she had died in an accident. According to the eye-witness account, she had been run over by a reversing tank and she died from her wounds in El Goloso English hospital a few hours later. Wikipedia
The Spanish Holocaust
2011/7/3
The legacy of Francoism
2011/7/2
Helios Gómez: gypsy anarchist
2010/5/23
I’ve added a short biography of Helios Gómez, perhaps the best known gypsy artivist in the Spanish Civil War, and author of many Republican propaganda posters.
Interview with Paul Preston
2010/5/23
Audio interview with Paul Preston here on Canal Ser in Spanish about his book We Saw Spain Die about foreign journalists in the Spanish Civil War.
From review of We Saw Spain Die
In the minds of these correspondents, the quest for truth was not compromised but enhanced by commitment. This testament to their testimony could not have been supplied by a more erudite expert. Preston is a peerless historian of Spain, and the only one who writes as readably as a professional journalist.
