The Abraham Lincoln Brigade

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade. It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees! – Dolores Ibarrúri. The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Memorial is part historical marker, part veterans memorial and entirely a work of art. It consists of a number of panels. The panels are in 15 columns of three rows each. Not all panels contain text, and some panels of this much vandalized marker are missing. The columns are presented left to right with each column’s rows presented top to bottom unless otherwise noted., Column 1, The artist must take sides. , He must elect to fight for , freedom or for slavery. , I have made my choice. , I had no alternative. , - Paul Robeson, Singer and Actor, While the International Brigades were only a small portion of the total Republican armed forces, the played a crucial role, especially at the early stages of the war. Our values went beyond our numbers because our presence showed that the Spanish people had many supporters, even though the Western nations refused to help the Republic. We were a volunteer army inspired by conviction and became a powerful symbolic force. – Steve Nelson, Volunteer, Column 2, You are history. You are legend. , You are the heroic example of , democracy’s solidarity and , universality...We shall not forget , you, and when the olive tree of , peace puts forth its leaves again , entwined with the laurels of the , Spanish Republic’s victory – , come back! , - Dolores Ibarrúri, La Pasionaria, The middle panel is missing and the text of this panel is part of the text included in the bottom panel of column 2 and the middle and bottom panels of column 3., ... story of ordinary... people who, for the... traveled outside... their lives for the...demonstrate that... the preserve of those we call “intellectuals,” that assembly line workers, nurses, and sharecroppers are capable of seeing their won struggles tied to working people throughout the world. – Robin D.G. Kelley, Historian, Column 3, top panel, There will always be a place for us somewhere, somehow, as long as we see to it that working people fight for everything they have, everything they hope to get, for dignity, equality, democracy, to oppose war and to bring to the world a better life. – Harry Bridges, Labor Organizer, Column 4, If you look out the window and see a hungry emaciated child and do not feel a desire to do something to make the world a little better – then you’re not a complete human being. – Abe Osheroff, Volunteer, os he visto , y mis ojos están hasta ahora llenos de orgullo , porque os vi a través de la mañana de niebla llegar a la frente pura de Castilla , silenciosos y firmes , como campanas antes del alba , llenos de solemnidad y de ojos azules venir de lejos y lejos, , venir de vuestros rincones, de vuestras patrias perdidas, de vuestros sueños , llenos de dulzura quemada y de fusiles , a defender la ciudad española en que la libertad acorralada , pudo caer y morir mordida por las bestias. , - Pablo Neruda, Poet, The bottom panel is an English translation of the poem above. Half the panel is missing., ... full of raging gentleness and rifles , to defend the Spanish city in which corralled liberty , might fall and die, devoured by the beasts. , - Pablo Neruda, Poet, Column 5, If there are men who are composed of a soul without frontiers, , a forehead scattered with universal tresses, , covered with horizons, ships and mountain ranges, , with sand and with snow, then you are one of them. , The olive groves will set about piercing you bones, , unfolding their most ferrous of roots in the earth, , embracing men universally, faithfully. , -Miguel Hernandez, Poet, The middle panel is a map of the conflict., Spain changed my whole life. I saw a country struggling – ordinary people, peasants, poor people. They couldn’t even read or write, but when these young people came up to the front, we became an integrated army, the people struggling against the oppressing group of fascists. It left an indelible impression on my mind. So when I got back, I decided that I was going to be committed to furthering the cause of people, whatever I did. – Dave Smith, Volunteer, Column 6, Spain has been etched in the hearts of our generation... and carried around like a terrible wound. Spain gave us our first taste of defeat, and because of her we discovered with an enduring shock that one can be right and still be defeated, that sheer force can trample the human spirit underfoot, and that there are times when courage goes unrewarded. Without a doubt, this explains why so many people the world over have experienced the Spanish drama as their own personal tragedy. – Albert Camus, Author, For never before in the history of the world had there been such a body of men – a spontaneously gathered international volunteer army, drawn from every stratum of human life and every human occupation, handworkers and professionals, intellectuals and farmers. The very existence of this army, that had played so crucial a role in the Spanish war, was guarantee of international working-class brotherhood; the final proof that those who perform the work of the world possess a common interest and an identical obligation... These men had fought and died with and for each other, their roster was the roster of mankind. – Alvah Bessie, Volunteer, Column 7, Top panel, map of the conflict area, Center panel missing, I... told myself over and over again that as long as the sirens sounded the planes had not yet arrived... I went through the square quickly and towards my hotel and when I first heard the noise of the motors I didn’t want to turn to see where they were. I thought: in that hotel room is a toothbrush, a clean nightgown, a cake of soap, and old coat and a box of lousy candy. Yet I am hurrying to it, it is where I am trying to go, it is the place where I have what belongs to me. And I knew suddenly why even the poorest women in Madrid wanted to stay with what was theirs. – Lillian Hellman, Author, Column 8, Top row, columns 8, 9, 10 and 11; The Abraham Lincoln Brigade title, All night, all night , flared in my city the bright , cruel explosion of bombs. , All night, all night, , there, where the soil and stone , spilled like brains from the sandbag’s head, , the bodiless head lay staring; , while the anti-aircraft barked, , barked at the droning plane, , and the dogs of war, awakened , howled at the hidden moon. , And a star fell, omen of ill, , and a man fell, lifeless , and, friendless, my friend. , And I stumbled away from them, crying , from eyeless lids, blinded. , Trees became torches , lighting the avenues , where lovers huddled in terror , who would be lovers no longer. , - Edwin Rolfe, Volunteer , Column 9, center panel, ... the first American volunteers in Spain entered into battle at Jarama Valley in defense of Madrid. Many of the American volunteers who went to support the Spanish Republic in 1937 and 1938 were actively involved in the efforts to “organize the unorganized,” from the factories of Pittsburgh to the coal mines of , Column 9, bottom panel missing, Column 10, center and bottom panels, I have praised the Causa of the Republic of Spain on the slightest provocation for twenty years, and I am tired of explaining that the Spanish Republic was neither a collection of blood-slathering Reds nor a cat’s-paw of Russia. Long ago I also gave up repeating that men who fought and those who died for the Republic, whatever their nationality and whether they were Communists, anarchists, Socialists, poets, plumbers, middle-class professional men, or the on Abyssinian prince, were brave and disinterested, as there were no rewards in Spain. They were fighting for us all, against the combined force of European fascism. The deserved our thanks and our respect and got neither. – Martha Gellhorn, Author, Column 11, center panel missing, Column 11, bottom panel, ... Salvador, Nicaragua, South Africa, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq... After fifty, sixty, even seventy years of commitment to radical dissent, Lincoln veterans had come to view political agitation as the surest measure of personal fulfillment and the value of a life’s work. – Peter N. Carroll, Historian, Column 12, ... you may wonder why I write as if we had been here for years when we came here three weeks ago today. Well, a day seems ten weeks, sometimes a year. It seems as if we had been here for months as New York is a faint and unreal dream. All our lives we seem to have been running back and forth along these cold corridors, all our lives we have hated white moonlight because it means the birds of death are busy nearby... – Frederick Martin, Volunteer, Poet , On the battle front of the world, , What does your heart hear, , What poems unfurl , Their flags made of blood , To flame in our sky – , Bright banners , Made of words , With red wings to fly , Over the trenches , And over frontiers, , And over all barriers of time , Through the years , To sing this story , Of Spain , On the ramparts of the world – , What does your heart hear, , Poet, , What songs unfurl? , - Langston Hughes, Poet, Column 13, I think going to Spain made me feel that I was part of the world, that I could play a role no matter how small, and that it was significant. And I think that I lost a lot of my fear...what can be worse than dying? There’s really very little worse. And once we didn’t die, and we survived it, and we came back, other things were never that frightening again. - Ruth Davidow, Volunteer, Column 13, center and bottom panels are missing, Column 14, top panel, If you have tears to shed for the million dead of the Spanish Republic, save them. Shed them for the million dead of Vietnam. And if you feel moved to praise the courage of the defenders of Madrid, save that praise too. Save it for the young men of you own generation who share with you the agony of Vietnam and who resist the war. - Robert Colodny, Volunteer, The poem below fills the center and bottom panels of columns 14 and 15., Brothers, from now on , may your purity and your strength, your solemn history , be known by the child and the man, by the woman and the old man, , may it reach all beings without hope, descend into the mines corroded by sulphuric (sic) air, , climb the inhuman staircases of the slave, , may all the stars, may all the wheat shoots of Castile and the world , write down you name and your bitter struggle , and you victory, strong and terrestrial like a red oak. , Because of you sacrifice you have made lost faith, , absent soul, confidence in the earth, be reborn, , and through your abundance, through your nobleness, through you dead, , as if through a valley of hard rocks made of blood, , flows an immense river with doves of steel and hope. , - Pablo Neruda, Poet