Ione Robinson in Barcelona

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Child in Barcelona 1938 by Ione Robinson.

“In September 1938, Robinson arrived in Barcelona. Over the course of two months, Robinson produced a series of drawings and paintingsin the Catalan munitions factories, refugios, hospitals; and on the Ebro front with the Republican 5th Army . As she writes in her 1946 memoir, A Wall to Paint On, “…in the drawings I have made here in Spain I have tried to express-through simple line-the agonizing effect of war upon the innocent victims: the women and children…through what I felt and saw in their eyes-and hands.” She left Spain at the end of October, 1938.” More here http://ionerobinson.org/

Canute Frankson

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Above photo Afro-American members of the Abraham Lincon Brigade.
“Why I, a Negro, who have fought through these years for the rights of my people, am here in Spain today? Because if we crush Fascism here, [we] will build us a new society – a society of peace and plenty. There will be no color line, no jim-crow trains, no lynchings. That is why, my dear, I am here in Spain.”Canute Frankson.
(to my dear friend).
Albacete, Spain, July 6, 1937.

Street sign guerillas

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Somebody last year had the fun idea in Barcelona of sticking up the 1936-39 street names over the plaques with today’s names.  This particular street (Marqués de Campo Sagrado) was renamed after anarcho-syndicalist printer Tomás Herreros Miguel a month after he died in 1937. PS it wasn’t me.

Martha Gellhorn on the Spanish maquis

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Referring to the contribution of the Spanish Maquis to the French resistance movement, Martha Gellhorn wrote in The Undefeated (1945):

“During the German occupation of France, the Spanish Maquis engineered more than four hundred railway sabotages, destroyed fifty-eight locomotives, dynamited thirty-five railway bridges, cut one hundred and fifty telephone lines, attacked twenty factories, destroying some factories totally, and sabotaged fifteen coal mines. They took several thousand German prisoners and – most miraculous considering their arms – they captured three tanks. In the south-west part of France where no Allied armies have ever fought, they liberated more than seventeen towns.”

Still Cause exhibition

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If you happen to live near Falkirk (Scotland), my friend Christine Jones has organised what looks like a very interesting exhibition (until 20 April) inspired by Gerda Taro. Christine notes

“Still Cause is a project and exhibition focused on the struggle for justice and recognition which is ongoing in Spain post-Franco, with the notions of memory, loss, activism and solidarity implicit within the work. Initially inspired by the photojournalist Gerda Taro and her work during the Spanish Civil War, this first exhibition is dedicated to her memory.”

http://www.falkirkcommunitytrust.org/venues/park-gallery/