One of the American volunteers, Bill Bailey, wrote a book about his years in the International Brigades (The Kid from Hoboken) and dedicated the volume to his son: “To my son Michael, you are the best thing in my life. I tried to leave you a better world.”
Another volunteer, Canute Frankson, wrote a loved one on July 6, 1937 to explain why he, a black man, joined the Abraham Lincoln Battalion of the International Brigade: “You are still waiting for a detailed explanation of what has this struggle to do with my being here….Because if we crush Fascism here we’ll save our people in America and in other parts of the world from the vicious persecutions, wholesale imprisonment and slaughter which the Jewish people suffered and are suffering under Hitler’s Fascist heels.”
(Readers can ascertain from Mr. Frankson’s words what was known in the United States about Hitler and the Jews as early as July 1937.)
The Spanish Civil War attracted volunteers from about 55 countries who knew the dangers they were facing. They nevertheless came in substantial numbers to join the ranks of the Popular Front. Figures of participants differ. Ernest Hemingway claimed that “over 40,000 volunteers from 52 countries flocked to Spain between 1936 and 1939 to take part in the historic struggle between democracy and fascism known as the Spanish Civil War.”
The lowest estimate is about 32,000, but one is as high as 59,380. The largest contingents came from France (7,000), Poland (5,000), the U.S. (3,000), Britain (between 2,000 and 4,000), and Russia (in the thousands). There were volunteers from 50 other countries.
Despite the conspicuous presence of Jews, Jewish participation in the fighting ranks has generally not been acknowledged. There could be various reasons for that.
First, Jews usually were registered not as Jews but by their countries of origin.
Second, in some cases Jews, concerned their Jewishness might expose them to greater than usual dangers in a war against Fascist elements, used aliases.
Third, Jewish community organizations that normally would be pleased to underwrite research concerning Jews fighting against Fascists and Nazis were hesitant to do so in the instance of the Spanish Civil War, since those who volunteered would be counted first and foremost as Communists and fellow travelers. Jewish leadership may have been more anxious to clear the Jews of allegations of Communist affiliation – even if merely by association – than to take credit for them as anti-Nazi fighters.
While it is true that two-thirds of the United States Abraham Lincoln Brigade were Communists, many of the Jewish fighters were not. One volunteer wrote, “I am as good an anti-fascist as any Communist. I have reason to be. I am a Jew and that is the reason I came to Spain. I know what it means to my people if Fascism should win.”
Hyman Katz, from New York, did not tell his mother that he was determined to leave for Spain. When wounded, he decided to explain why he enlisted against her wishes. He wrote, “Don’t you realize that we Jews will be the first to suffer if Fascism comes?”
Samuel Levinger, of Columbus, Ohio, was killed in battle at Brunette. Throughout the war his father, Rabbi Lee J. Levinger, remained a loyal friend of the Lincoln Brigade.
In-depth research has shown that the extent of the Jewish presence in that crucial war was truly impressive. Though Jews were only 10 percent of the Polish population, 45 per cent of the Polish volunteers – 2,250 out of 5,000 – were Jewish. Jews, 4 percent of the U.S. population, were 38 per cent of America’s volunteer core. In France, where they were 0.5 per cent of the population, Jews made up 15 per cent of the volunteers. In Britain, where Jews were roughly 0.5 percent of the population, they comprised between 11 and 22 percent of the volunteers.
Palestine had its own contingent of 500 – 498 Jews and two Arabs.
(Jews from Palestine were distributed among diverse national units. There were Palestinian Jews in the Hungarian Rakosi Battalion, the French Six Fevrier Battalion, and others.)
The most conspicuous Jewish presence in the Spanish Civil War was that of a group called the Naftali Botwin Company. Botwin, a 24-year-old Jewish radical, was executed in Poland in 1925 for assassinating a Polish Secret Service agent. The special Botwin Company was formed in the Palafox Battalion of the Polish Dombrowsky Brigade in December 1937. The Company issued a Yiddish newspaper. Orders were written in Yiddish. It had a distinct Jewish banner, and the last stanza of the Company’s hymn proudly proclaimed “… how Jewish Botwin soldiers drove out the fascist plague.”