The Abraham Lincoln brigade

Ed Balchowski, the one-armed piano player read his poems with his daughter Zelda, at Garbo‘s. He tells us he was in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, fighting fascism. He said an army of civilians, a politically conscious People’s Army traveled to to the Spanish Republic. The communist party workers in Spain needed to fight fascism, and International troops sneaked into Spain. He tells us of a nurse named Selma O’Reilly, women ambulance drivers and everyone made up stories of why they were going to Spain. Some posed as archaeologists, others as doctors, nurses. It was a five-hour hike over the Pyrenees. There was a US embargo, Roosevelt refused to support democratic Spain  and sided with Franco. He saw the republic as a communist threat. Even the Catholic Church supported Franco while the Germans bombed civilian towns, Madrid Guernica Bilbao. It was not very glamorous, not like in the movies. The lies. Mañana that all familiar cry. We ran out of munitions and medical supplies.  He sings Spanish Civil War songs. Ed says no pasarán, with the stump of his left arm orchestrating the air. They subsisted on mule meat and garbanzos. The government went with the embargo to Spain and people in America protested it, there was tons of food and clothing waiting. We put pressure on Washington to deliver the goods. In 1938 the US embargo lifted, we were there with no arms, pre-World War I weapons, Napoleonic? He mentions his comrades in arms—Hemingway writing For Whom the Bell Tolls, he mentions Langston Hughes, he mentions Lilian Hellman and Paul Robeson—all who spent time at the front. He said the USSR was the only country to send arms to Spain. We were truly an international brigade, Americans, the English, the French, the Italians, the Poles,  the Russians, all part of the international brigade. He raised his right arm in a salute. Fascist troops drove the brigade to the sea. Hitler invaded Austria and 70% of the Lincoln brigade was dead or lost. For every action there is a reaction 3200 Americans died, half the victims return to the United States and continued to fight the war in the US. So much sorrow, we were defeated but we won the war against fascism, D-Day 1945. When we returned home, we were harassed by the US Army and McCarthyism was a witchhunt. I didn’t look ahead, I was doing what I wanted to do. I didn’t think of getting killed. I don’t regret the loss of an arm. It seemed like the right thing to do. Aye Manuela The Abraham Lincoln brigade.