When international volunteers from around the world decided to join the Spanish Civil War, an important question was always how to cross borders and reach Spain. For American volunteers, it first meant to find a ship to cross the Atlantic to Europe. The United States signed the Neutrality Act in August 1935 (amended in May 1937) that made it illegal to travel to Spain, seeking to prevent American volunteers from joining the International Brigades. It also prohibited the sale and transport of arms as well as financial assistance to Spain. Additionally, in August 1936, the United States signed the Non-Intervention Agreement with several other countries, including France and the United Kingdom. After the devastation of World War I, they hoped to prevent another global war by limiting foreign involvement in armed conflicts.
To circumvent the authorities, American volunteers traveled to Europe, pretending to be students, tourists, or archeologists. Many American volunteers made their way on ships to the north of France, then continued to southern France eventually crossing into Spain. In the beginning, volunteers crossed by boat, but then they became targets of Franco’s Nationalist forces and their Italian allies. In May 1937, for example, the Ciudad de Barcelona with over 200 volunteers on board was torpedoed by the Nationalists off the Catalonian coast, killing scores of people, among them over a dozen American volunteers. The other route to Spain was walking across the treacherous Pyrenees mountains. About 200 volunteers died attempting to cross these mountains before they could set foot on Spanish soil.
After Franco’s victory in Spain in April 1939, returning home was difficult for the International Brigades volunteers. Many faced challenges regarding their legal citizenship status by their home countries since they had been fighting illegally in Spain. While some volunteers were repatriated quickly, others spent months in French internment camps or remained exiled in other European countries. The beginning of the Second Word War in September 1939 complicated their situation further. Some were eventually sent to Nazi German concentration camps.
Chris Brooks. “85th Anniversary—Sinking of the Ciudad de Barcelona.” The Volunteer (28 May 2022).
Giles Tremlett. “The Afterlives of the International Brigades.” History Today (15 October 2020).
Alan Warren and Sonia Garangou. “The Sinking of the ‘Ciudad de Barcelona,’ 30th May 1937.”
The Voyages to Spain
The American volunteers who signed our fan arrived in Spain over a period of several months in the course of 1937. John Palu and Hans Maslowski sailed together from New York on the SS Paris on February 6, 1937. Carl Slater and Ramon Pedrero left later that month on the President Roosevelt and the Ille de France respectively Bob Steffens and Michael Feller boarded the Queen Mary to France on October 20, 1937. Three other volunteers (Michael Sidorovich, Walter [Ted] Lewis, and Joseph Yonules) followed a few days later. The rest departed in the spring and summer: Bali Kilas in March, Peter Reed in May, John Stuivenberg and Harold Dean in June, Maurice Hawkins in July, Harry Moshier in August, and Marshall Yermendjian in September.
The transatlantic crossing usually lasted about a week. But as the war conditions in Spain changed, so did the travel experiences of the volunteers. Arriving in France in February 1937, John Palu, for example, entered Spain by bus from Perpignan, a town on the French Mediterranean coast. When France closed the border with Spain in March 1937, volunteers were forced to travel by land further west to cross the Pyrenees on foot. Arriving at the Catalan villages of Massanet and Setecases, they were taken to the town of Figueres and joined the International Brigades in Albacete and other locations.
Chris Brooks. “A Disturbing Trend in Recruitment.” The Volunteer. (10 January 2020).
Repatriation
After the Spanish Prime Minister, Juan Negrín, proclaimed in September 1938 that all international volunteers were to return to their home countries, most volunteers were evacuated from Spain. The return of American volunteers was complicated by the fact that many no longer had passports; others needed special permission to return because they had entered Spain illegally. The League of Nations set up a Repatriation commission to assist the volunteers with their repatriation.
The men who signed the fan received the news of the repatriation while fighting in Levante. They were initially taken to the countryside around Valencia. It was in Villanueva de Castellón that they met the Repatriation Commission in December 1938. In January 1939, they were taken by truck to the port of Valencia where they sailed to Barcelona. They continued north by train, joining other volunteers at Cassà de la Selva and Figueres on their way to the French border. Retracing the steps taken at the start of their trip, they moved from southern France to Paris and eventually to Le Havre to board a ship to New York. Most of them sailed on the President Harding on January 26, 1939, arriving in New York on February 4, 1939. Significantly, four of the European-born volunteers (Hans Maslowski, John Palu, Ramón Pedrero, and John Stuivenberg) had a different journey. All of them were detained in French camps.
Camps
While waiting for repatriation, some international volunteers were detained in French camps when crossing into France. These camps were built to contain the influx of refugees fleeing from Spain after Franco’s victory. The majority of the refugees were Spaniards but some were International Brigades volunteers. Sidney Kaufman, John Palu, and Ramon Pedrero Perez were sent with other Republican soldiers and Spanish men to a French camp at Argelès-sur-Mer, with no shelter and few supplies, while Hans Maslowksi and John Stuivenberg were detained in the camp of St. Cyprien. Maslowski was not able to return to the United States until March 24, 1939. Stuivenberg, whose departure was delayed until April 1939, was deported after his arrival to the United States and had to return to the Netherlands. Palu returned to New York in April 1940, on a ship sailing from Tangiers, Morocco. We do not know whether Pedrero, a Spaniard, was able to return to the United States.
European Observatory on Memories (EUROM). “Argèles-sur-Mer.”
In many cases, international volunteers had to obtain special permissions from their national governments to return. The United States worked relatively quickly to bring their volunteers home. When Americans were imprisoned in French camps, they usually stayed only for a short time. Volunteers from other nationalities, especially when their governments did not support the Spanish Republican cause, were not as lucky. Among them were Germans and Austrians. Austrian International Brigades volunteer Hans Landauer, for example, was arrested in Nazi occupied Paris and sent to the Dachau concentration camp near Munich in June 1941. Spanish Republicans who ended up in French camps were also transferred to Nazi concentration camps. In the Mauthausen concentration camp, for example, survival chances were determined by the national identity of prisoners. Spanish Republicans initially had a very low survival rate, often murdered soon after their arrival. After an influx of other prisoner groups, however, the Nazis considered them less dangerous, and their survival chances increased. It is estimated that around 10,000 Spaniards were deported to concentration camps; close to half of them died at the camp of Mauthausen alone.
Mauthausen Memorial. The Mauthausen Concentration Camp, 1938-1945. “Groups of Prisoners.”
The National WWII Museum. “A Shocking Level of Brutality and Degradation: Dachau in Wartime.”