Stories from the Spanish Civil War reconstructs and retells the stories of American volunteers serving in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War (1936 -1939).
This research project is based on one historical artifact: a Spanish fan signed on the back by thirty-one men. The men had joined the International Brigades to support the Spanish Republic against the nationalist forces of General Franco. The fan was signed in Levante in the fall of 1938, when the International Brigades were being dismantled and the volunteers awaited repatriation to their countries.
The project traces the lives of the sixteen American volunteers who signed the fan as well as the fan’s owner, who did not sign it. The fan was also signed by British and Canadian volunteers, but due to time and resource constraints, their stories are not covered on this website.
In a creative and unique way, the project uses the volunteers’ personal stories to illuminate important aspects of this crucial conflict, both a civil war and a defining moment in the international struggle against fascism in the 1930s.
Background
In March 2020, Bernd Häber, a resident of Phoenix who grew up in East Germany, approached the Martin-Springer Institute at Northern Arizona University with a few objects related to the Spanish Civil War: a fan signed by 31 members of the International Brigades, an International Brigade identity card, and two black-and-white photographs. Häber had received these objects from his great-uncle Johann (Hans) Maslowski, their original owner.
Born in Germany, Maslowski had migrated to the United States in 1927; in 1937 he joined the International Brigades in Spain as an American volunteer. In 1969, he and his wife Anna visited Häber’s family in East Berlin and he handed the fan and photographs to Bernd, still a child. The objects were kept in a box for years, until they resurfaced in 2020.
Bernd Häber asked Björn Krondorfer, the director of the Martin-Springer Institute, whether students might be interested in reconstructing the stories behind the men who had signed the fan and unveiling the possible connections between the fan and the photographs of Hans Maslowski with other men in Spain. Krondorfer contacted Ana Varela-Lago, then a history faculty at Northern Arizona University who taught courses on modern European history. Together, they mentored and facilitated this two-year public history, student-faculty research project.
The Martin-Springer Institute, founded by Doris Martin, a Holocaust survivor from Poland, and her husband Ralph, is engaged in developing public history and public humanities projects that address situations of grave communal harms and injustices. Reckoning with history while showing pathways of resilience, courage, resistance, and repair are essential aspects of working with university students on these projects. The institute has successfully completed similar projects over the years (see, for example, Through the Eyes of Youth: Life and Death in the Będzin Ghetto and The James P. Kuykendall World War II Photography Collection).
The hand-painted Spanish fan signed by these 31 men in 1938 is an entry point to understanding a fight for justice. It offers an opportunity to bring awareness to the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War – a subject that is largely unfamiliar to university students today. Understanding history through an original material object with the task of researching and reconstructing the stories of these men eventually led to the creation of this project.
Development
In the Spring of 2021, the Martin-Springer Institute assembled a multidisciplinary team of students to ascertain the viability of this research project. Would it be possible to identify the men who signed the fan? Would we find enough information to tell their stories, and – through their stories – talk about the international volunteers in the Spanish Civil War?
Meticulous research in various archival and historical sources allowed us to identify every one of the American, Canadian, and British men who signed the fan – though Hans Maslowski’s signature is absent. We assume, but cannot be certain, that the fan was presented to Maslowski in 1938 as a parting gift by this unit of English-speaking international volunteers.
Originally titled, A Fan, A Photo, and the Spanish Civil War, the project aimed at reconstructing the lives of all signatories. However, time and resource constraints led us to concentrate on the American volunteers only.
Once it became clear that all American signatories could be identified, the student-faculty research team discussed options of how to best bring this project to the attention of a wider public. During the initial steps of the project, the team produced two research posters with relevant findings. They were presented at the NAU Undergraduate Symposium (2022) and at the meeting of the American Historical Association in New Orleans (2022). As the project evolved, we decided to design this educational website.
Goals
The primary educational goal of Stories from the Spanish Civil War is to offer a new venue for students, educators, and the general public to learn about the Spanish Civil War through personal stories and to appreciate the courage of all international volunteers who fought for justice and the protection of a democratically-elected government. Their commitment to transnational solidarity is portrayed in the various shades of gray that always accompany political choices and the brutal realities on the battlefields. This is particularly true for the 1930s with the rise of fascism in Europe (Germany, Italy, and Spain), and with the Spanish Civil War, the latter often interpreted as a dress rehearsal for World War II.
A secondary goal is the hope that relatives of these volunteers find our website with its stories and resources to learn about the choices and fates of their relatives more than eighty years ago. We hope that they might contact us with more information and documents to complement these stories.
Finally, we hope that other student-faculty research projects at universities in Canada and Great Britain might contact us and work with us to add to this website the stories of the Canadian and British volunteers who signed the fan.