Michael Feller’s parents Isaac and Rebecca arrived in the United States in the early 1900s as Jewish immigrants from Galicia, Poland, once part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Feller’s Jewish identity motivated him to fight against fascism in Spain and later against the rise of antisemitism in Europe during World War II.
Faith and the Good Fight
Michael Feller was born on July 29, 1918 in Manhattan, New York, to parents deeply devoted to Judaism. He grew up in a large family with ten siblings. His bonds to his Jewish family and faith marked his time with the International Brigades in Spain. Feller arrived in Spain in October of 1937 from New York, having spent time in Jerusalem where some of his relatives lived. His father Isaac had died there in 1934. His older brother Joseph and their nephew Hyman Katz were already fighting in Spain.
Like several of his fellow volunteers, Feller had been in the Young Communist League, where he served on the Executive Committee. In August 1937 he joined the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), a likely factor in his decision to support the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. In Spain, he also joined the Socorro Rojo (1937) and the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) (1938). In his PCE membership application, Feller mentioned three names supporting his request, all of them signatories of the fan, among them Hans Maslowski.
Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI)
Feller’s letters from the Spanish Civil War attest to his strong family ties. In a letter from September 1938, he thanked his sister Claire for sending him “three copies of Jewish Life,” a monthly magazine aligned with Jewish support for the Popular Front and the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The magazines, he thought, were important for his fellow volunteers. “You know,” he wrote to his sister, “how indifferent the American youth is to the [Jewish] national problem and how little is known about Jewish life, culture, history.”
Feller believed that his comrades needed to be educated about Jewish life and Jewish national hopes in Palestine. In an earlier letter in April 1938, Feller revealed his enthusiasm for the presence of, as he put it, “Jewish-speaking battalions” that embraced Jewish traditions while in Spain. Jews with Zionist aspirations had arrived from Palestine to fight in Spain, his letters attested.
Jewish and Zionist ideas also informed the political aspirations of Hyman Katz, Feller’s nephew. Remembered by his brother as an “anti-fascist rabbi and Zionist,” Katz believed that the defense of the Jews was as important as the defense of the oppressed. In a letter to his mother Leah, Katz wrote: “I took arms against the persecutors of my people—the Jews,—and my class—the Oppressed.”
Hyman Katz’ departure for Spain in the summer of 1937 had left his family in anguish. In his letters, Katz lamented the pain he had caused his mother when he joined the International Brigades. He also expressed concerns over the rise of Benito Mussolini, Italy’s Prime Minister and the Duce (leader) of Italian Fascism and Adolf Hitler, Germany’s Chancellor and Führer (leader) of the Nazi Party. Katz reasoned that fighting Franco’s nationalists in Spain was crucial to stopping the spread of fascism and antisemitism in Europe. “This is a case,” he wrote, “where sons must go against their mothers’ wishes for the sake of their mothers themselves.”
Like Katz, Michael Feller believed that fighting fascism was an extension of his Jewish faith. Feller wrote that the Jewish volunteers who lost their lives in Spain “lived up to the Jewish tradition which was so dear to them and which they cherished all their life.”
Family and Activism
The three men from the same family who fought in the same war occupied different military ranks. Michael Feller served as a cartographer in the 35th Battery of the 4th Artillery Group, while his brother Joseph joined the ranks of the Canadian Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. Their nephew Hyman Katz served in the Lincoln-Washington Battalion of the 15th International Brigade until their retreat from the battle of Belchite.
The correspondence between Feller and his family reflects the complex relations between political activism and family ties. Recovering in the hospital at Benicasim, a protective Katz wrote a letter to Political Commissar John Gates, requesting that his young uncle Michael not be sent to the front lines upon his arrival in Spain. He pointed out that Feller was not yet nineteen years old and that he had a brother, Joseph, fighting at the front. Katz pleaded for Michael to be assigned to Albacete, the headquarters of the International Brigades. In a letter home, Katz reported happily that he had been able to see Michael “twice (3 days each time)” and that Feller was not at the front. “He has an important but safe job as topographer,” Katz wrote.
ALBA Photographic Collection (Tamiment Library, New York University).
Michael Feller’s letters to his family revealed similar strong bonds. Worried about his brother’s injuries, Feller assured his family in April 1938 that Joseph had fully recovered and been sent back to his battalion. He also updated his sister Claire on the whereabouts of Hyman Katz. After Feller had seen him at the battle of Teruel in late February 1938, he reassured his sister that Hyman was in good health. However, he might not be able to write because, his right arm was “out of commission.”
Tragically, both Hyman Katz and Michael Feller’s brother Joseph died in Spain, Hyman Katz in early March 1938 at Belchite and Joseph at the Ebro Offensive in August 1938.
Enduring Conflicts
A few months after Franco announced the official end of the Spanish Civil War, another war broke out in Europe when Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Like many volunteers, Feller had been aware of Hitler’s ties to Franco during the Spanish Civil War before World War II started. In April 1938, he wrote home: “The [Spanish] people know that they are fighting against Hitler, Mussolini, the Mikado, and International Fascism.”
After his return to the United States on the SS President Harding in February 1939, Feller’s sense of duty to combat fascism led him to enlist in the Air Force when the United States entered World War II in December of 1941. He served in the 534th Bomb Squadron. He was killed in action in France in October of 1943 and was buried in the Lorraine American Cemetery in France.
Other members of Feller’s family kept on the struggle, like Aaron Katz, Feller’s nephew and the brother of Hyman. As director of the National Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Case, Katz spent decades trying, in vain, to rehabilitate Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a couple tried and executed for espionage in 1953. The Rosenberg case also involves Michael Sidorovich, another signer of the fan.
In another twist of tragedy, Michael Feller’s cousin, Abraham Feller, committed suicide in 1952 in New York. Abraham Feller had worked for the United Nations since 1946, serving as the UN first general counsel and director of its Legal Department. The suicide occurred at a time when a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate investigated alleged communist subversion at the United Nations, though no accusations were leveled against Abraham directly.
Michael Feller’s political commitment, like those of his family, grew out of Jewish social justice traditions.
FURTHER READINGS
Matthew Hoffman. 2010. “The Red Divide: The Conflict between Communists and their Opponents in the American Yiddish Press.” American Jewish History 96/1 (March):1-31.
Hyman Katz and Michael Feller. 1986. “Letters from the Front of Spain, 1937-1938.” Jewish Currents 40/4 (April):5-9, 32.
Raanan Rein. 2012. “A Belated Inclusion: Jewish Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War and Their Place in the Israeli National Narrative.” Israel Studies 17/1:24-49
Colin Schindler. 1986. “No Pasaran: The Jews Who Fought in Spain.” The Jewish Quarterly 33/3:34-41.
SOURCES
“Joseph Samuel Feller.” The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. Biographical Database.
“Michael Feller.” The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. Biographical Database.
“Michael Feller.” Personal File. RGASPI. Fond 545, Opis 6, File 888.
Dennis Hevesi. 2008. “Aaron Katz, Advocate for Rosenbergs, Dies at 92.” New York Times (October 5)
“Hyman Jacob Katz.” The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. Biographical Database.
“United Nations: Death of an Idealist.” Time (24 November 1952).