2024-01-27 21:26:52
We had left them, the interbrigadistas, leaving Spain after having offered a generous tribute of blood – from 25% to 33% casualties – and a brilliant record of service to their credit, since the early and providential defense of Madrid in 1936, repelling the coup troops at the gates, to decisive battles in Jarama, Guadalajara, Brunete, Belchite, Teruel, Aragón, the Ebro offensive…
On October 28, 1938, the International Brigades paraded through the streets of Barcelona for the last time in a tribute chaired by the President of the Republic and the President of the Council of Ministers, Manuel Azaña and Juan Negrín, respectively, accompanied by more than 250,000 grateful citizens. and in which Dolores Ibarruri, ‘La Pasionaria’, dedicated an emotional farewell to them: “Mothers! When the years pass and the wounds of war heal, when the memory of these painful and bloody days fades into a present of freedom, peace and well-being (…) tell your children about these men of the International Brigades. Tell them how, crossing seas and mountains, they came to your homeland as crusaders of freedom, to fight and die for the freedom and independence of Spain, threatened by German and Italian fascism. They abandoned everything: love, country, home, fortune, mother, wife, brothers, children…, and they came to us to tell us: Here we are! Your cause, the cause of Spain, is our same cause, it is the common cause of all advanced and progressive humanity. We will not forget you and when the olive tree of peace blooms, intertwined with the laurels of the victory of the Spanish Republic, come back!”
#Disillusionment #controversies #International #Brigades #Civil #War