A memorial to the 7,000 Jews from all over the world who fought against fascism in Spain from 1936-39 was unveiled in Barcelona on Sunday.
President Chaim Herzog of Israel was surprised but not displeased to learn that the 6-foot-high stone monument is engraved with a quotation from a speech he delivered in Tel Aviv several years ago.
The occasion was the convention of Jewish volunteers of the International Brigade, which fought on the side of Republican Spain against the nationalist rebels led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco and supported by Hitler and Mussolini.
The quotation, in Spanish, reads: “The victory of fascism in Spain paved the way for Hitler and led to the annihilation of human dignity. Fifty million people, 6 million of them Jews, paid with their lives.
“Honor is due to the thousands of volunteers who, arms in hand, took a stand here against fascism. There were many Jews among them. Haim Herzog, president of Israel.”
The President’s Office said Sunday it would have preferred the engraver to have spelled the president’s first name correctly, “Chaim.”
The memorial was built following the initiative of a Belgian Jew, Dov Liebermann, now 80, who wanted to let history know of the Jewish presence in the fight against fascism.
This visual tribute, which was fashioned in Brussels, was an opportunity to dispel the belief that Jews went like sheep to the slaughter at the hands of fascists and Nazis.
The memorial was sponsored by the Union of Old Jewish Resistants of Belgium and the World Federation of Veteran Jewish Fighters, Resistance Fighters and Camp Inmates.
The Jewish presence in the International Brigades comprised one-fifth of the 35,000-member legion, many of whom lost their lives in the fight.
JTA staff writer Allison Kaplan recently spent five days in Israel studying the historic absorption of Soviet Jews now under way there. She has written a comprehensive, five-part series on the absorption process, incorporating human, institutional and political perspectives.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
