Norman Gross

I came across this collection when I searched the Tamiment’s Finding Aids for photos. The finding aid said that this collection mainly concerned Nathan Gross’s life after the Spanish Civil War.

I thought it would be interesting to see the life of a volunteer after they returned from Spain. I had been hoping that the collection would contain letters, etc from his time in Spain and afterwards, so as to trace his life. However, the only thing in the collection directly related to his time in Spain was his Abraham Lincoln Brigade membership card.

In the collection, there were a lot of news clippings, pamphlets and brochures. One was a newspaper article that was a review of Peter Carroll’s The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade from 1994. There was also a playbill from 1986 of a Tribute to the Veterans of the Brigade at the Lincoln Center. There was a pamphlet from the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in 1981 advertising an event they had held protesting the government’s position towards El Salvador in 1981. Obviously, the Spanish Civil War remained an important part of Gross’s life. However, there was not much else that could be gathered from the collection.
The only interesting part of the collection was Gross’s death certificate. There was a section that asked whether the deceased has served in the American Armed Forces. No box was checked. At first I thought it was interesting, for the American government didn’t recognize the Abraham Lincoln Brigades as a faction of the American Army. However, afterwards, I found a certificate of Army Qualification. He had enlisted in May of 1941 and was ‘separated’ in August of 1945. So, somehow, the question of military service was just overlooked on his death certificate.

Other than that, there was not anything too interesting in the collection. There were some personal pictures of Gross and his wife, Elizabeth Savage, Elizabeth’s passport, and their wedding certificate. There was also an album that a man, Marvin Mondlin, had sent to Elizabeth in 1996. It was filled with pictures of New York and each picture had a description (for example: “This is where I buy my shoes.”). However, I do not know who Mondlin is (there was no other mention of him in the Tamiment archives when I searched on the internet), or his relation to Gross’s wife.

Children's Colonies

This collection consisted of photos from children’s colonies that were established during the Spanish Civil War by the Spanish Republic. While most of the pictures are from colonies in Spain, there are others from colonies that were established in France and England. The Finding Aid said that 200,000 of 60,000 refugees were children (!).

The photos show children playing basketball, climbing trees and exercising. There are photos of grand buildings in which the colonies were housed. The finding aid helped to explain this: many of the colonies were established in, “rural estates that had been abandoned by fascist sympathizers.” There were also photos of kids in the fields, sewing clothes, etc.

One of the estates.

The most interesting part of the collection was the selection of photos that had been used as propaganda for the Republic’s Children’s Aid organization.

Stamp of the Republic Children's Aid organization certifying that this photo was used as propaganda.

If we were to group the photos and look solely at the ones that were printed as propaganda, an interesting picture emerges. The selected photos show grand estates and laughing, happy children. There are pictures of spacious dining areas, children reading and rooms filled with toys. These pictures, I suppose, would have been used to present to the Spanish a favorable view of the Republic: the Republic was taking care of their children, and they were doing a wonderful job of it.

Various photos used for propaganda.

When comparing these pictures to others taken of the children, there are some discrepancies. Other photos show crowded living quarters, cramped dining halls and sleeping spaces. Looking closely at the picture of the children exercising, you see that some of the children aren’t wearing clothes. In the pictures of the boys working the fields, you notice the shoes they are wearing, barely more than cloth.

A picture used by the Republic showing a dining hall versus the picture on the right showing a more crowded hall.

Children working in the fields.