ABE OSHEROFF International Brigades, US Army

IN THE GHETTO:   Abe Osheroff was born in 1915 to parents who had fled from the extreme poverty and anti-Semitism of Czarist Russia. Osheroff was then "raised in an atmosphere mildly socialistic" in a Brooklyn ghetto, where people  "worked together to build trade unions." At a very early age, he became a "radical humanist" that was "deeply moved by anything unjust, unfair" and realized that "it would take drastic changes" to improve the world.

SCW & WWII Vet,, Life Time Activist and Director of Two Documentaries.

FIRST TIME ARRESTED:   During the Depression, him and his friends helped move the furniture of invicted families back into their apartments. One time, a cop - who later they learned was in the Nazi Bund - confronted Osheroff and his friends, and called Osheroff a "dirty Communist Jew bastard." Osheroff jumped the cop, took away his gun, and "got the shit kicked out of me." It was the first time, he was also arrested.     A PACIFIST GOES TO WAR:     "Why did a pacifist go to war?" Osheroff asks. "I've been an opponent of war all my life and only time I put away my dislike of war was the war against Hitler" because "you couldn't talk Hitler out of a war." Fascism needed to be stopped in Spain before it spread even farther and caused a war far worse - which it did.  For the International Brigades, the Spanish Civil War was a "struggle between what was legal and what was moral."

For a long time, Osheroff wrestled with the idea to go fight in Spain or not. It wasn't until he watched footage of the Nazis bombing the Spanish town of Guernica, did he make up his mind and leave to fight in Spain. He left behind his girlfriend, who was the reason why he hesitated. It was May 1937 and he was just 21.

Guernica had no military targets - only civilians. Franco gave permission for the bombing.

May 1937 - VOYAGE TO SPAIN:

The voyage to France on a Dutch passenger ship was uneventful, Osheroff remembers. When he got to France, the French government was "waffling" on whether to open up the border to aid Republican Spain or not. Since the border was temporarily closed, an organization got 250 volunteers including Osheroff onto a ship heading from Marseilles to Barcelona in May 1937. 60 miles from Barcelona and 2 miles from Spanish shore, the ship was torpedoed by an Italian sub. 80 men drowned and the survivors were picked up by fisherman. Osheroff swam 2 miles to reach the shore.

The Ciudad de Barcelona, the ship Osheroff was on (above). Osheroff in Spain (right).

BEING A LINCOLN:         Abe Osheroff joined the American dominated Lincoln Brigade: "We were anarchists - total anarchists." The American volunteers were also "civilians in the deepest word" - far from being soldiers. The Americans were  always short on ammo, supplies, training, food, transportation, and anything else needed for war.

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