Leo Fleischman, three librarians and the October Revolution of ’34 | Culture | EUROtoday

This month marks ninety years because the Asturian Revolution and the dying of Leo Fleischman, the primary American volunteer to fall within the Spanish Civil War, a New Yorker who was a part of that revolutionary occasion. The American was married to the Burgos librarian Ernestina González and was the brother-in-law of the library inspector Juan Vicéns. All of them supported the revolutionary strategy of October 1934: the employees’ rebellion that broke out in Asturias and was brutally put down by the safety forces. In December of that 12 months, Vicéns despatched to Paris the “story of a soldier who was in Asturias doing service during the events,” promising to quickly ship “magnificent photos.” This doc exemplifies his efforts to make sure that details about the next repression reaches the worldwide press: “Eighty revolutionaries were shot without any trial.” […] They dug a grave within the patio; amongst these shot, who had been all younger, there have been girls and boys. They known as them three by three, they got here cheerfully, as if to a navy order. At the second of reaching the grave, they raised their fists, shouted ‘Long stay the Revolution’ and had been shot. They had been instantly buried within the grave in the identical patio.”

Leo Fleischman was born in 1889 in New York, the son of a rich household of stockbrokers related to the yeast empire. He studied mining engineering at Columbia University and completed his diploma on the University of South Dakota. He was a median scholar, he needed to discover the world and after graduating he labored as a mine supervisor in Colorado and South America. When he returned to the Big Apple, he settled in a central condo close to Times Square and arrange an organization with a buddy that offered ground sharpening wax. He met the librarian from Burgos who had gone to the United States as a Spanish reader, they married in Queens and moved to Madrid in 1933, settling in an attic on Alcalá Street. Both turned politicized throughout these years and their future could be marked by the Spanish Civil War.

The sisters Ernestina and María Luisa had at all times been inseparable, that they had lived collectively within the Residencia de Señoritas, they ready their library exams there and cultivated an in depth friendship with Lorca, Buñuel and Dalí. The brothers-in-law Vicéns and Fleischman hit it off instantly and the 4 approached the orbit of communism. The American newspaper Daily Worker He confused that Leo labored in 1934 as a correspondent for numerous media and helped the miners financially. His years as a foreman within the mines had woke up his class consciousness. A letter from Vicéns dated December of that 12 months paperwork the hassle of all of them to get paperwork concerning the Asturian Revolution to France: “I have obtained a photo, taken in prison, of Javier Bueno, director of Advancethe socialist newspaper of Oviedo. The ulcers produced by the torments he suffered in prison are clearly visible. […] They tell me that Luis sent you Gordón Ordás’s letter. It is a very important document and you need to make a copy or translation. Say it’s from Leo’s wife.” On those self same dates, the Vicéns González couple helped the prisoners and housed an Asturian revolutionary who remained in hiding of their home for 3 months.

Two years later, the Civil War shocked Leo, Ernestina and Vicés in Madrid. The American instantly enlisted within the Fifth Regiment and commenced to collaborate in a weapons manufacturing manufacturing facility. There he labored along with his buddy the biologist Faustino Cordón and with León Meabe, son of the founding father of the Socialist Youth. Until now there have been transient references to Leo Fleischman, such because the profile that seems within the digital archive of the Lincoln Brigade (ALBA): “Jew, mining engineer, volunteer in the Republican arms industry, died in an explosion”, and a receipt from filmmaker Luis Buñuel preserved within the Student Residence: “I have received from Leo Fleischman the amount of four hundred and ninety pounds sterling for the purchase of film material for which I am responsible for paying it off in due course.” Leo was beneficiant in supporting causes he believed in. It will not be clear if Buñuel invested that cash in producing a battle documentary, however the reality is that the New Yorker by no means noticed the movie as a result of the accident that price him his life occurred the next month.

On September 30, 1936, an explosion occurred within the munitions manufacturing facility. The younger Meabe died immediately and Leo was admitted to the Hospital of the Fifth Regiment of Cuatro Caminos, dying of septicemia two weeks later, within the early hours of October 17. She was 47 and Ernestina then swore loyalty to the anti-fascist trigger. The newspaper Working World reported the tragic dying of the American comrade: “A great friend of Spain, an enthusiastic admirer of his people and a loyal companion in the hours of heroism and sacrifice of the Spanish popular masses. His funeral constituted an impressive expression of condolence from all who knew him and esteemed him fraternally.”

Two months later Ernestina stated goodbye to her sister and brother-in-law within the port of Le Havre and boarded the ship Normandy in direction of New York. The three librarians couldn’t think about then {that a} lengthy separation started there that took them to distant elements of the planet: Ernestina remained in Manhattan, María Luisa raised her kids in Moscow and Juan Vicéns went into exile in Mexico City. It could be many years earlier than they might meet once more. Ernestina arrived on the Hudson docks on Christmas Eve 1936 and instantly participated in a number of tributes to her husband. The newspaper New York Post He gave her an extended interview wherein she defined that Leo’s dying had not been a battle accident: “The fascist newspapers in Burgos covered the news before it even happened. They said it had been the result of an aerial bombardment, but there was no such thing, it was sabotage by fascist agents.”

The widow then adopted her married title, turning into Ernestina G. Fleischman. In that metropolis that aspired to change into the capital of the world, the librarian labored for nearly twenty years as an anti-Franco activist, journalist, speaker and director of a radio program in Spanish titled The voice of combating Spain. The FBI adopted her steps carefully, associating her with cases of espionage, communism and subversion. In October 1947 Ernestina wrote an article printed in Paris with the title The anti-fascist girl in superb October, the place he recalled that the Asturian Revolution had acquired gigantic proportions as a result of efforts of the “heroic miners.” The textual content was accompanied by the {photograph} of the younger Aida Lafuente, presenting as an emblem of the revolutionary wrestle that “little twenty-year-old girl who, haranguing the workers into combat and at the foot of a machine gun, died riddled with bullets.” Ernestina had not forgotten both the Asturian feat or the Civil War that outlined her life. From New York she undertook an extended and colossal effort in help of the anti-Franco wrestle, however each she and her husband are forgotten protagonists of historical past. They are buried collectively within the civil cemetery of Madrid with the easy dedication: “Ernestina and Leo Fleischman, with grateful rapport.”