Sylvia Welch
THHP 2011J
Hunter College-CUNY
Prof. Hernandez-Ojeda
Virginia Malbin
Personal Statement
In the fall semester of 2020, I enrolled in a course on the Spanish Civil War. Prior to this class, I didn’t know anything about this period of history. Throughout the semester, our class engaged with riveting and emotional works of art, literature, and film that taught us about this captivating period of time. We learned about the struggles against fascism, nationalist and republican propaganda, and how the war had enormous effects that rippled through individual lives, communities, and countries. As a cumulative final project we were assigned to study the life of an Abraham Lincoln Brigade volunteer. This project is designed to deepen our understanding of the events during the Spanish Civil War through learning and writing about a volunteer’s personal experiences. Virginia Malbin was a volunteer, social worker, wife, anti-fascist, union-member, and public speaker. I chose to research and write about her because I felt that she and I had a lot of similarities in our lives. I also empathize with many of her experiences leading up to her joining the ALB, such as the police brutality she witnessed and the urge to fight against what we view as immoral. I’ve seen many timely parallels while studying Virginia Malbin’s story and learning more broadly about the Spanish Civil War in class. There is great political tension and uprising in America today, and fascism is on the rise in many countries. This fight is the same battle that we have struggled with through generations. This story, and the stories of all the other ALB volunteers, are vital to our place in the fight against fascism today.
Introduction:
This essay aims to highlight the life of Virginia Malbin (1913-2008) during and prior to her work as a volunteer in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. All details and facts about her life are from an interview available on the NYU Tamiment website (Harriman). She was inspired to join the antifascist movement through her involvement with unions, protests, and social work in Chicago. As a college student during the Great Depression, she was acutely aware of social injustices, and believed that this pain was caused by unjust human action from those in power. She and her husband, Bernie, went to Spain in 1936 to aid in the fight against fascism. Virginia had graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in social work, and used her experience with various unions and protests in the states to gain information about the situation in Spain, and report back to her fellow social workers in the states to deliver accurate information. Virginia and Bernie returned to the United States in 1938.
Life Before the War:
Virginia Malbin was born in Chicago to an unpolitical middle-class family. Her mother grew up in Pennsylvania and her father was from Romania. Virginia was the eldest of three, with two younger brothers. Her father died when she was five, and her mother remarried. Both her mother and step-father were employed to help the family. Her mother worked in a Michigan avenue shop selling women’s clothes. Virginia was unaware of her step-father’s career, but enough money came from employment for them to live a modestly comfortable life. Her mother and step-father divorced when she was thirteen.
She recalls that her childhood community in Chicago valued learning and education. Virginia was a good student and the editor of her high-school newspaper. She went to the University of Chicago on a scholarship and believed that the most important part of her upbringing was her strong academic achievement, which allowed her to pursue higher education.
In college, she became more aware of political and social issues. She met a young law student who introduced her to case books on famous lawyers. These books fascinated her, and was an introduction to both law, and the issues on which these lawyers spoke. She also became aware of politics through the effects of the Great Depression, and the University of Chicago’s discriminatory policies against black students. Virginia was among a group of students were upset about these policies, and began to petition the university on their dealings with black neighborhoods. Through these petitions Virginia became aware that there was a red squad in Chicago that sought out information on students who were critical of the government, or engaged in political activity. Virginia didn’t like that these squads existed, and believed that protesting injustice was the mark of a decent person. She believed that they were free Americans who had a right to protest and change the issues they saw in the world. She recognized that to the university and the government, once you begin protesting you’re labeled a “radical”.
Feeling that psychiatrists were too methodical and impersonal with their approaches, Virginia Malbin transferred her major from psychology to social work. This change in career path also occurred because she believed social welfare was one way of righting wrongs. Her University’s department of social welfare was not focused on psychological welfare, but rather on proper care of children and protection in the workplace.
This knowledge and belief in righteousness was necessary in her work during the Great Depression. 18 million people were unemployed, most of which had always worked before and were willing and able to work. She became acutely aware of this suffering, and knew that these hardships (no food, no rent, no housing, no medical care) were created by people in the government, and therefore people had the power change it. She believed that suffering was not inevitable, which was a radical idea at the time. Her empathy and ability to envision a better future for all people enabled her to join protests and later join the fight against fascism.
One of the first protests she joined was against Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia. She recalled standing on a platform and observed police herding people with sticks, forcing them through a line of police with clubs. The injustice that previously seemed to be far away was now occurring directly in front of her. Looking back, she believes her radicalization had less to do with Ethiopia, and more to do with the brutality of the police in the United States. Her experience with police brutality is not foreign to our modern politics, but was something that not many white Americans knew about back then. Virginia’s empathy helped open her eyes to the truth of injustice in the United States.
Though working in a newspaper agency, she became aware of the horrors in Germany and Italy. She learned that refugees from Germany were trying to enter the United States. Virginia believed that the combination of an economic depression, fascism, and naziism throughout Europe threatened the world, which accelerated radical thoughts and beliefs among her and her friends.
The fight that Virginia Malbin was a part of in college is similar to the protests we still have. Her account of police brutality mirrors the events happening in modern times as we see more protests and police violence televised. It’s incredible that these injustices were being fought against with the same fervor and fire that we still see burning on today.
As a social worker, Virginia joined the union United Office of Professional Workers of America, and the State County Municipal Workers of America. Unions became very important to Virginia, as they fought for rational working conditions, shorter hours, and other benefits. These unions were also active on behalf of clients, poor people, and those they served. Her experience with unions was very positive. She saw that the people who ran them were helpful and uninterested in improving their own situation, but had a deep concern about what was happening to the welfare of homeless children and the impoverished. They cared about what legal arrangements were being made in the cities that would affect those who couldn’t advocate for themselves. Virginia had a strong sense of responsibility, and cared about making an impact and helping others. The unions played a significant role in Virginia’s life, and were where she learned about her responsibility and ability as a citizen to make decisions and help formulate policy.
Virginia’s Journey to Spain:
In 1936, it seemed inevitable to Virginia that democratic Spain would go to war in order to defend itself from the rebellion of the military generals: Hitler and Mussolini. She was determined to help fight against the monstrous inhumanity that occurred due to German Naziism and fascism. To her it was obvious that Italy and Germany were helping the Spanish rebels through sending soldiers and monetary aid. She believed that Spain represented the one resistance—the first international resistance against the impending fascism of Hitler and Mussolini. Defeating these two dictators became inextricable from helping Spain. As a social worker, Virginia became involved in a social workers committee to aid Spanish democracy and to facilitate American help. She went to Spain with a group of five American social workers to get a first hand experience with what was happening so they could go back and describe the situation. Virginia believed this was possibly the only chance to defeat fascism, so she went to serve and aid Spanish refugees. Virginia felt as though her life was leading up to Spain: her education from the University of Columbia in social work, her role as an activist on her campus, and her experience working in unions to help those in need. She used all of her knowledge and experience to help fight against the Spanish rebels.
By the time she arrived in Spain, she had already received reports from other volunteers. Her husband, Bernie Malbin, had gone to Spain a few months before her. Before he went, he was a physician finishing his residency in a hospital in Chicago. He was chosen to go to Spain due to his invaluable knowledge, and was appointed leader of his medical group.
Virginia went to Spain twice. The first time she went was in 1937 with her group of five social workers. They went all over Spain to children’s homes and refugee camps. She was part of an international investigative unit, and here she saw that there was an incredible worldwide effort to aid the Spanish Democracy.
This incensed Virginia’s passion and desire to get more aid from those in the states. Due to US embargo against Spain, the American people were not getting full story. In America there was very little being told about what was happening to the civilians, kids, and refugees. Virginia had an invaluable job of investigating the truth of the situation in Spain so she could report back to her colleagues in the states. During her time in Spain she worked with the International Refugee Association. When she returned to the US, her job didn’t stop. She wrote articles, spoke for organizations, and toured the states giving speeches. She and her group were invited by many organizations— such as League of Women Voters in Illinois— to recount the stories of what they saw. This effort raised money for the Spanish refugees, and was necessary in getting people in the United States to join the international effort to send relief.
During an interview, Virginia Malbin recounts what she calls the most important lesson she learned in Spain. In Spain, their government made every possible effort to improve the life and education of their people. The children were still continuing to go to school during this crisis. Older citizens had the opportunity to return and get an education. Healthcare was provided when none had been before. This made a large impact on the Spanish civilians, as well as on Virginia. The mutual aid and help given freely to other citizens was so foreign to the “dog-eat-dog” world that she was used to seeing in the United States. She saw unprecedented cooperation, and everyone understood that their fate depended on the others around them.
After her fundraising trips in the United States, Virginia returned to Spain in 1938. She returned due to Spain’s need for more personnel. She worked with the Paris committee, and noted that after a short time, the Spanish themselves took over many functions of distributing relief. Gradually Spanish citizens were put in positions of authority and directing, with internationals as assistants. This shift of power back to the affected people so they can advocate for themselves reminds me of how we center conversations today. Only in recent years is it becoming more common or mainstream to listen to the voices of those directly affected by injustice. It is beautiful to me that there were people all these years ago who knew the importance of self-advocating and giving power back to those whom had their power stolen.
Virginia was asked to serve in an international brigade hospital. She worked on the processing and evacuation of wounded internationals from Spain. Her husband was working in the Barcelona office together with a Catalan doctor named Enrique San Marti, head of international medical service. Bernie Malbin was also involved with getting the wounded out of Spain. This was a major effort because many of the wounded were from fascist countries. Their assistance was necessary to get these wounded civilians and soldiers to places where they wouldn’t be persecuted, jailed, or murdered. Virginia didn’t know much of the nitty-gritty details of how these people were evacuated, but she knew that passports were secured for them from friendly countries.
One of the last to leave, it was Virginia’s responsibility to get the wounded out of Spain. It’s admirable how she insisted on helping until the very end. When the international medical office closed in Barcelona, she and her husband finally left to go back to the US. It was December. They left Barcelona by train, and they went to a restaurant as soon as they arrived in Paris. This simple luxury shows how much they had voluntarily given up in order to do what was right and help fight against fascism. I’m sure all of us who are living through the novel coronavirus understand this sacrifice in order to keep our community healthy. Virginia and Bernie returned to the United States by ship, where they received a warm welcome. She considers herself lucky that she was not harassed when she returned, as she knows that many of the nurses were barred from getting a job in a hospital due to intervention from the FBI.
Throughout the two years she spent aiding Spain, Virginia performed invaluable work and displayed remarkable ethics. She and her husband, Bernie, were ahead of their time in their beliefs about justice, equality, and community. While it is sad that this fight is ongoing after all these years, it is also a testament to the strength of our people, and creates a long-lasting connection between generations. Virginia Malbin’s story is not just the story of one woman, but the continuous experience of thousands of people across the world.
Source:
Harriman, Manny. “Virginia Malbin.” Abraham Lincoln Film Archives Oral History Collection · Virginia Malbin · Digital Tamiment, digitaltamiment.hosting.nyu.edu/s/albafilms/item/3146.