Leonards Crome

Len Crome / BJPsych Bulletin

• Aka names: Len Crome
• Roots: Jewish
• Birth: Daugavpils, April 14, 1909.
• Studies: Medicine in UK.
• Units: XIth and XVth IB (Medical Services)
• Ranks: 35th Division’s chief medical officer
• Political affiliation: Communist Party of Great Britain (joined in 1938)
• WW II: Colonel of the British Army
• Death: Staffordshire. May 6th, 2001

Mihails Švarcs

Mihails Švarcs wearing a captain peaked cap of the Spanish Republican Army / Latvijas Kara Muzejs (an identical copy can also be found in RGASPI)

• A.k.a. names: Miša / Egons Schmits
• Roots: Jewish
• Birth: Minsk. December 27, 1903.
• Profession: Electronic ingenier – Professor of maths and phisics
• Residence places: Daugavpils, Moscow, Prague
• Political affiliation: VKP(b) (Soviet Union), KSČ (Czechoslovakia) and LKP (Latvia)
• Military service: Latvian National Army 1931-1932
• Police records: Arrested several times. Imprisoned in Riga, 1934-1935
• Arrival in Spain: December 23, 1936
• Languages: Russian, German, Czech,
• Spoken languages: Latvian, Russian, Spanish, French, Hebrew.
• Rank: Captain head of a sappers company, Political Comissar at an officers academy
• Military unit: XV International Brigade – Engineers (Counterintelligence ops)
• Fronts: Jarama (wounded), Brunete, Quinto, Belchite and Fuente del Ebro.
• Death: Killed in action during the Battle of the Ebro on August 18, 1938

Braina Rudina

• Date and city of birth: 24th June, 1902. Riga.
• Profession: Doctor
• Residence places: Riga, Berlin, Moscow, Belgrade
• Spoken languages:  Latvian, Russian, Serbian, German, French and Spanish
• Political affiliation: KPD (German Communist Party)
• Profesional work: Doctor in Moscow- she was awarded a Stakhanovite medal
• Police records: Arrested and imprisoned 8 months for have organized the                          recruitment and transportation of brigadistas in Yugoslavia, 1937.
• Arrival in Spain: February 10, 1938
• Military unit: XIIIth International Brigade– 51st Battalion
• Rank: Lieutenant promoted to Captain – Head doctor of S’Agaró IB Hospital
• Departure: Fled into Soviet Union (Moscow)
• WW2: Red Army – Sanitary Service. Head of the Evaco Hospital (Pryluky, Ukraine)
• Postwar: Moved back in Riga in 1945, where he worked as doctor
• Death: Died in Riga. November 9th, 1973. Buried in the New Jewish Cemetery of Riga

Latvietes: Latvian women in the SCW (I)

The role of the Latvian women who participated in the Spanish Civil War is a very important topic for this blog. It provides us a more complete social picture of this phenomenon. Despite most of the Baltic volunteers were men, there were also some tens of women by their side. Nowadays it is possible to put faces to their names. Their stories deserve their own lines.

Eduards Upesleja

Eduards Upesleja. Spain, 1937 / Latvijas Cīnītāji Spānijā (1966)

• Date and city of birth: 1914, Liepaja.
• Profession: Actor and labour worker
• Residence place: He lived in Jelgava (Address: Vidvuda iela 10, dzvivokli num. 20)
• Military experience: Latvian National Army– Artillery
• Political affiliation: LKP – Literature and Drama section,
•                                        He joined the PCE (the Spanish CP) on November, 1938.
• Police records: Arrested in 1938
• Arrival in Spain: August 13, 1938
• Military unit: XIIIth International Brigade– 51st Battalion
• Fronts: Ebro
• Departure: He crossed the French border on 9th February 1939
• Imprisonment: Gurs concentration camp
•                                Repatriated to Moscow (July 1939) through Soviet diplomacy
• WW2: Red Army, killed in action in September,1941

Eduards Uspeleja was a 24-years old political activist when he volunteered for Spain. He was born in Liepaja but grew up in Jelgava. There he carried out his most intense political life, very related to the Arts field. When he began, by 1936, the military service, he had already written more than 10 articles on the Latvian left-wing newspapers ”Brivais Jaunatne” (Free Youth) and ”Cīnas” (The Fight). He was assigned to the artillery battalion of the Latvian National Army placed in Kurzeme. From his fragmented memoirs* we can infer that he felt isolated and afraid in the army. However he concluded his military service by fall 1937 and returned to Jelgava.

Leavitt, Isadore / Cooper, Jack

Isadore Levitt, April 1938 / ALBA Photo number 11-0147. Tamiment Library/ Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives

• Leavitt, Isadore; Cooper, Jack and Levitt, Isidore
• Born on 8th (10th) December, 1910, Riga (Latvia). Jewish
• Latvian immigrant. Ohio (USA). US citizen since 1931
• Profession: Painter
• Arrival in Spain: June 18, 1937
• Units: XVth International Brigade. Machine gun company,            Head Staff.
• Battlefronts: Brunete, Aragón, Ebro
• Rank:Liutenant promoted to Captain.
• Departure: Returned to the US on December 15, 1938 aboard the Paris
• United States Army during WWII between 1944 and 1946
• Died on February 6, 1979, in Florida.

Isadore Leavitt (commonly known as Jack Cooper since the 30’s) was another Latvian Jewish immigrant in North America who fled with his parents from their hometown, Riga, during the end of the Tsarist rule.

Elias Biegelman: a Latvian American in Spain

Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives /        RA Fond 545, Opis 6, Delo 862.

• Elias Begelman aka Biegelman, Eli; ”Sims”; ”Beal”
• Born on 24th August, 1912, Riga (Latvia).
• Profession: Metal Worker and Mechanic
• Arrival: Sailed December 26, 1936 aboard the Normandie; Arrived in Spain on January 2, 1937;
• Units: XV International Brigade, Lincoln battalion.
• Battlefronts: Jarama, Quinto
• Rank: translator and interpreter for the IB headquarters (8 languages);
• Departure: Returned to the US on October 1, 1938 aboard the Paris.
• United States Army during WWII.
• Died in 1959.

Elias Begelman (1912-1959) was born into a Jewish family in  Riga, from where he immigrated with his family and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. By the end of 1936, telling his mother he was going to Chicago for job reasons, Begelman joined the first group of American volunteers that departed from the United States in December 1936. It was composed