Biography
k-Entin, Bernard (Butch); b. March 1, 1915; Single; Department Store Union member and Organizer; CP and YCL 1937 (1933); Received Passport# 373253 on March 10, 1937 which listed his address as 1408 Sterling Place, Brooklyn, New York; Sailed April 21, 1937 aboard the Queen Mary; Arrived in Spain May 18, 1937; Served with the XV BDE, Washington BN, Co. 2, Section 1; WIA, he was evacuated to an ambulance and died when the ambulance was destroyed by enemy aircraft, Brunete July 1937.Source: Scope of Soviet Activity; Cadre; Washington; RGASPI Fond 545, Opis 6, Delo 886, ll. 26, fiche with death noted as disapeared; USSDA 2:0521, 53:0966; ALBA 268 Bernard Entin Papers; VALB Office File.
Biography Bernard Entin was a man a few people knew only from distant childhood memories, some of us know from stories, letters, and faded photographs. Whatever happened to Bernie, son, brother, cousin and uncle? That question has puzzled, vexed, mystified and frustrated our family for almost 70 years. It was a topic that was not readily talked about or openly addressed. It was a family secret, which, like all secrets has its own mystique and legacy for future generations. It is the kind of stuff that creates legends and myths. A ready-made fill in the blanks history of what was and what might have been. It is a meditation of memory and loss and of the simultaneous existence of the past and present.” (Vecci, 2005). Growing up I knew the outline, but not the details. Uncle Bernie was a union activist and organizer, implicated in a paternity suit, went to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War and was never heard from again. I had family photographs and the letters he wrote home from Spain, including a “petition to erect a memorial” in memory of those killed in Spain, with his name on it. Yet, my family was reluctant to discuss, and equally unwilling to accept, or acknowledge, his death. In a “google" search for Bernard Entin, I put his name into the search engine Google on the internet and, to my surprise, immediately his name popped up on the website of the American – Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. It was a surprise because he has been dead for about 70 years and to my knowledge had not accomplished anything particularly heroic, except for his volunteering and sacrificing his life for the Spanish Republic, and I did not expect to find out any information. The listing was for the Jewish Virtual Library and referenced Jews in the Spanish Civil War (Part 2) edited by Martin Sugarman. In a list of names there it was: Bernard Entin, KIA, Brunete, the month and year and his family's address in Brooklyn, New York when he went off to Spain. The second website on Google referred to an article by Harry Fisher in The Volunteer, Journal of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Spring 2001 (p.16), and referenced what turned out to be on the third website, Harry Fisher's book Comrades , (1997), about his experiences in the Spanish Civil War. Through further internet research, I was able to locate many books, books not only about the Spanish Civil War, but some which referenced Bernie, and the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Through VALB, I was even able to locate people who knew Bernie and were able to provide personal accounts and insights about him (Muriel Sholin Miller, Moe Fishman, Wendy Fisher, Jack Shafran and Norman Berkowitz). Bernie was born March 1, 1915 to Abraham and Nettie Davidson Entin, the middle child with a brother Jacob, my father, 3 years older, and a sister Rosylin, 7 years younger. Abraham was an only child and died March 21, 1930, when Bernie was 15. Nettie was the 5th of 9 children; she had 2 sisters and a brother who also came to America. They had no contact with the others who remained in Russia. Uncle Bernie was very bright, in accelerated classes and graduated PS 144 Elementary School in June 1928 and Alexander Hamilton High School in Brooklyn, NY at 16 on June 24, 1931. At St John's College he enrolled in the Evening Section as a Pre-Law student. Muriel Sholin Miller, his cousin who was 9 years younger than Bernie, remembers him very well. She recalls being quite ill at the age of 9. In the fall of the year she came home from school with a very bad report card, quite uncharacteristic of her. She had been a straight A student. Bernie was so upset, he said “no cousin of mine should have such a bad report card.” So he then came every afternoon when she came home from school to help her with her school work. He also read her poetry from his college textbook, Century of Readings for a Course in English Literature. Muriel, who has had this book, gave it to me. In it, he signed his name with the middle initial “A.” We do not know what it stands for. Sometime in the years 1932 - 1934 Bernie was involved in a paternity case. The mother was a deaf mute and a girl was born in 1932. The story goes that Samuel Liebowitz, a defense attorney who went on to become a justice on the Supreme Court of New York, defended Bernie and he won the paternity case, it may have even been thrown out of court. However, there was a second case, a civil lawsuit, which Bernie lost. Supposedly, the family “could not afford” to again hire Liebowitz. It is confusing why having won the paternity suit he still had to pay child support. In 1933 he joined the Young Communist League, according to records at the Tamiment Library at New York University. Bernie was a leader in the Department Store Workers' Union which organized strikes against the discount stores Klein's and Orbach's in 1934 and 1935. There he met Harry Fisher, Jack Shafran, Norman Berkowitz and others who also participated in strikes and picket lines and eventually joined the Lincoln Brigades. He became close friends with Harry Fisher who referred to him as “Butch." The strikes occurred after failed attempts to negotiate between the stores and the union. Fisher's Young Communist League was called for help. He writes “Local 1250 of the Department Store Employees Union called for assistance on the picket lines. ... Because I was unemployed at the time, I went down to the union and volunteered my services” (1997, p.10). Fisher describes Butch as "Not too tall, but sturdily built, he was a tough, yet gentle, loyal and wise young man. He was one of the most militant members of the Department Store Union. He too had been arrested many times on the picket line, and we had spent time in jail together” (1997, pages 11 – 12). And “Butch was a good – looking, husky, curly – haired guy who was tough as nails. Tough yes, but gentle and compassionate as well. He was someone you wanted on your side, and fortunately for us, we had him on ours” (Unpublished manuscript, 2003, pages 124 – 125). One incident that Fisher recalls is that when they were arrested on the picket line, he got into an argument with the arresting officer who threatened to “beat the hell out of me.”The officer challenged Fisher to meet him in a gym, and although he agreed to do so, he never intended to meet him because he outweighed him by at least 60 pounds. However, Butch, “thinking I was getting myself into something I couldn't handle, came up to the front of the cell and said, 'Hey, this kid can't fight, and besides, he's a lightweight. How about you and me meeting at the gym?' the cop eyed Butch for a moment, then backed off. 'Aw, I was only kidding,' the cop muttered as he walked away”(1997, p 12). In another version of the story, the only one who showed up at the gym the next day was Butch (Fisher, 2003, p 126). In Comrades, Harry Fisher tells the story about when he and Butch were “riding the freights” at the height of the Depression and a young woman with a small child was threatened by railroad cop, known as “bulls.” When the bull waved his pistol at her and made obscene remarks, Butch intervened, asking the cop to be more respectful. The cop responded with racial epithets and Butch just looked at him and said, ”Why don't you put that gun away and let's fight it out. You're nothing but a goddamn coward, or you wouldn't be picking on a defenseless woman.” The bull responded by pointing his pistol directly at Butch's head, threatening to pull the trigger. According to Fisher, “Butch just looked him in the eye, not saying a word, and not flinching. Just then another cop came over and told the bull to put his gun away, and not to be such a jerk. I breathed a sigh of relief and pulled Butch away” (1997, pages 179 – 180). According to Muriel, Uncle Bernie was “engaged” to Miriam, and that may be using the term very loosely. Norman Berkowitz said, “Butch was very much in love with her ,”and spontaneously recalled her name, “Miriam Shrivel (sp),” thus verifying what Muriel remembered and providing us with her last name (August 14, 2005). She was described as “a beautiful woman” whose parents talked her out of the engagement apparently because there was no future to being married to Bernie. Although they broke up before my parent's wedding, January 24, 1937, my grandmother wanted her to come to the wedding anyway, perhaps so as not to have to tell people that they broke up. On March 8, 1937 Butch wrote to Ruth Goldstein, who was the business manager of the Union, “You know as well as I that the situation at present in the 5 + 10 is hot. The union is now starting an intensive campaign to organize all 5 + 10s. It is an open drive” (Jack Shafran Papers, 1937). Passport # 373253 was issued to Bernie on March 10, 1937. The New York Times of March 16, 1937 headlined “Fifth Store Joins Sit-In Strike: Parlay Today May End Deadlock.” They reported “The first tangible indication of a break in the deadlock between the two forces was given last night by James A Largay, chief conciliator of the State Department of Labor, who announced that he had received tentative assurance from representatives of both the company and the union that they would meet this afternoon to discuss the strike issues”(p 1). Company executives met, but issued no statement to clarify their position. The union reported a letter from the personnel director of the company had been read to the striking employees, hinting at a wage increase if the strike were terminated. The proposal was voted down, largely because it did not provide for employee recognition. The letter, according to Bernard Entin, a union organizer was addressed to the manager of each store and said: “Please advise your employees the company is working out the details of a plan to increase the basic rates of compensation of salesladies and certain other employees in the stores in New York and Brooklyn. It is proposed to announce the plan and make it effective this week. “The same plan will be available to employees in the stores currently closed by strikes. Obviously, however, the plan cannot be put into operation in such stores until the strikes have terminated and normal store operations have been resumed.”(New York Times, March 16, 1937, p 1) The strike committees in all the stores announced their rejection of these terms and said the workers would remain entrench until the strike had been settled by the union. On March 18th The New York Times reported about the sit-down strikes at two Woolworth's and five Grand's stores in the city: Some 200 customers were in the Manhattan [Woolworth] store just before 11 A.M., when organizers for the union entered, and ran from counter to counter informing clerks that a strike signal was about to be given. Two organizers, Bernard Entin and Eugene McCarren, then blew whistles and some fifty girls, of about 100 employed in the store, left their counters and formed a group at the lunch counter, together with a few men who joined them. ... Pickets on the sidewalk outside the store also asked customers not to patronize the store.(New York Times, March 18, 1937, p 1) Norman Berkowitz, like Fisher, knew Bernie from his Union activities. Berkowitz was a department store employee, “worker was a dirty word,” at Macys and Butch was with the Union. Norman Berkowitz recalls Butch as a “very special guy ... one of the best ... a great kid ... wonderful” (August 14, 2005). Before sailing to Europe, he recalls that he either lent, or gave as a gift, $5 to Butch, which my Uncle gave to his mother because the family had no money (August 14, 2005). When I asked Berkowitz when Bernie left for Spain, he said it was in April, remembering because they sailed on the Queen Mary together. I checked with the Cunard Line about their 1937 April sailings, and there were two voyages in April: The first left New York April 7 and arrived in Cherbourg, France on April 12, and the other was April 21 arrived April 26. Berkowitz recalled they sailed on the 7th of April. Unfortunately, the National Archives Paid Search Service in the United Kingdom was unable to locate Bernard Entin on any of the passenger lists for March, April or May, 1937. NYU and other records, however, list both men as having sailed on April 21. As Victor Berch, an archivist at Brandeis University who compiled the passenger list for NYU cautions “One of the things to remember is that some volunteers went over under false names and some as just plain stowaways.” Berkowitz remembers the most memorable part of the trip was that there was a “terrible storm for five days” and “600 of the 660 passengers in the Third Class got sick.” He recalls the captain saying that he had been a seagoer for 30 years and never saw the sea that rough. Muriel remembers that he came over to say goodbye to her family and “he was wearing an overcoat.” She recalls that he told them that he was going to a convention in Russia, as a delegate, but that her parents thought he was going to Spain. She remembers that he sent a photograph of himself sitting on a deckchair and wearing an overcoat. His postcard of April 26, 1937 from Paris confirms her memory. He sailed on the Queen Mary and had a photograph taken of him sitting on a deckchair sent to the family. Unfortunately, the photograph is lost to history. Nettie, his mother, suffered a series of strokes, the first one when she received the first letter from Bernie. In his May 4 letter Bernie writes that he was touring France, which may have been a euphemism for his traveling through France and over the Pyrenees Mountains to get to the Washington Brigade. He wanted his mail sent to Paris and said it would be forwarded to him. He expressed concern that the family was “quite angry with me,- which ... makes me very sad. Evidently you don't understand me yet. ... there are things and duties in life that are even more important than the family. ... I think you folks are weak.” After thus admonishing his family, he goes on to write about “the beautiful city” of Paris, the “open toilets in the street,” and the usual tourist attractions. He then says, “As for you Mom darling, take good care of yourself ... all the love I have is yours. I am kissing you now. He closes by wishing the newlyweds “As much happiness as is possible for two people to have ... from the bottom of my heart.” The motifs of the family being angry with him, feeling misunderstood, and his desperate desire to get mail from them was to be common themes in his letters. According to the New York University records, Uncle Bernie arrived in Spain on May 18, 1937. Berkowitz recalls that they received a few pesos a month while in Spain. The volunteers did not want to take the money because they were not paid mercenaries. The money came from the Spanish Republic and helped them buy toiletries and other small items. The next letter, nearly a month later, May 31, is addressed to his mother. He had trouble writing it as he says it was his fifth letter, he tore up the other four. He was very conflicted, “going crazy,” because he could not decide whether or not to tell the truth. Bernie writes, “I spoke to you many times about the struggle of the Spanish workers against the fascist invasion of Hitler and Mussolini of Spain. I tried to explain to you, about Spanish mothers trying to protect their children from Nazi bombs. ... You claimed to be a bitter anti-fascist. If you were really so, it would be quite simple for you to understand then, why I and tens of thousands of other anti-fascists from more than 52 nations throughout the world, have come here to Spain to do part of our share in stamping out Fascism. I feel exactly as the Spanish workers do. That I would rather die fighting fascism than be forced to live in a country under the rule of a Hitler.” He describes scenes of Spanish cities being bombed by the Germans and women and children fleeing for their lives. He read that 5,000 Basque children were going to New York to “be taken care of by workers and working class organizations” and “it would certainly make me proud” if she were to take care of one of these children. He continues, “We came here to help the Spanish people fight fascism and we are not leaving until we are victorious. The defeat of fascism here will help to keep fascism out of the United States.” He then tells them about himself, how he is a “soldier in the International Brigade”, about life in the camp. And the “excellent training and instruction from the best instructors in the world to-today.” At that time there was not much fighting going on, “but when the Spanish government decides to start, 'Heaven help the fascists.'” In June 1937 Fisher wrote that he received a letter from Butch who is in training. On June 6, and for the first time using the address of the George Washington Battalion, Bernie wrote my mother, an obvious response to her letter. Again he is aware of lying and deceiving the family for not telling them where he was going. He tells her “how rotten life really is under capitalism (which you already know) and how this life could be changed for the better. Why is it that two young people who get married find it necessary for both to work? Why can't the husband be able to take decent care of his wife while she raises a family? ... Fascism is the last phase of capitalism. Fascism is the open dictatorship, the most brutal oppression of the working people.” Bernie wrote to the family on June 21 “I trust of course you are all happy and healthy. Maybe you are shaking your heads when I say happy but I want you to be. Mom dear, you are no doubt thinking that you can't very well be happy while one of your sons is at war. Well sweetheart, try to be happy as that will most certainly make me happy. ... but remember, that we volunteered to fight (and for a damn good reason), whereas in other wars, workers are forced to fight. I could have stayed in the U.S., and been perfectly safe. Certainly, but what a stinking traitor I would have been to the working class, and to my Spanish brothers and sisters, and to the glorious Soviet Union. ... you probably think my mind poisoned. If I was a communist in the States, then you should see me now. It takes an actual struggle to make one really understand the class struggle.” He then writes that he is thinking about my father, who had recently had a birthday, wondering how my parents were doing, chiding them, “come on folks, I want to be an uncle. Call him Butch. You see, it must be a boy.” Provokingly adding, “Uh, uh, you can't afford a baby. Why not? Don't earn enough, Jack? Well ask yourself why not? Is there or is there not something wrong. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I guess its the old red agitator in me. Well, I still think you are a swell guy Jack.” He closes, once again, by “wondering if they (the family and relatives) could be so kind as to write to me. That’s all I want. ...Please don't be bitter. Try your best not to worry. Bernie wrote to the family on July 15, having received a letter from them 10 days ago, “I am angry because you write so seldom. I thought I made it quite clear about mail, that you should write every day ...” He continues, “Yes, I am at the front now for some time. I have seen quite a bit of action in open warfare. I'm still one whole piece and kicking. .... War is the lousiest goddam thing in the world, and by the way, as long as we still have capitalism, we'll still have war. The American capitalist bastards some of the worst in the world. I happen to know for a fact how much American capitalists are helping Franco. I happened to fall over a dead fascist who was wearing an American ammunition belt and carrying American bullets. Boy was I burnt up. And yet people such as you will shrug your shoulders and say 'we know that American capitalists do these things but what is it our business and what can we do?' There is plenty you can do...” In describing his situation he writes that he is on the Guadderamma front and “...the fascist airplanes are continuously flying overhead and dropping bombs. It's a pain in the neck. ... we have chased the fascists back about 16 kilometers. It does our hearts good to see the bastards run. We are fighting mainly against Moors (boy, can they shoot) and Italians with German aviators. This proves that its not a civil war but an international war. However, the long awaited offensive is on at last and its 'on to victory.'” He closes by wishing for his mother to “say something to me, and you write it down. I think of her every day and pray for her health. If I have done anything to make her feel bad, I'm sorry, but it can't be helped. Some of the boys received letters from their mothers that makes you feel real good. Revolutionary letters, in which the mothers are proud of their sons. I wish my mother were proud of me.” Around the same time, also in the middle of June, Harry Fisher describes how he was reunited with some of his union comrades, including Butch, who had recently come from the states and had been in the Washington Battalion until it was decimated. They brought him up on the union's activities, the sit-in strikes and the organizing drives going on a several department stores. When they started the Brunete offensive, the Lincoln and Washington battalions joined forces. Many of the men who knew each other from the labor struggles were now in the same battalion. They each had suffered heavy casualties, leaving only about 550 men to make up the new combined battalion. They fought at Mosquito Hill, then at Villanueva del Paradillio, and possibly some other offensives. They then rested. Bernie wrote again the next day, July 16, to my father, informing him that he just received his letter of June 27 “but I didn't know about Mom,” evidently meaning her strokes. And, as he has done in all the previous letters, Bernie implores my family to write him every day, especially detailed news and gossip. And, again, he is concerned that his mother is angry with him. He continues, “My battalion (G. Washington) merged with the Abe Lincoln yesterday. We are now one. A few hundred Americans. There are many more Americans in training. Hundreds are driving trucks. ... We are resting right now after seeing plenty of action. I am a real honest to goodness soldier right now.” This was to be his last letter. Harry Fisher describes what he remembers of the action in the Brunete offensive, “we moved into a new position, a deep, dry riverbed, with a battle going on directly in front of us. Suddenly I saw Butch Entin walking toward the headquarters staff. He greeted me with a big grin. 'I got me a blighty. It's nothing. I'll be back in a few days.' A bullet had passed through his shoulder, but he clearly was in no pain. He was on his way to the first-aid station down the road, or maybe to the ambulance waiting nearby. I never saw him again” (1997, pages 68 – 69). “All our union people in Spain tried to find Butch, to learn what had happened to him” (Fisher, 1997, p 69). In September, Fisher wrote his sister, “I'm doing everything possible to find out about [Butch] but can't get any word' (September 1937). Also that month, Irving Fajans wrote from his hospital bed to the Commissariat of the International Brigades concerning Butch's whereabouts: Butch was wounded about two weeks after I was, but I haven't been able to get in touch with him. If you can find out where he is, I wish you would send me his address. His name is Bernard Entin and he was in the second company of the Washington Battalion (Moscow Microfilm, 1937). In January, 1938 Jack Shafran wrote a friend from Local 1250 after months without hearing from Butch, “We have given up hope too – It's five months now we haven't heard from him – It's a god-damn shame – But there is nothing can be done – I told my mother he sends his regards as I don't want her to know” (1938). Fisher wrote, “There is nothing new about Butch. No news at all. Very Bad” (January 23, 1938). In Prisoners of the Good Fight, Carl Geiser refers to an offensive in the Battle of Brunete: “Eight Americans were captured” (1986, p 24) and the footnote, from the 15thInternational Brigade records at the Institute of Marxism - Leninism in Moscow, “the seven captured Americans who did not survive” listed “Bernard Entin, 24, from Brooklyn, N.Y.” (p 272). Table 6-3: Americans Killed After Capture has him listed under “At Brunete- July 1937” as age 22 with the passport issued on March 10, 1937 (p 263), the dates of birth and issuance of his passport being consistent with other records. An informational card from the Friends of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade says “Bill Frances reports he was wounded July 25th in left shoulder and was very weak. Put into ambulance and never seen again. He thinks without a doubt he is dead.” Fisher writes: “It was John Rody, my friend from Wisconsin, who was finally able to fill in the missing pieces. John, a first-aid man, had accompanied Butch and another wounded American to a waiting ambulance a few miles from the front. ... After seeing that his wards were safely in the ambulance, John headed back to the battalion. He hadn't gotten far when three Nazi planes appeared overhead, flying low. John jumped into a ditch and watched as the ambulance took a direct hit. After the bombing, the Nazi planes left in a hurry, and John rushed back to the road. The ambulance had been completely demolished” (2003, p 128). After 70 years of uncertainty, we have evidence to accept July 25, 1937 as the date my uncle was Killed In Action. Bernard Entin died at the age of 22, only 2 months and 2 weeks after arriving in Spain, in Brunete.. It is unclear how, or when, my family and others were notified or learned of Bernie's death. In an October 3, 1937 letter, Harry Fisher wrote to his family, “Another fellow from the Department Store Union is here with us. ... So the only one we have to worry about now is Butch” (1997, p 85). “Sadly, as we were to discover, Butch had been killed near Brunete” (1997, p 182). Nettie and Jack Entin always said they were never notified of Bernie's death. However, since my grandmother's name was on the VALB Card, it remains unclear as to whether or not the Friends of the VALB notified the family of his disappearance or death. On March 9, 1939 , Jack Small, which was the alias for Jack Shafran (Fisher, 2003, p 124), wrote a letter to “Miss Entin” saying that “I was told by the Friends of the Lincoln Brigade that you wish to have some information about your brother Bernard. I was a very close friend of his and I would be glad to see you.” A follow up letter the following week to my father (March 14, 1939) confirms a meeting had been arranged. In a recent telephone conversation with Jack Shafran (June 31, 2005), he remembers visiting Bernie's family after he returned from Spain. According to Muriel, Charles Sholin, her father and Bernie's uncle, said that he went to a hotel to talk with or meet many of the men who came home from the war. Uncle Charlie may have even met with Jack Shafran. Understandably, almost 70 years later, Mr. Shafran does not recall who he met with. However, my family never mentioned that visit and always maintained that they never knew what happened to Uncle Bernie. They did not seem willing to accept his death, even though they had received a “petition to erect a plaque” and his name was listed among those being memorialized. It remains a mystery as to why my family denied his death all these years. In 2001, reminiscing about his trip to Germany in the Volunteer, Harry Fisher thought “Bernard Entin's ambulance was blown to bits and there was nothing left of him or the other wounded. ... [However] (W)hile listening to these Germans and Americans singing, it hit me that there was something left of Bernard Entin. My son's name is John Bernard Fisher, his middle name in honor of my close friend” (p 16). We have known Bernie from a child's vision and memory, from family photographs, and now we add the perspective of his best friend. From the anecdotes we learn that he had the personality traits of an individual who seemed on the outside to be tough as nails, but beneath the facade was very loving, tender and gentle. An idealist with a deep faith and conviction in doing what was right, he stood up for his friends and believed firmly in the causes of the working class. We now have a pretty clear picture of what happened to Bernard “Butch” Entin, son, brother, cousin and uncle. We know some incidents about his life that give us insight into his character, we know what happened to him in Spain and we even know where, when and how he died. He ended his letters from Spain “Salud, Bernie.” We have arrived where we began. We have come full circle. The family can say “Salud, Bernie.” - courtesy Alan Entin (published in The Volunteer)
BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES TO BERNARD ENTIN Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives and Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. No Pasaran! The 50th Anniversary of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, 1986. A roll call of the American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. Berch, Victor. Email communication, September 9, 2005. Berkowitz, Norman. Personal Communication, August 14, 2005. Bernstein, (is this meant to be Berkowitz?) Norman. Moscow Microfilm Collection, The Tamiment Library/Robert F Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Bobst Library, New York University Libraries, 70 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012. Unpublished Letters, dated 1937. The Tamiment Library/ Robert F Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Bobst Library, New York University Libraries, 70 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012. Fagans, Irving, Moscow Microfilm Collection, The Tamiment Library/ Robert F Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Bobst Library, New York University Libraries, 70 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012. Fifth Store Joins Sit-In Strike; Parley Today May End Deadlock. The New York Times, March 16,1937, p 1. Fisher, Harry. Comrades, Tales of a Brigadista in the Spanish Civil War, Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. Fisher, Harry. Germans and Americans Facing Each Other Again. The Volunteer, Journal of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, September 2001, p. 16. Harry Fisher Papers, Letter, June 3, 1937, Folder 3, The Tamiment Library/Robert F Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Bobst Library, New York University Libraries, 70 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012. Harry Fisher Papers, Letter, Sept. 17, 1937, Folder 6, The Tamiment Library/Robert F Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Bobst Library, New York University Libraries, 70 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012. Harry Fisher Papers, Letter, Jan. 23, 1938, Folder 9, The Tamiment Library/Robert F Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Bobst Library, New York University Libraries, 70 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012. Geiser, Carl. Prisoners of the Good Fight, Westport, Conn: Lawrence Hill and Company, 1986. Rowe, Jason. From The Picket Line to the Front Line: The New York City Department Store Workers' Union and the Fight for Spain, Unpublished Paper, May 2, 2005, The Tamiment Library and Robert F Wagner Labor Archives, New York University. Shafran, Jack. Jack Shafran Papers, Letter from Butch Entin to Ruth Goldstein, March 8, 1937, Folder 20, The Tamiment Library/Robert F Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Bobst Library, New York University Libraries, 70 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012. Shafran, Jack. Jack Shafran Papers, Letter, January 7, 1938, Folder 7, The Tamiment Library/Robert F Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Bobst Library, New York University Libraries, 70 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012. Shafran, Jack. Personal communication, July, 2005. Sugarman, Martin. Jews in the Spanish Civil War (Part 2), Jewish Virtual Library, the most comprehensive online Jewish encyclopedia in the world. www.virtualjewishlibrary.com. The Tamiment Library/Robert F Wagner Labor Archives, Elmer Bobst Library, New York University Libraries, 70 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012.
Photographs: Bernard Entin, Photographs courtesy Alan Entin.
