Milton
Woolf
was born in New
York City in 1915. During
the Great
Depression Woolf
joined the Civilian
Conservation Corps.
His experiences of the gap between rich and poor "disillusioned
and abused and enlightened" him. On returning to Brooklyn he
joined the Young Communist League.
On the outbreak of the
Spanish
Civil War, Woolf
joined the International Brigades,
a group of volunteers willing to defend the Popular
Front government against the Nationalist
Army .
Woolf arrived in Spain
in March 1937. As he was a pacifist
he initially wanted to be
a medic but was later persuaded to become a machine-gunner with the
George Washington Battalion. He fought
in the battles at Brunete, Belchite
and Teruel.
The American forces suffered
heavy casualties in the war. In March 1938 the Lincoln-Washington
Battalion lost two of its most senior officers, Robert
Merriman and David Doran, when they
were killed at Gandesa on the Aragón
front.
Wolff
now assumed command of the battalion and John
Gates became battalion commissar.
Woolf led
his forces at the great offensive across the River
Ebro on the 25th July 1938. The men then moved forward towards
Corbera and Gandesa.
On 26th July the Republican
Army attempted
to capture Hill 481, a key position at Gandesa. Hill 481 was well
protected with barbed wire, trenches and bunkers. The Republicans
suffered heavy casualties and after six days was forced to retreat
to Hill 666 on the Sierra Pandols. It successfully defended the hill
from a Nationalist offensive in September but once again large numbers
were killed.
The
head of the Republican government, Juan Negrin,
announced on 21st September that the International
Brigades would be unilaterally withdrawn from Spain.
That night the Lincoln-Washington
Battalion moved back across the River Ebro and began their
journey out of the country.
In the Second
World War Woolf joined the United
States Army and
served in Italy
and Burma.
On his return to the United States he became involved in the civil
rights movement. He also wrote three autobiographical novels:
Another Hill, A
Member of the Working Class and The
Premature Antifascist.
(1)
Milton Woolf, interviewed by John Dolland about getting to the International
Brigades training camp at Albacete
(June 1942)
Most of the guys were like me, just city slickers. We were
dressed in fancy shoes, in fancy clothes, and looked like anything
but a mountain-climbing expedition. It was very, very grueling, going
up and up, and always thinking we were reaching the top and never
getting there. When we arrived, weary as we were we cheered and yelled
at the top of our lungs."
(2)
Milton Woolf, interviewed by Judy Montell in 1991.
Spain was only one battle. World War II was only one battle,
what's going on in Central America, South Africa, the Middle East
now is another battle, and we're into these things. Struggle is the
elixir of life, the tonic of life. I mean, if you're not struggling,
your dead.
(3)
Studs
Terkel interviewed Milton
Woolf about his experiences during the Second World
War for his book, The Good War (1985)
I left OSS and volunteered
for the infantry. I was a machine-gunner in the Spanish War, so I
knew my trajectories, my cones of fire, everything like that. I enlisted
in June 1942, and I did not fire a shot in anger until the end of
1943. The U.S. Army just did not want me to go to the front. Me and
a lot of other Spanish reds.
World War Two, besides
giving me the GI Bill of Rights, certainly did not make life easier
for me or for the other guys who had fought in Spain. We were still
stigmatized as premature anti-fascists. We were harassed by the FBI,
Dies Committee, McCarthy Committee. The Subversive Activities Control
Board took a year out of my life, defending the Lincoln Battalion
before those characters.
I don't ever want to see
another bloody war again. There's a certain amount of glamour attached
to a guy like me because I was a warrior. But I've always had more
respect for the conscientious objectors. We were in good wars, that's
what we should be honored for, but not because we were warriors.
I went to Berlin in 1960.1
stood in one of those mausoleums Speer built. It was partially shattered
and burnt out. People have defecated and peed in it. I stood in the
middle of what was once a magnificent hall. And I felt good. I was
glad I was part of this. Because I remember Guernica and I remember
Madrid and I remember Barcelona and all that. I felt good standing
in that hall, that these sons of bitches got it.
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