Interesting, overlooked, and significant obituaries from around the world, as they happen, emphasizing the positive achievements of those who have died. Member, Society of Professional Obituary Writers.
Thursday, March 3, 2016
Delmer Berg
The last known survivor of the Lincoln Brigade; activist and unrepentant Communist -- via the New York Times. In the Spanish Civil War, which took place from 1936 to 1939, pitted the Hitler-backed Fascist Nationalists under Franco against the Republicans, an unwieldy but ardent coalition of radical leftist groups. American radicals joined the Lincoln Brigade and fought on the side of the Republic. The tragicconvulsion of atrocity-strewn combat inspired art as diverse as Picasso's "Guernica," Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia," and Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls." Berg's death reminds us of a time when idealism propelled people to fight and die for strangers, when it seemed only proper to do so.
