Harry Fisher (trade unionist)

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Harry Fisher in the Spanish Civil War

Harry Fisher (born March 12, 1911 in New York City , † March 22, 2003 ibid) was an American trade unionist , peace activist and interbrigadist in the Spanish Civil War in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade .

Life

Harry Fisher was born in New York on March 12, 1911. After his father died of tuberculosis at the age of 28, the widow took young Harry to an orphanage for some time while she worked in the textile industry to support her two smaller children.

As a teenager, Fisher was an office worker at the Henry Rose Stores, Sears Roebuck's womenswear store. He became a member of the youth organization of the CPUSA , the Young Communists League and the local branch Local 1250 of the union of the department store employees. Fisher took part in strikes and political demonstrations.

In early 1937 he left New York to join the international brigades in Spain . He served in Spain from March 1937 to September 1938. He took part in most of the major campaigns of the brigands in the war: he fought on the Jarama Front (April to June 1937), the Brunete offensive (July / August 1937), in September 1937 he took part Belchite with one. The next year he took part in the Teruel offensive (winter 1938) and the Battle of the Ebro (July to September 1938).

In Brunete, he was the messenger of the new commander of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Oliver Law , the first African-American to ever lead white Americans in combat. Harry Fisher saw Law being fatally hit by enemy bullets while leading an attack: “He was the first man over the top. He was in the furthest position when he was hit by a Fascist bullet in the chest. "

He returned to the United States in September 1938 and in 1939 married Ruth Goldstein, a union activist and executive director of his local union federation, Local 1250. They had two children. During World War II , Fisher served as a gunner on a B-26 bomber. After the war, Fisher worked in the communications department of the Soviet news agency TASS in New York for over 50 years .

In 1998 he published his autobiography Comrades , which told of his experiences in Spain. He participated in civil rights demonstrations and anti-war demonstrations well into old age. At the New York demonstration on March 22, 2003 against the Third Gulf War , he suffered a heart attack and died shortly afterwards in St. Vincent's Hospital. He was 92 years old.

Movie

literature

  • Harry Fisher: Comrades: Tales of a Brigadista in the Spanish Civil War . Foreword: Pete Seeger , 203 pages, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska 1998, ISBN 0803220065
  • Harry Fisher: Comrades - Report of a US interbrigadist in the Spanish Civil War (German edition), 243 pages - Pahl-Rugenstein successor, 2001, ISBN 389144284X
  • Harry Fisher Camaradas, relatos de un brigadista en la guerra civil española (Spanish edition), 313 pages, ISBN 84-8483-022-5

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Fisher, Harry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American trade unionist, peace activist and volunteer in the Spanish Civil War
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 2003
Place of death New York City