Visit 1

Today I took my first independent visit to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. Our professor had already provided us with some suggestions of collections to look at. I chose to look at the Miriam Sigel Friedlander Papers. I had about an hour and a half to sift through the material, but I'm embarrassed to say that I only read through one a half folders out of the fifteen in the collection. Part of the drain on the time resulted from filing out paperwork and being new to the Archives. The other part was puzzling out some of the handwriting, which got easier with more practice.

The Miriam Sigel Friedlander collection contained mostly letters written from three Lincoln Brigadiers to one Miriam Sigel (later Miriam Friedlander) but sometimes other correspondents were included, as was the case with Mrs. Sigel, Paul and Miriam Sigel's mother. The three soldiers who wrote to Miriam were her brother Paul and their mutual friends Ernest Arion and Harold Malofsky. All three died serving in Spain.

I read through Folder 1 which consisted entirely of Ernest Arion's postcards and letters to Miriam, whom he addressed as Mim, if I read the handwriting correctly. What I found most interesting in his letters was his confident optimism about the American battalions and the Republic's standing in the war.

Date April 28, 1937, Ernest Arion wrote:

"As you have probably read by now, the fascists are on the run. Our forces are improving in organization and as our army grows the fascist army becomes more and more demoralized."

And April 30:

"Militarily, we are the best-trained battalion in Spain today. And as we progress in our daily training we see the development of a free people's army here in Spain."

I picked out these lines because I assumed they exemplify some of the feelings and beliefs of many Americans serving in Spain at this time. Optimism is evident here, as well as a hint of revolutionary hopefulness. At the same time, I questioned the truth of his statements. Were the fascists really "on the run" at that time? And I thought I had read that the Americans were the least-prepared participants of the the International Brigades. Then if I remembered correctly, the Americans could not be considered the "best-trained battalion in Spain." These discrepancies made me wonder whether these statements could have been true or whether Ernest Arion was just trying to comfort Miriam, and perhaps himself. Or perhaps this is what the soldiers were told by their leaders. It will take further investigation of different sources for me to understand more clearly.

One thing that I found intriguing were some of the closing remarks of Ernest's letters. He would say things similar to: "I miss you Miriam. I'm surprised to find myself thinking of you and missing you more than I expected." I just sort of liked that.

After reading Ernest Arion's folder, I specifically wanted to find Paul Sigel's folder, because I thought that the familial relationship might result in a different type of letter. The letters were very different from Arion's, but it may just have been due to Paul's character and not so much because of their brother-sister relationship. Either way, Paul expressed the same sort of optimism and faith in his political convictions as Ernest. One letter featured a beautiful-written but politically charged account of what seemed to be an equally beautiful night in Paris. One night there was an "Exposition" in the "plaza" where buildings were being lit and people were saying, "Ahhhh." Paul Sigel wrote that when the German building was lit, the crowd reacted with, "Boooooooo etc. However, when the Soviet exhibit was illuminated, the feeling was so strange that there was spontaneous clapping and cheering." As one can tell from this excerpt, both Paul and the Parisians in the plaza felt a sort of reverence for the Soviet Union. I think the strength of that awe is best understood by considering Sigel's language. The moment was important enough for him that the language he uses to describe the scene is actually rather poetic. I noticed he used "lit up" to describe the lighting of the German building while he used "illuminated" to describe that of the Soviets. The consonance of s's and then c's seems to mimic the situation described. I really feel as though Paul Sigel purposely took time to match the quality of his writing to the importance of the experience. Or maybe he just had a flair for writing.