It was exciting getting this new media to interact with and investigate. I made my way down to the Aver Fischer Lab to listen to the cassette tapes -a technology so antiquated that it took me a couple of minutes to figure out how even to open the box. After a few frustrating minutes, I pop in the tape and a pleasant but muffled British voice comes on -John Gerrasi I presume. He introduces Bob Speck sitting in his New York city apartment on May 24, 1980. Speck begins by giving a lengthy introduction of his background.
His father came to the United States evading military service in the Ukraine settling in Illinois and marrying a well-off Ukrainian woman. His father began a successful fruit wholesaler and along the way developed a rather progressive ideology. Speck refers to his father's brother as being a "red-hot radical". Clearly, he was exposed early on to the ideas of socialism and political activism.
Robert attend St. Ambrose college in Davenport, Iowa and than the University of Iowa furthering his exposure to radicalism. He joins a political theater group and eventually relocates to New York city. He remember a plethora of names indicating a strong sense of friendship and community with those he worked with. He worked in numerous community activist groups during the Depression. He worked in for a group in Harlem dedicated to bring in kids off the street. He attended political demonstrations at Madison Square Park. He also worked for a camp call "Unity", which as it sounds, was sort of leftist comrade camp -almost like a communist commune. Everyone worked together, had fun together and felt apart of something larger. He describes that he was living in a "highly ideological time" and it must have been.
With a group of 9 friends, he begins contemplating volunteering to fight in Spain. He was encouraged to fight because the group friends would be in it together. The sense of community and collectivism is a very strong theme through his interview. As it turns out, 8 of the 9 decided to go. He talks about a rich-guy friend name Merv or Murf, I'm not sure which.
On the ship to France, because of secrecy the group of about 100 volunteer were prohibited from speaking to one another. He shares an anecdote of how one night during dinner, someone begins singing the International Communist Anthem. Every joins even some of the ship's waiters.
Upon arriving in Europe in 1937, the group he was a part of was about 200-250 international volunteers. He describes the elaborate process of crossing to Spain. The journey was arduous. They had to cross through the mountains and walk all night. I had to stop the recording there on account of time, but I look forward to revisting Bob Speck and hearing out his experience in the Italian concentration camp.
When I listened to John Gerassi's interview with Bill Bailey, it was the first time I had ever heard Bill Bailey's voice, and listening to him speak really changed how I perceived him in many ways. I was struck by his vigor and energy, even as an old man. Did you find the same thing listening to Speck speak? How important do you think personality is in the story of these people? In John Jacobs "The Life and Death of A Young American" he says that "a man's character is his fate." I don't know if I entirely agree with this, since one's fate is limited by the time and place in which one is situated. However, all of these men seemed to have certain important personality traits in common that led them to Spain.
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