Seminar Announcement:
For the first time ever, the story of New Zealand's involvement in the Spanish Civil War will be publicly examined. The Trade Union History Project will host a major seminar in Wellington, NZ on the weekend of 4-5 November 2006. A number of specialist experts, both academic and otherwise, have agreed to speak on subjects such as the New Zealanders in the International Brigade, New Zealand non-combatants such as doctors and nurses, the role of NZ trade unions to the civil war, the position of the Catholic Church, and the Quaker fundraising campaign.
The seminar has the support of the History Department at Victoria University, and the NZ Film Archive will run a concurrent festival of films on the civil war, both locally made and international. A further element is the reprinting of the classic eyewitness account Defence of Madrid, by the NZ journalist Geoffrey Cox, first published for the Left Book Club in 1937.
This project was sparked by the research work of historian Michael O'Shaughnessy who has traced the contribution of New Zealanders through archives in Spain, Russia, the UK, Australia and elsewhere.
For more information on this seminar, contact the coordinator, Mark Derby, at .