ALBA Visit #2

This past Saturday I began reading the Sylvia Boehm Acker Papers, focusing on the letters sent to Sylvia, who lived in New York City, by her husband George Boehm, a fervently anti-fascist Abraham Lincoln Brigade (ALB) volunteer. His letters begin February 27, 1937, when he first enlisted and arrived in Paris, and end July 1938, when he was killed during the battle of Ebro. I read the first of three folders, which contains twenty letters, covering February through July 1937. This indicates that George was writing an average of one letter per week, but I suspect he wrote more, because of various references in his writing to more frequent correspondence, seemingly several times per week before he arrived in Spain in April 1937. Perhaps some letters were lost or omitted. Regardless, there is more than enough material in the first folder to begin drawing insights from George’s experience in Spain.

First and foremost, George wrote of his love for Sylvia and his longing for her (although he very seldom used the word “love”). He put great emphasis on his desire to hear from her, and I get the impression that her correspondence was a great source of encouragement for him, as correspondence was for many volunteers. In addressing Sylvia, George was at his most eloquent, dropping many a charming one-liner such as: “You know, that without you, even Paris can become dull…”^[1] Most of the other content of George’s letters was small talk, but certain points stand out and raise some interesting questions.

Between February and July 1937, George was doing office work, far from the front lines. However, as his letters progress, it seems that his workload is growing, he is feeling increasingly harried, and the front lines are likely receding towards his position. This impression becomes strong only after reading all twenty letters; he insists repeatedly that he would rather not discuss the war, but his optimism wavers and he lets some details slip from time to time. I wonder why George did not want to discuss the war. Many other volunteers wrote about it frequently. I suppose in those first few months the war was not imminently threatening to George, or perhaps he avoided war-related discussion to help him cope with the stress. One reason he often gave Sylvia was that the newspapers would do a better job of reporting on the war than he could. But this deprives us of first-hand accounts that Sylvia may have wanted to hear and that no newspaper could capture. Perhaps George realized this and felt compelled to give an excuse, or perhaps he really believed he had nothing much to say. Given the trend of his first twenty letters and his ever-closer proximity to combat, I bet that he wrote about the war in more detail in his later letters. I will find out during my next visit to ALBA. Fortunately, George dropped enough puzzle pieces for us to assemble a decent partial picture of his experiences between February and July 1937, and the letters I have yet to read will likely shed much more light on George’s odyssey.

Citations

1. 2^nd letter, Feb 27, 1937; Sylvia Boehm Acker Papers; ALBA 202; box 1; folder 10

Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives

Elmer Holmes Bobst Library

70 Washington Square South

New York, NY 10012, New York University Libraries.