International Brigades Commemorative Plate

This plate, titled Volunteers for Liberty, International Brigade Spain 1936-39, was issued by the International Brigades Association to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil war. A white ceramic plate with a gold rim, it features a map of Spain marking many of the battles of the war and, to the left, the figure of a vigilant brigadista. The plate was designed by Lou Kenton who turned to pottery following his retirement from journalism and designed many such commemorative plates for the British Trade Union movement. Approximately 2,500 volunteers went from Britain to fight in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. The most famous is of course George Orwell, who charted his experiences in Homage to Catalonia, although Orwell fought in the POUM militia, not the International Brigades.

Kenton, who was a native of London, came from a family of Jewish Ukrainian refugees. He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1929 in response to rising anti-Semitism. In early 1937 he travelled by motorbike to Albacete, where he joined the International Brigades, serving as an ambulance driver. He would later be troubled by his having to help return Basque evacuee children to their parents in Spain. Later, interviewed by Ian Katz, he would declare, “I shall never forget it as long as I live. Across the bridge for the first time I saw the fascist police in their three-cornered hats. All the children were in tears and all of them were hanging on to me as we checked each one and handed them over.”