Paulina Abramson

This photograph shows Paulina Abramson, an Argentinian-Jewish woman who served as a militiawoman and translator in Spain. 

Her parents, Benjamin Abramson and his wife, arrived in Argentina in the first decade of the 20th century fleeing from a death sentence in Russia following the Revolution of 1905. Their two daughters were born in Buenos Aires: Paulina in 1917 and her sister Adelina in 1920. They grew up in a highly political family environment where the words “revolution” and “Soviet Union” represented the future. Under the fascist-style military dictatorship that followed the military coup of September 1930, her father, a Communist militant, was arrested and tortured. In 1932, he moved his family to the Soviet Union. His young daughters found it difficult to adapt to their new home. 

At the beginning of 1936, Paulina took a job working for a Communist publisher in Madrid and went to Spain accompanied by her partner Andrés Martín, a young Spaniard she had met in a Soviet political training school. They married following the outbreak of the Civil War, but their paths separated. Andrés was named commander of the Pasionaria Regiment assigned to the Extremadura front and died in combat at the end of September. For her part, Paulina joined the Octubre militia and went to the Sierra north of Madrid. 

Following the arrival of Stalin’s delegate Mikhail Koltsov and filmmaker Roman Karmen in September, the Communist party decided that her language skills would be best employed as a translator and until October 1936 she toured the front lines with them. Karmen’s goal was to film the war from the front lines, which meant that his entire team, Paulina included, were putting their lives at risk. Then she was sent as official translator for Col. Xanti, Jadyi Mansurov, the Soviet military advisor to the International Brigades. (They would become a couple after leaving Spain.) Paulina returned to Moscow in March 1938 and became one of the vewy few women allowed into the Frunze military academy. She received the Order of the Red Flag during World War II. 

Her younger sister, 16-year old Adelina also served in Spain. She arrived in January 1937 and worked as a translator for the Republican Air Force.