Latvian Women in Spain

Several women of Latvian origin travelled to Spain to aid the Republicans. All of them except one came from Jewish families. Nurse Civja Vospe, who lived in Belgium, had arrived in Spain in the autumn of 1936. She worked in Albacete and later in hospitals in Benicàssim and Mataró. Two other nurses and members of the illegal Communist Party of Latvia – Riva Volšonoka and (in Spain known as Era) Frīda Gincburga (also known as Māra) – left Latvia together and arrived in Spain in April 1937. Gincburga’s husband Aleksandrs Gincburgs had been in Spain since December 1936. (He first served as a censor for the International Brigades before becoming an instructor at Madrigueras and then political commissar of the Masaryk battalion within the CXXIX International Brigade). Aleksandrs died during the Aragon Offensive, in early April 1938.

During the conflict, she worked as a nurse at a hospital in Albacete and later with the XV International Brigade and hospital in Mataró. Meanwhile Riva Volšonoka volunteered at the hospitals in Albacete, Murcia, Belchite and S’Agaro. Sometime around October 1937, Marina Strazde, a Latvian actress who had lived abroad for several years and had joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1931, started to work as a typist at the sanitary service. 

There were also a dentist and two doctors among the women. Sāra Švalbe, a dentist who had finished her studies in Czechoslovakia in 1934, was not a Latvian citizen anymore as she had married a Czechoslovakian. She arrived in Spain at the end of January 1937 and volunteered in Albacete until April 1937. Later on, she worked as a dentist in a dental ambulance and a surgeon within the XI International Brigade. During the Battle of Brunete, Švalbe had a heavy workload in hospitals near the front. As of May 1938, Švalbe continued working in was XV Corps and the 35th Division, but in October 1938 she was transferred to S’Agaro hospital. 

Two doctors, who were also sisters, were appointed to head hospitals. Mirjama Rudina, shown in the photograph, who had two children, arrived in Spain during the autumn of 1937. According to other Latvian volunteers, her sister Braina Rudina (also known in Spain as Voss or Foss) had a significant role in motivating both Mirjama and their brother Šmuels Rudins, who was assigned to 4th Artillery Group, to aid the Republicans. Mirjama Rudina overvsaw the work at the Cueva de la Potita psychiatric hospital until its evacuation. Afterwards she worked at the hospitals in Moya and S’Agaro. Braina Rudina considered that her sister was unsuited for work in difficult conditions. Braina arrived in Spain only in early 1938. She had worked in Moscow since 1935 and had been arrested in Yugoslavia, where in March 1937 the Communist Party of Yugoslavia had tried to organize the transportation of a considerable number of potential Republican volunteers on the ship Le Corse. In Spain at first Braina worked in Albacete. In March 1938 she was promoted to head the hospital at Villanueva de la Jara and after its evacuation, around July 1938, she worked as head of the S’Agaro hospital.

GIB