After recently writing about Tom Mann and the link to David Marshall (https://foxburg.edublogs.org/2020/11/28/tom-manns-circles-and-links/) I came across this colorisation of the iconic photograph. Colourised by Rafael Navarrete, you can see his work at : https://historiacolor.wordpress.com/

The image is of the Tom Mann Centuria in Barcelona in 1936, it shows (from Left to Right) Sid Avner, Nat Cohen, Ramona Garcia Siles , Tom Wintringham, Georgio Tioli , Jack  Barry, and David Marshall. I will admit I was taken with the image at first, it is certainly arresting. It does have it’s weaknesses however, it’s not up to the standards of Marina Amaral , the Brazilian digital colourist who first came to prominence when she colourised the image of Czesława Kwoka, the impact of the photograph sowed the germ of an idea which resulted in the Faces of Auschwitz project, a collaboration with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, academics, journalists and volunteers.

As you can see the image has been heavily cropped, which I feel loses a substantial part of the context.

Yesterday, by coincidence I was listening to David Marshall’s IWM interview and got to the point where he talks about the Tom Mann Centuria, I have begun to transcribe the interview. He had left his home and job in Middlesbrough and travelled to Spain, where, in September 1936, he joined up with a small group of English speaking Communist Party volunteers in Barcelona. He explains to the interviewer that this was before the formation of the International Brigades, therefore he joined the militia units forming in Barcelona.

This was the Anti-Fascist Militia of Catalonia, because there was no International Brigades.

We mentions that in these early months there was little in the way of organisation.

We just went to the front in groups and that was that. 

We were moved from place to place in Barcelona and spent some weeks there and got more and more bored as the units moved off, and our numbers slowly grew until we were eight or ten people.

We were young people together. The active, bright chaps were YCLrs [Young Communist League] funnily enough, but not all of them were. We had regular cell meetings and I was soon made a member of the Spanish Communist Party, and I stayed in the Communist Party for forty years. 

These were organised and led by an East End London activist, Nat Cohen, who had been in Spain for the Barcelona Olympiad when the Military coup occurred. The group named itself the Tom Mann Centuria.

All English, the leading figure was Nat Cohen, a Londoner, he was just back from an abortive attempt to take  Majorca, I remember  visiting a chap called Richard Tish.

Nat Cohen formed us into the Tom Mann Centuria, there is a picture of us carrying a banner in Bill Alexanders’s book Volunteers for Spain . On that you will see Sid Avner, Georgio Tioli who got me in, Tom Wintringham; who was just visiting, and Nat Cohen and a Spanish girl called Ramona who later on he married. . . . and there was this Australian lad called Jack  Barry, who we used to call ‘Bluey’, then we had with us Phil Gillan, and Lorimer Birch, Ray Cox, they were both YCLrs, splendid chaps

In October, before the formation of the International Brigades got fully underway, this group went to Albecete where they drilled and were assimilated into the Thaelmann Battalion. The Thaelmann Battalion would be one of the first, and later eventually became the largest of the groups that formed the International Brigades.

We were feeling the shame of being idle and getting fed up, finally organisation was beginning and they decided to gather the foreign volunteers in a group, and this of course later became the International Brigades, and so we were sent to Albecete which is about half way between Alicante and Madrid, and this was always the base for the Internationals training and getting together.

We were perhaps 16 English all told, when I say ‘English’ it was Scots, Irish, Australian etc. We were officially attached to the Thaelmann Battalion to make their numbers up to the Battalion strength which was about 120.

I have found David’s comments a fascinating insight into the formation of the Anti-Fascist units in the early months of the Spanish War and the makeup of the Tom Mann Centuria in particular. 

Of particular note is the role of Nat Cohen, who formed the Tom Mann Centuria, credit is generally given to the self publicist, self centred Tom Wintringham, who would later prove so disastrous to the British Battalion six months later; but that is another story. 

David goes on to related the training and equipment, therefore, to keep the length of the posts down I’ll report on this separately.