Abraham Lincoln Brigade
Before the United States entered its fight against Hitler and his fascist regime, two young men from Trafford volunteered to travel to Spain, along with 2,800 other Americans, to join an International Brigade to fight fascism in Spain. Sadly, these two Trafford men lost their lives while fighting in a civil war as volunteers belonging to a group known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
In July 1936, Francisco Franco, a Spanish general, led a military coup with the goal of overthrowing the democratically elected government of the Spanish Republic. The United States took the position of non-intervention, but as the civil war raged on, a majority of Americans polled favored the Loyalist cause for whom these Trafford men were supporting. Most Americans agreed that the Republican government was the "legally elected" government of Spain and voters did not favor the Franco-led group, particularly because they were being backed by the fascist regimes of Hitler and Mussolini. What complicated the matter of support for the group of Americans was the fact that most of them belonged to America’s Communist Party or the Party’s youth league.
Photo of Andrew George Pape when he was in Spain. Source: Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives.
Andrew George Pape (1914-1938) lived with his parents and two sisters in a rented home at 517 Brinton Ave. Andrew’s father was a brakeman on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Albert Louis Brezovic (1914-1938) was the oldest of four children that lived with his parents who owned their home at 212 Edgewood Ave. Albert’s father was a Pattern Maker in the Trafford Foundry.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Tue, Jan 31, 1939, Page 2.
Both Pape and Brezovic were 1933 graduates of Trafford High. Former Trafford resident Nancy Piper Woodall, who remembered Pape & Brezovic from her youth, recalled that the men attended the University of Pittsburgh and were close friends. She shared her memory of them with her son James Woodall.
It’s likely that it was during their time at the University that the young men were introduced to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Some veterans from the war who returned to the US felt that their idealism had been exploited in getting young people to join the cause, with Lincoln volunteers being poorly trained and killed at nearly three times the rate of the rest of the Republican Army.
The details surrounding the death and final burial location of these two young men are unclear and would require additional research. An interesting website worth reviewing is called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives https://alba-valb.org/ The website does have some information on Andrew G. Pape, but no additional information on Brezovic. We appreciate James and Nancy for bringing this topic to our attention. Remembering these two young men from Trafford is important to our overall efforts of the Trafford Historical Society in remembering the residents of our past and we thank Nancy for sharing their story with us.
