Abe Osheroff 1915-2008

by Bronwyn Lepore

“The stuff we’re made of never goes away, with or without monuments. Because the bastards will never cease their evil, and the decent human beings will never stop their struggle.”

Postmortem:

Abe Osheroff, carpenter and leftist provocateur, one of three thousand (900 were killed fighting) to join the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight Franco and his fascists during the Spanish Civil War, died of a heart attack at the age of 92 on April 6, 2008.

Born in Brooklyn to a sweatshop seamstress mother and a carpenter father, Jews who’d emigrated from Russia, his political activism began at the age of 12 when he joined protests against the convictions of anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Soon after he was arrested for helping evicted tenants retake their living quarters. He organized coalminers and steelworkers and was still active in 2006, cruising Seattle in a loud-speaker-fitted van criticizing the war on Iraq. Interviewed by activist/journalism prof Robert Jensen in 2005, he discussed his continued commitment to justice: “My ship is slowly sinking, but my cannons keep firing. Or here’s another way to say it: I have one foot in the grave and the other keeps dancing.”

He sailed to Spain in 1937, where he had to swim the final two miles to shore. Fighting in four battles, machine-gun fire shattered his knee and forced his return to the States in 38.

In 1964 he went to Mississippi to help build a community center for Freedom Summer. His car was blown up the night he arrived.

Years later he helped Nicaraguan leftists by organizing a crew to go and build homes for a peasant cooperative.

He kept alive the spirit of international solidarity in the fight for self-determination through his involvement in two documentaries and in thousands of speeches on the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. The 1974 documentary “Dreams and Nightmares” tells of his journey from Brooklyn to Spain in the 30’s and his dismayed return to Spain 10 years later.

After leaving the communist party in disillusionment in 1956, he actively opposed the Vietnam War and fought real estate development in Venice, L.A.

He is survived by 39 Brigadeers.

I don’t envision Abe resting in peace, but dancing and continuing his love for revolutionary talk with his comrades in struggle.

Hats off to you Abe!