The Photograph

The photograph is from the collection of Spanish Civil War material held at the Marx Memorial Library in London as part of the International Brigades Memorial Trust archive. The library is home to a treasure trove of photographs, correspondence, records of several committees and well as memoirs and books pertaining to the Spanish Civil War. Irish poet Ewart Milne is here pictured with Wogan Phillips who wrote his moving account of service in ambulance corps of Spanish Medical Aid Committee in “An Ambulanceman in Spain,”. Poet Stephen Spender, volunteer George Green, and young Canadian Jewish volunteer Izzy Kepchik are also pictured here, as is George Green, an orchestral musician was also killed.

Both Phillips and Milne paid tribute to Kupchik after he died, Milne in a poem where he immortalized as comrades, Kupchik and Irish poet Charles Donnelly. Here they are taking a break to pose in front of  the lorries which brought medical supplies to Spain from the Spanish Medical Aid Committee. Milne’s involvement in the Committee and his writings on the Spanish Civil War appear in chapter 5 of Irish Writers and the Thirties.