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Chapters (82)
  1. Cover
  2. Brand Page
  3. Orwell in Spain
  4. Orwell in Spain
  5. Introduction
  6. Editorial Note
  7. Acknowledgements
  8. Orwell’s Journey to Spain, December 1936
  9. Extract from ‘As I Please’, 42 [The Journey to Spain]
  10. Jennie Lee to Margaret M. Goalby, 23 June 1950: Orwell’s Arrival in Barcelona
  11. Orwell in Spain, December 1936
  12. Eileen Blair to Leonard Moore
  13. ‘British Author with the Militia’
  14. Eileen Blair to her mother
  15. To Eileen Blair
  16. Extract from letter from Eileen Blair to Leonard Moore
  17. Eileen Blair to Dr Laurence (‘Eric’) O’Shaughnessy
  18. Extract from letter to Victor Gollancz
  19. Orwell’s Wound
  20. To Cyril Connolly
  21. Eileen Blair to Dr Laurence (‘Eric’) O’Shaughnessy
  22. Escape from Spain
  23. BARCELONA 13TH JULY, 1937
  24. Charles Doran
  25. Homage to Catalonia
  26. X
  27. ‘Spilling the Spanish Beans’
  28. Eileen Blair to John McNair
  29. George Kopp to Dr Laurence O’Shaughnessy
  30. Translation of letter written in Spanish by George Kopp to Lieutenant-Colonel Burillo,7 Chief of Police, Barcelona
  31. George Kopp to Eileen Blair
  32. Review of The Spanish Cockpit by Franz Borkenau; Volunteer in Spain by John Sommerfield
  33. To Rayner Heppenstall
  34. ‘Eye-Witness in Barcelona’
  35. Abstracts of Reports on the Spanish Civil War in the Daily Worker and News Chronicle, 1936–7
  36. To Amy Charlesworth
  37. To Charles Doran
  38. Unpublished Response to Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War
  39. To Geoffrey Gorer
  40. Review of Red Spanish Notebook by Mary Low and Juan Brea; Heroes of the Alcazar by R. Timmermans; Spanish Circus by Martin Armstrong
  41. To H. N. Brailsford
  42. Review of Storm Over Spain by Mairin Mitchell; Spanish Rehearsal by Arnold Lunn; Catalonia Infelix by E. Allison Peers; Wars of Ideas in Spain by Josée Castillejo; Invertebrate Spain by Josée Ortega y Gasset
  43. H. N. Brailsford to Orwell
  44. To H. N. Brailsford
  45. Review of The Tree of Gernika by G. L. Steer; Spanish Testament by Arthur Koestler
  46. To the Editor, Time and Tide
  47. To Raymond Mortimer
  48. To Stephen Spender
  49. To Geoffrey Gorer
  50. ‘Notes* on the Spanish Militias
  51. To the Editor, The Times Literary Supplement
  52. Sir Richard Rees to Orwell
  53. To the Editor, The Listener
  54. Review of Spain’s Ordeal1 by Robert Sencourt; Franco’s Rule [anonymous]
  55. Review of The Civil War in Spain by Frank Jellinek1
  56. Review of Searchlight on Spain by the Duchess of Atholl1
  57. To the Editor, Manchester Guardian
  58. To Yvonne Davet
  59. To Raymond Postgate
  60. Orwell made two copies of this summary of the article in La Flèche of 14 October 1938, by L.-P. Foucaud.
  61. Review of The Church in Spain, 1737-1937 by E. Allison Peers; Crusade in Spain by Eoin O’Dujfy1
  62. To Frank Jellinek
  63. ‘Release of George Kopp’
  64. ‘Caesarean Section in Spain
  65. To Yvonne Davet
  66. Review of Hotel in Flight by Nancy Johnstone
  67. Review of The Last Days of Madrid by S. Casado, translated by Rupert Croft-Cooke; Behind the Battle by T. C. Worsley
  68. Review of The Spanish Dilemma by E. Allison Peers; A Key to Victory: Spain by Charles Duff
  69. Extract from War-time Diary
  70. Review of The Forge by Arturo Barea,1 translated and with an introduction by Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell2
  71. Extract from letter to Partisan Review
  72. Extract from BBC Weekly News Review for India, 22 [Comparison with the Spanish Civil War]
  73. ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War’ [1942?]
  74. Proposed BBC Broadcast on the Spanish Civil War
  75. Review of Spain in Eclipse, 1937–1943 by E. Allison Peers; Behind the Spanish Mask by Lawrence Dundas
  76. Extract from ‘As I Please’, 10 [How the lie becomes truth]
  77. ‘The Eight Years of War: Spanish Memories’
  78. Review of An Interlude in Spain by Charles d’Ydewalle, translated by Eric Sutton
  79. Review of The Clash by Arturo Barea1
  80. Orwell’s Pamphlet Collection
  81. A summary of letters from and to David Astor, 4 and 5
  82. Further Reading

Among Orwell’s papers were three issues of Independent News : a special number of, probably, late November or early December 1938 devoted to ‘The P. O. U.M. Trial in Barcelona’; No. 59,16 December 1938, with an article titled ‘After the P. O. U.M. Trial’; and No. 60, 23 December 1938, which included a report on George Kopp’s imprisonment and release. Kopp was Orwell’s commander in Spain, and Orwell and his wife visited him in prison (see pp. 15(–62[VI/171-8] ). The account given must have been derived from Kopp, who was not the most reliable of witnesses, but Orwell would have taken it at face value. It shows that Orwell had a close friend who had suffered at the hands of the Cheka (the Soviet secret police), knew about false confessions and had read of ‘torture by rats’ in a confined space. In view of its significance this account is given infull (with two or three slight styling corrections). It should be noted that Kopp was questioned in Russian and that an interpreter was required, which seems natural. Kopp, however, was born in Russia and went to Belgium only when he was ten. He may have been able to speak Russian but not have revealed this to his captors. Independent News, ‘Service de Presse Hebdomadaire du Bureau d’Informations Franco-Britanniques’, was issued from Paris; its editor was Lucien Weitz. It presented the POUM point of view.

After an intensive campaign for the release of George Kopp our Belgian comrades have succeeded in saving one more revolutionary militant from the claws of the Spanish stalinists°.

George Kopp has been saved but for a long time he will carry on his body the marks of the sadistic cruelty of these twentieth century inquisitors. When George Kopp came to Spain he was a robust strapping young man, radiantly healthy and strong. Today he has emerged from his long calvary, thin, feeble and bent, walking slowly with the aid of a cane. His body is covered with scabs and bruises, the marks of the diseases he has contracted in the subterranean dungeons of the Stalinist ‘checas’, in the damp, airless holds of the prison ships, and in the Forced Labour Camps.

Kopp was arrested June 20, 1937 at the height of the P.O.U.M. repression. Arrested without a warrant, without the knowledge of any authority, he was released in the same manner, without an order from any Spanish Court, – but for the past year and a half he has been under the vigilance of the Communist Party watch dogs.