The Good Comrade

Jan Kurzke was a left-wing artist who fled Nazi Germany in the early 1930s and tramped round the south of Spain, witnessing first-hand the poverty of the rural population. He eventually found his way to London. When the Spanish civil war broke out in 1936, he went back and joined the International Brigade, to defend the democratically elected Republic. Many of his fellow volunteers died in the savage battles on the outskirts of Madrid and Jan himself was seriously wounded at Boadilla, nearly losing his leg. He was dragged off the battlefield by the poet John Cornford, who was killed a few weeks later. For several months, Jan was shunted between various military hospitals in Spain, eventually making his way across the border into France. This is his previously unpublished memoir.