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Anger over "insult to memory" of Jewish fighters against Franco

Veterans' representative refuses to lay wreath in protest

July 2, 2017 13:04
Tosh McDonald
1 min read

A representative of Jewish veterans of the Spanish Civil War refused to lay a wreath at a memorial in London yesterday in protest at a speaker linking the event to the struggle of the Palestinians.

Martin Sugarman, a writer on Jewish military history, objected to comments made by Tosh McDonald, president of the train drivers’ union, Aslef.

For more than 20 years, Mr Sugarman has laid a wreath of poppies shaped in the form of a Magen David at the annual commemoration for the 4,000 British members of the International Brigade who fought against General Franco’s fascists in the 1930s.

Nearly a fifth of the British volunteers in Spain were thought to be Jewish.