When fascist troops threatened Madrid in fall 1936, thousands of foreigners — mostly Communists, but also anarchists, organizers and adventurers of all stripes — rallied to save the Spanish Republic. “The men who paid for it with their blood did so without bitterness,” Robert Colodny wrote two decades later. “And the price paid was another down payment. . . . And others would come to pay it.”
Colodny himself would be among the later arrivals, as a soldier of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion of U.S. volunteers. He would be wounded, would return home and pursue an academic career at the University of Pittsburgh. Colodny one of at least nine Spanish war veterans buried in western Pennsylvania.
This year, for Memorial Day, Red Pittsburgh has compiled a list of biographies and a map of their resting places for anyone interested in paying respects (or even leaving a flag). Click on a marker to find details, and read on to learn their stories.
This list is not necessarily exhaustive; please send any additional information to redpghblog@gmail.com. Where possible, specific locations are provided, but in some cases cemetery maps aren’t available. Information on the veterans is taken from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives and other sources.
Lawrence Winsheimer
Born in Derry, Pa. in 1913, Winsheimer served in the U.S. military and lived in North Braddock before taking up arms in Spain. He traveled over the Pyrenees from France and joined the U.S. volunteers in time for the brutal Ebro Offensive, the unit’s final engagement. He joined the Spanish Communist Party while serving and was described in reports as “unafraid under fire.” Winsheimer returned to the U.S. in December 1938. He died in Freeport in 1996.
He’s interred in Homewood Cemetery, in the Columbarium Lot 251 located near the main office building. A key to the Columbarium can be found in the office during business hours.
Robert Colodny
An Arizona-born university student who had moved across the country, Colodny joined the U.S. volunteers in time for the battle of Brunete outside Madrid. He was shot between the eyes and contracted gangrene but somehow survived, and was eventually approved to return home while still badly wounded. Colodny served in the U.S. military in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. In 1959 he became a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, where he was subject to red-baiting and government persecution for favorable comments about the Cuban Revolution. Pitt Chancellor Edward Litchfield defended Colodny’s right to speak freely, and he continued teaching until the 1980s. His book The Struggle for Madrid is a classic on the Spanish Civil War.
Colodny died in 1997. He’s buried in Jefferson Memorial Park in Jefferson Hills, section 32 / tier G-6 (map here).
John Kossert
A Communist Party member, Kossert lived on the North Side when he signed up to go to Spain. He sailed in summer 1937 and was declared missing-in-action during the grim early-1938 period known as “the retreats,” when many routed U.S. volunteers were caught — and some executed — by victorious fascists. A note on his file suggests he may have fled from camp; he returned to the United States as a stowaway in 1938.
Kossert died in 1969 and is buried in Jefferson Memorial Park, the same cemetery as Colodny. His marker is in Section 5, the Garden of Peace, Lot 227C (map here).
Edward Walsh
Born in Braddock and already a Communist for several years when war broke out, Walsh crossed into Spain in summer 1937 and joined the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, a nominally Canadian unit that included many American volunteers. Walsh was hospitalized during the Retreats, then left the hospital before being picked up near the French border (it was not uncommon for volunteers to disappear, or even desert, before returning to the front line in the chaos of the civil war). He eventually returned to the U.S. and served in World War II.
Walsh died in 1971. He’s buried in Monongahela Cemetery in Braddock Hills, Section 20, Lot 75, Grave 1.
Thomas M. Barkovich
Not much is recorded about Barkovich, a Communist who lived in Lawrenceville when he signed up to fight. He may have served in a Spanish Republican artillery battery, according to the Lincoln Battalion archives. He arrived in 1938, a few months before American volunteers were mustered out and withdrawn from Spain.
While Barkovich’s burial place isn’t recorded in the archives, Red Pittsburgh has determined he’s almost certainly the Thomas M. Barkovich buried at Christ the Redeemer Cemetery, outside West View and near the North Side. The precise location can be found here.
Sam Koneski
Born in New Kensington and living in Russelton, Koneski sailed in late 1937 and served in the Lincoln-Washington Battalion — the name adopted by the U.S. unit after two separate battalions took such heavy casualties they had to be combined. He was declared missing during the 1938 retreats; it became clear he had been captured by fascist troops. It would be more than a year before he was freed in a prisoner exchange and allowed to return home. By the time he got back, the Spanish Republic had fallen.
He died in 1985. He’s buried in St. Mary Cemetery in Lower Burrell.
Steven Thomas
A Yugoslav by birth, Thomas (also Stevo Tomas) was a miner and a member of the United Mine Workers and the Communist Party (as early as 1923). He listed an Oakmont address when he sailed for Spain. He arrived at the International Brigades training center in Albacete just as the U.S. troops were going into battle — and dying in droves — outside Madrid. Thomas served in both the U.S. and Canadian battalions and returned after the foreign volunteers were mustered out.
He died in 1967 and is buried at Beallsville Cemetery in Washington County (Lot Section P – Singles – Row 7 – # A — Booth row).
Eugene V. Nolte
A New Castle native, Nolte held several jobs before organizing with the Workers Alliance, a Communist-tied group that organized the unemployed and workers on relief projects. He was assigned as a clerk and paymaster to the Canadian “Mac-Paps” battalion, with which he served in several key battles. He was reprimanded and demoted after leaving the front and losing military funds, but he went back into the fight and continued serving until the International Brigades were sent home.
Nolte died in 1986. He’s buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Johnstown (Section E).
George Severdia
A Serbian-American dockworker from the New York / New Jersey area, he served in both the U.S. and Canadian battalions through much of the war. Like Koneski, he was captured during the retreats, when fascist troops broke through the Republican lines in Aragon. He was exchanged for fascist prisoners in April 1939, several months after the U.S. troops had been withdrawn, and returned home to New York a month later.
Severdia died in 1956. He’s buried in Our Lady of Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hermitage, Mercer County.
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