Encounter - A Question of Principle

...when in the summer of 1936 Franco and the army rose, and appeared to be about to bring about such a fascist regime in Spain, suddenly the people turned against them. They stormed the barracks in Barcelona and Madrid, and they threw back the Franco forces ... a tremendous feeling of hope surged through masses of people...

– Journalist Geoffrey Cox, who was in Madrid in the early stages of the Spanish Civil War

...throughout the whole world there was this emerging from a period of great depression, and those workers in New Zealand who saw their hopes in a government here, identified themselves very readily with the same thing happening in a country like Spain.

– Socialist George Jackson, on working class unity between the antipodes

We knew the forces that were opposed to Spain, and we knew these apathies, and we couldn’t break through to to overcome them, so we just had to accept them and work, and overcome one hurdle after another. Almost the last day before the nurses were to go, attempts were made to prevent them going, but we finally got them away.

– Socialist George Jackson, on efforts to get humanitarian aid to Spain

Many of Griff's former, well his friends, people who had been very fond of him, and some relatives too, were quite sure that Griff had thrown his life away, [that] he'd sacrificed a brilliant career in going to Spain. And they simply couldn’t understand why he did.

– Joan Colway, on reaction to the death of her brother Griff Maclaurin