ABSTRACT
The International Brigade consisted of volunteers from many different nations. While they encountered similar situations during the Spanish Civil War, their later recollections of the conflict varied across cultures. The cultural differences between the countries of origin influenced how the volunteers experienced the war, and societal reception altered the way the veterans reflected on their past. In interviews with English and Dutch veterans of the International Brigades, it becomes clear how important such differences could be in shaping individual and collective narratives. The positive reception the English volunteers received allowed them to talk about their experiences freely. The Dutch volunteers, on the other hand, experienced a more negative reception upon their return, including legal repercussions, loss of citizenship and general ostracization. The English volunteers spoke about their comrades and commanders in heroic terms, and depicted themselves as liberators. For the Dutch, war remained an atrocity, and in order to be more in line with Dutch sentiments these volunteers steered their narratives towards a story about proto-resistance movements, which would explain why the interviews with the Dutch volunteers display more evidence of trauma than those of their British counterparts.
