WHAT HAPPENED TO MAURICE WOLF? By Colleen Darby
Colleen Darby never met her uncle, who died in Spain five years before she was born. A reconstruction of his life and the circumstances of his death.
Photo 1
M
Photo 2
aurice Wolf Friedman was born in 1918 in San Francisco, California. His mother (my grandmother) was Stella (Wolf ) Friedman and his father (my grandfather) was Isidore Friedman. Stella came from a German Jewish immigrant family. She was born and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. Isidore came from a Russian Jewish immigrant family. He and his family immigrated to San Francisco, California in around 1910. My grandparents met in San Francisco and had three children. Paula was the first, Maurice the second and Muriel (my mother) the third.
him by my mother and grandmother who spoke with great love and affection for him. I remember being told that he was determined to go to Spain to fight fascism. This photo of Maurice (1) was on our living room wall as I grew up.
Maurice completed the 10th grade in high school. I guess he was not interested in school or he would have completed high school (12th grade) and graduated. He was a member of the YCL and a merchant seaman by trade. The National Maritime Union was being organized by merchant seaman at about this time and a lot of these men went to fight in the Spanish Civil War (see Death in My grandparents were involved in Communist Party activities in the Olive Groves, American Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, San Francisco, most probably as members. Young people attend- 1936-1939, by Arthur H. Landis). For this reason, I imagine that ing the Young Communist League (YCL) School stayed at their when Maurice joined up he was with his comrades. He is on the flat sleeping on the living room floor. When my father (Richard left in photo (2). Eldridge) came to San Francisco from his home in San Jose (50 miles south) to attend the School he stayed at their flat and met On January 12, 1938 he set sail for France from New York on my mother in about 1936. They married in 1939. the Aquitania in order to join the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and fight in the Spanish Civil War. When he arrived in France he was Maurice, my uncle, died in 1938 and I was born in 1943 so I arrested. After a jail sentence he was scheduled for deportation but never met him. All throughout my childhood I was reminded of escaped. We think he probably enlisted in Paris at the Interna10 THE VOLUNTEER June 2021