September 24th, 1997 to September 30th, 1997

Minstrel Blood

UNCLE CECIL'S LEGACY

by Alix Dobkin

According to Pop, his brother-in-law was a "smart cookie" and "a brilliant guy." Handsome, charming Cecil was a self-made intellectual who taught himself to speak Spanish and recite French poetry. He could usually be found on the waterfront carrying articles for his union newspaper, The Shape-Up, in the band of his hat.

Admired for his intellect and highly regarded for his tireless organizing, he was also a womanizer and a thief, stealing everything he could get his hands on, from Grandma's silver to Mom's record albums which he pawned to get alcohol and drugs. "He was on drugs way before drugs became popular, a bum, a no-good. He did all sorts of rotten things, but at the same time he was a wonderful organizer and really loved people. But he treated Mom like dirt and made her feel like a nuthin'. She loved him and she hated him," Pop recalled. "She respected what he did on the Waterfront and in the [Communist] Party, but hated his guts for everything else."

"Reds Rip Flag Off Bremen, Throw it into Hudson; 2,000 Battle the Police," read the lead front-page headline of The New York Times on July 27, 1935.

The Governor of Pennsylvania, the story went, and other First Class notables on the German passenger liner, Bremen, were being entertained by the ship's band in the company of well over 2,000 visitors. Within a half hour of a midnight departure, my uncle and two of his comrades slipped away from an anti-Nazi protest rally at Pier 86 on West 46th Street and sneaked onto the Third Class deck. One shimmied up the flagpole, tore down the Nazi flag and dropped it onto the deck where the two other men tossed it into the Hudson while the crowds watched from the dock and cheered. Then the police started to riot.

"Few, if any, of the first-class passengers were aware of the disturbance, despite the ... shots and the hubbub that ensued," reported the Times. My Uncle escaped as did Mom, Pop and Grandma, but nine men were arrested and taken to the 47th Street Police station where there was another riot and more arrests.

The New York Times found this offensive. An editorial the following day condemned "scandalous disorders created by avowed Communists." It complained that those who disliked Nazism "should hold their emotions in curb."

Grandma had many friends, including a number of top Party officials, some of whom, like the editor of The Daily Worker, she dated. When Grandma brought Cecil up on charges for beating the woman he lived with, the Party threw him out. He cleaned up his act, signed on with the Spanish Republican Army, and went to Spain to defend the popular new Spanish Democracy against Franco's Fascists. Grandma never saw him again.

"I was close to Alex and admired him a great deal," wrote a comrade of his from Spain in a letter to my father. "In all the time we spent together I never witnessed a single moment that Alex indulged in any drinking or drug abuse. The latter was unthinkable. His conduct in Spain," the letter continued, "was exemplary and impeccably correct. He was deeply admired by men and officers alike."

Thanks to his fluent Spanish, Cecil Alexander became one of the highest ranking foreign officers in he Republican army, a Major in the Fourteenth Army Corps, a guerrilla outfit. He distinguished himself planning bold, behind-the-lines sabotage, raiding Fascist prisons and releasing hundred of prisoners at a time. Renowned for inventive strategies and methodical preparation, Cecil became restless behind a desk and craved action, finally joining a squad which was ambushed. Wounded and captured, he was executed by a firing squad with a fist in the air and a rousing, "viva la Revolucion!" on his lips.

I have only seen one picture of my uncle as an adult, dressed in rugged leather and dark beret in front of a grove of olive trees, shoulder to shoulder with three comrades, two American and one Spaniard. They squint into the strong Spanish sun and lean casually on their rifles. I look at his face and recognize Grandma in my Uncle's playful smile, his strong, sharp features. I recognize Mom too, but although each of Lotte's children inherited her stalwart, dark-eyed fire, Mom was far less confident. After all, he, and not she, was Lotte's favorite; the charmer, forever sweet-talking himself out of trouble.

For many years Grandma insisted that he had escaped and would return to her, but three years after his death I was given his name, and Jews do not name their children after the living.

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