Nan Green (19 November 1904 - 6 April 1984), was a British

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

who in October 1936 volunteered to join her husband George on the Republican side in the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

. She worked in several hospitals as a medical administrator and collator of statistics during the war and after it continued to support veterans of the

International Brigade The International Brigades ( es, Brigadas Internacionales) were military units set up by the Communist International to assist the Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. The organization existed f ...

Spanish Civil War

Born Nancy Farrow in

Beeston, Nottingham Beeston is a town in the Borough of Broxtowe, Nottinghamshire, England, south-west of Nottingham city centre. To its north-east is the University of Nottingham's main campus, University Park. The pharmaceutical and retail chemist group Boots h ...

, Nan married George Green, a musician, on 9 November 1929. She joined the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...

(ILP) in 1929 but transferred to the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...

(CPGB) before the start of the

. She was asked to go to Spain, where her husband George was already a volunteer, in October 1936. Their two children were left in Britain, where their places at

Summerhill Summerhill or Summer Hill may refer to the following places: Australia * Summer Hill, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney *Summerhill, Tasmania, a suburb of Launceston * Summerhill (Mount Duneed), a prefabricated iron cottage in Victoria Canada * ...

were paid for by a fellow volunteer. She went to the 'English Hospital' at Huete then was posted to other hospitals at

Valdeganga Valdeganga is a municipality in Albacete, Castile-La Mancha, Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Furt ...

Uclés Uclés is a municipalities in Spain, municipality of Spain located in the province of Cuenca, Castilla–La Mancha. The municipality spans across a total area of 64.61 km2 and, as of 1 January 2020, it has a registered population of 212. History ...

, and the 'cave hospital' at

Ebro , name_etymology = , image = Zaragoza shel.JPG , image_size = , image_caption = The Ebro River in Zaragoza , map = SpainEbroBasin.png , map_size = , map_caption = The Ebro ...

. As an administrator and secretary to Dr Len Crome she did valuable organisational work, notably in medical statistics. Her experiences, including forthright criticism of the conditions and food, and being a blood donor in the early days of transfusion, are described in a memoir published in 2004. Her commitment continued after George's death in September 1938. After the end of the war, she accompanied Spanish Republicans escaping by ship from France to Mexico, and became a leading figure in the

National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief The National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief (NJCSR) was a British voluntary association formed at the end of 1936, intended to co-ordinate relief efforts to the victims of the Spanish Civil War. The NJCSR was to act as an umbrella organization, ...

and the International Brigade Association. During and after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

she was active in humanitarian and left-wing causes, among them the World Peace Movement. She managed to visit and write about the women's prison in Madrid, and survived to see Franco's death and the end of the dictatorship in Spain.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Green, Nan English anti-fascists 1904 births 1984 deaths