Researcher: Arielle Eber, Stuyvesant '25

Harold Melofsky (or Malofsky) was born on June 10th, 1915 in Manhattan to parents Rebecca Shapiro and Morris Malofsky. His parents were both born in Russia, but they immigrated to New York City in 1913 and 1908 respectively, making them part of the second major immigration wave that lasted from 1880-1920 and passed through Ellis Island after departing from eastern and southern Europe. His sister, Thelma, was born in 1924. While it is likely he did not complete high school, Malofsky was deeply passionate about the arts, music, and acting. As a teenager and young adult, Harold Malofsky was deeply involved within the International Worker’s Order Youth Section, and in particular, was a member of the IWO’s theatre troupe: The Convulsionaries. Along with him in “The Convulsionaries” was his cousin Bernard Abramofsky, and friends such as Ernie Arion and Vaughn Love; Together, they sang songs in Yiddish and English, often original, and wrote and performed skits and plays. He was also apart of the Youth Theatre, and would later be sad about their lack of correspondence during his time in Spain.


Similarly to his involvement in the IWO, Malofsky was also a member of the Young Communist League, or YCL. Thus, with his cousin and friends and without telling his parents, Malofsky set sail for Spain aboard the Ile de France on February 20th, 1937. He later encouraged his friend Julius Blickstein to try to soothe the former’s parents’ worries about Malofsky joining the fight. Moreover, Malofsky was a large ideologue who spent any time not in battle writing songs or poems promoting communism, or disparaging fascism. He sums up his motivation for joining the war in just one sentence of a letter to his friend Miriam Sigel: “A communist for years, I now find myself fighting to make the world safe for democracy”. He was also impressed with the strength of communist unity, noting that young men from lands as far away as Palestine too came to fight on behalf of the Republic. A proud supporter of the republic, Melofsky sent many letters filled with anti-fascist rants throughout his months in Spain.


Once he arrived in Spain, he trained for two months before ever hitting the front lines, and as he detailed to his friend Julius, he truly believed this preparation would make him able to handle anything. Melofsky served in the battles of Brunete and Belchite as a member of the Lincoln Brigade’s Washington Battalion and the Lincoln-Washington Battalion, company one, section one. Within the battle of Brunete, a nationalist offensive near Madrid in July 1937 after which only 42 of the 331 members of the British brigade remained, he witnessed the death of his dear friend Ernie Arion, which made him declare “I want to live very much, because I want to bring that lesson of unity I learned in this Spanish University to the states”. He became known for the theme song of the IWO musical, “All Together Now”, which became an unofficial anthem after his death. During the battle of Belchite, an offensive in Aragon that lasted from August 24th to September 7th, 1937, Melofsky was shot in the stomach and died around eight days later on September 15, 1937.

Sources

ALBA. 2005. “Harold Melofsky.” The Volunteer XXVII (3): 28.


ALBA. n.d. “Malofsky, Harold.” The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. Accessed May 2, 2025. https://alba-valb.org/volunteers/harold-malofsky/.


International Brigade Memorial Trust. n.d. “The Battle of Brunete.” International Brigade Memorial Trust. https://international-brigades.org.uk/education/the-battle-of-brunete/.