Researcher: Emile Lee-Suk, Stuyvesant '26

Saul Friedberg was born on October 6th, 1912 in the Bronx. Friedberg attended Lawrence High School in Long Island. In 1928, he was a winner of the National Oratorical Contest on the Constitution, a speech competition organized by The New York Times. An interest in politics had clearly already been in development in high school.

In 1933, Friedberg began attending Harvard Law School, the same year Hitler came to power in Germany. While Friedberg built an intellectual foundation in law and politics at Harvard, the rising threat of Nazi fascism solidified itself to the world with the beginning of the Holocaust. This likely pushed Friedberg, who was Jewish, to join the Young Communists League while still in law school. As a student organizer, Friedberg was involved in protests against German ships in American ports flying the Nazi swastika, protests similar to that of the riot on the Bremen in 1935. Friedberg was arrested and beaten for participating in the protest, which radicalized him, leading him to fully immerse himself in left wing politics.

After graduating from Harvard, Friedberg, a true communist, moved to Chicago and became a labor organizer for steel mill workers. While working in Chicago, Friedberg met the Romanian political refugee John Murra, an anthropology graduate student at the University of Chicago who too would volunteer in Spain. Friedberg also met Chicago-native (and future enlistee) Harry Schoenberg. Friedberg and Schoenberg would attend volunteer meetings in New York together before traveling to Spain, sticking with each other on the trek through Europe and over the Pyrenees. After reaching Tarazona de la Mancha, Friedberg and Schoenberg joined the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion (a.k.a the “MacPaps”). Friedberg was a sniper. The MacPaps were founded by communist Canadians, named after Canadian rebel leaders who fought against 19th Century colonial Britain. The MacPaps accepted American volunteers and eventually became majority American. They fought alongside the Washington and Lincoln brigades.

Friedberg, Schoenberg by his side, fought for the MacPaps in Teruel. Later, he fought in the Ebro Offensive, where he was reunited with Murra. Before the Siege of Gandesa, Friedberg was wounded and was brought, alongside Murra, to a hospital at Mataro. There, Murra revealed that his wife had divorced him, meaning that, as a noncitizen, he could not return to the United States. Friedberg returned to America without Murra, moving back to New York. Friedberg was unable to gain approval from the Bar Association because he had served in Spain. He would later struggle to join the military to fight in World War II for the same reason, though was able to become an electronics trainee in the Navy.

After World War II, Friedberg became a lawyer. He worked for Universal Studios and the Bar of the City of New York. Upon retirement, he continued his involvement in labor movements, serving as a chairman for the Suffolk County Health Advisory Council’s nominating committee. With antiwar attitudes likely informed by his experiences in Spain and World War II, Friedberg was involved in nuclear disarmament advocacy in the 1980s. Friedberg co-founded the South Country Peace Group and helped push the Nuclear Freeze Ballot Proposition in Suffolk. In 1982, Friedberg attended a rally supporting the United Nations Special Session on Disarmment in Central Park. ''Unless we succeed, our country will be destroyed and possibly the world with it,'' Friedberg told The New York Times on disarmament.

Friedberg kept in touch with other veterans, with whom he continued discussing leftist politics. In a 1987 letter to Spanish Civil War biographer and Lincoln Brigade veteran Carl Geiser, he criticized Zionism, and its rise in support by American Christians led by Jerry Falwell, as fascist movements. Friedberg also wrote sketches of other veterans from Spain he had known personally, including Murra and Schoenberg, for The Volunteer.

Friedberg died on May 15th, 2000.

Sources

“291 SCHOOLS NAME ORATORS in CONTEST; Elimination Round for Regional Semi-Finals Starts after the Easter Recess. CLASS WORK BROADENED Wadleigh Teacher Tells How Educational Interest of the Pupils Was Stimulated. WINNERS in JERSEY PICKED F.A. Brick, Principal at Bayonne, Calls It the “Most Potent Lesson in Citizenship.”” New York Times, 8 Apr. 1928, www.nytimes.com/1928/04/08/archives/291-schools-name-orators-in-contest-elimination-round-for-regional.html.
Cerra, Frances. “ANTINUCLEAR RALLY UNITES L.I. GROUPS.” New York Times, 2 June 1982, www.nytimes.com/1982/06/06/nyregion/antinuclear-rally-unites-li-groups.html.
“Friedberg, Saul.” The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives, 10 Dec. 2019, alba-valb.org/volunteers/saul-friedberg/.
Friedberg, Saul. “Series II: Correspondence: Prisoners of the Good Fight.” Received by Carl Geiser, 1985.
Friedberg, Saul , et al. “Let Us Pay Tribute to Our Own.” The Volunteer, 9 June 2015, albavolunteer.org/2015/06/blast-from-the-past-let-us-pay-tribute-to-our-own/.
Friedberg, Saul, and Chris Brooks. “John v. Murra.” The Volunteer, 21 Apr. 2017, albavolunteer.org/2017/04/john-v-murra/.
Harvard Law News Staff. “In Memoriam – Spring 2001 Bulletin - Harvard Law School.” Harvard Law School, 6 Apr. 2001, hls.harvard.edu/today/in-memoriam-spring-2001-bulletin/.
“The Mac Paps – Friends and Veterans.” Macpapbattalion.ca, 2020, www.macpapbattalion.ca/history/the-formation-of-the-mac-paps/.