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Sol Frankel |
International Brigade veteran
SOL Frankel, one of the International Brigade heroes who volunteered to fight fascists in the Spanish Civil War, has died aged 93.
The former East Ender, who spent the latter part of his life in Golders Green, was 23, with no military training, when he answered the call from Spanish liberals in 1937 to join the battle against Franco.
Among those who attended a packed humanist service held for Sol at Golders Green Crematorium last week was Jack Jones, former general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union and also a member of the International Brigade.
One of nine children of Polish-Jewish immigrant parents, Sol was born in 1914 in Whitechapel, and left school at the age of 14 to work as a tailor in the sweatshops of the clothing trade.
Sol joined the Communist Party and cut his political teeth in the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 when Blackshirts were stopped from marching through the streets of Stepney.
Sol’s sister Jean, who is in her 80s, said: “When my mother found out that Sol had gone to fight in Spain, she went grey overnight with the anxiety. But it was worse when he was supposed to be coming home and we all went to meet him on the train and he wasn’t on it.”
Sol saw action in the Battle of the Ebro in July 1938 and was wounded in the fierce fighting around Gandesa. Nerves and tendons in his right arm were severed, leaving his hand permanently partially paralysed.
Jean said he finally got home on a train for wounded soldiers. “We were incredibly proud of him,” she added. “I was the youngest and I decided I too would become a communist.”
During a spell working for the communist Stepney Worker, Sol fell for the editor, Pearl Simonson, and they married in 1943. Pearl died seven years ago.
After the war, Sol became a shop steward for the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers and worked in East End factories until retirement in the early 1970s. He returned to Spain after democracy was restored following Franco’s death in 1975. His final visit was in 2003 on the 65th anniversary of the Battle of the Ebro.
Sol is survived by two children, David and Louella, and three grandchildren, Daniel, Alys and Orla.
PETER GRUNER
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