Biographical Note

Mosess (Moe) Fishman was born in New York City in 1915. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City and enrolled in City College, but did not finish college for financial reasons. He later worked in a laundry and driving a truck.

Fishman joined the Young Communist League and became involved in anti-fascist activity in the mid-1930s. In 1937 he volunteered to fight in Spain with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, taking part in the Brunete offensive, where he was severely wounded when a sniper's bullet shattered his thigh. He spent the next three years in and out of hospitals in Spain and the U.S. He had recovered sufficiently to serve in the Merchant Marine in World War II. After the War he returned to New York and became active in aiding Spanish refugees. In 1951, he took over as Secretary-Treasurer (later Secretary) of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (VALB) when the organization was labeled "subversive" by the Attorney General's office. After a strenuous legal battle, the label was removed in the 1970s. He remained a political activist and kept his post with VALB until his death in 2007.