Reply #13: The international brigades make wonderful history.

[Minstrel Boy]

50,000 volunteers from more than 50 countries.

Canada's contingent comprised the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, or "Mac Paps." It was named after two Canadian patriots who led rebellions against the colonial government in 1837.



A national monument was recently unveiled in Ottawa:



The monument contains a five meter high sheet of corten steel out of which has been cut a silhouetted figure of Prometheus raising his arm toward the sun. The figure is mounted on a concrete pedestal bearing a memorial plaque which reads, in part: "The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion (The Mac-Paps), Canadian Volunteers of the International Brigades, Spain, 1936-39". Adjacent to the monument is a memorial wall containing 52 stainless steel panels on which have been inscribed the names of the 1,546 Volunteers.
http://www.workingtv.com/nationalmacpapmonument.html