The article looks at Sweden as an example of how popular memory of the International Brigades in Western Europe has been shaped more frequently by the Left's postwar political needs than by historical realities. Like elsewhere in Western Europe, the International Brigades' legacy in Sweden was principally informed by the Left's eagerness to embrace an anti-fascist identity after the Second World War. In the Swedish case, this has led to a sanitized historical account of the Swedish Brigadistas ' experiences in Spain that ultimately does the former volunteers' memory a considerable disservice.