The Girl with the Leica

Gerda Taro was a German-Jewish war photographer, anti-fascist activist, and artist who, together with her partner, the Hungarian Endre Friedmann, was one half of alias, Robert Capa, widely considered to be the twentieth century's greatest war and political photographer. Taro was killed while embedded during the Spanish Civil War. She was the first female photojournalist to be killed on a battlefield. August 1, 1937, Paris. Taro's twenty-seventh birthday, and her funeral. Freidmann, who would henceforth be known as Robert Capa, leads the procession, is devastated. He first taught her to use the Leica. Together, the left for the Spanish Civil War to document the travesties committed by the fascists. There are other in the procession: Ruth Cerf, Taro's old friend from Leipzig with whom she fled to Paris; Willy Chardack, ex-lover; Georg Kuritzkes, another lover and a key figure in the International Brigades. They have all known a Gerda who is different from the heroic...