In 1936, the rebellion of monarchists and fascists led by General Franco, in alliance with Hitler and Mussolini, mobilized anti-fascists all over the world, among them Robert Capa. During the entire period of the war, Capa traveled throughout the Loyalist-held areas of Spain photographing battles, cities under siege and the chaos of a modern nation at war with itself. One series of images documents the heroic Loyalist defense of Madrid; another the mass exodus of Catalonians from Barcelona to the French border. His iconic photograph of a Loyalist militiaman who has just been shot shocked the world with its brutal immediacy. Capa's pictures not only illuminated the courage of the soldiers who carried on against overwhelming odds but also galvanized compassion for the innocent and injured.
Robert Capa (born Endre Ernő Friedmann) was a Hungarian–American war photographer and photojournalist. He is considered by some to be the greatest combat and adventure photographer in history.
Friedman had fled political repression in Hungary when he was a teenager, moving to Berlin, where he enrolled in college. He witnessed the rise of Hitler, which led him to move to Paris, where he met and began to work with his professional partner Gerda Taro, and they began to publish their work separately. Capa's deep friendship with David Seymour-Chim was captured in Martha Gellhorn's novella, Two by Two. He subsequently covered five wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II across Europe, the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and the First Indochina War, with his photos published in major magazines and newspapers.
During his career he risked his life numerous times, most dramatically as the only civilian photographer landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day. He documented the course of World War II in London, North Africa, Italy, and the liberation of Paris. His friends and colleagues included Ernest Hemingway, Irwin Shaw, John Steinbeck and director John Huston.
In 1947, for his work recording World War II in pictures, U.S. general Dwight D. Eisenhower awarded Capa the Medal of Freedom. That same year, Capa co-founded Magnum Photos in Paris. The organization was the first cooperative agency for worldwide freelance photographers. Hungary has issued a stamp and a gold coin in his honor.
He was killed when he stepped on a landmine in Vietnam.
I only gave this book four stars because I wasn't keen on some of the text accompanying the photographs (although the essay about women's participation in the war was illuminating). But the photos get six stars - they made the people who lived and suffered through the tragedy come alive.
sous les doigts le papier semble revivre, il suffirait de rien pour les entendre respirer, parler, hurler, gémir ou chanter. une visite dans le silence de nos consciences s'impose !