Gerda Taro (1910-1937) was the first female photojournalist to die in combat. Her photographs of the Spanish Civil War captured the growing threat of fascism in Europe.
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Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today we’re talking about the first female photojournalist to die in combat. Her photographs of the Spanish Civil War captured the growing threat of fascism in Europe.
Let’s talk about Gerda Taro.
Gerda Taro was born Gerda Pohorylle on August 1, 1910 in Stuttgart, Germany. She had two younger brothers, Oskar and Karl. Both of Gerda’s parents were Jewish immigrants who had recently immigrated from Austrian Poland.
In Stuttgart, Gerda attended a prestigious all-girls school. Growing up, she was often bullied due to her Jewish faith. At the time, anti-semitism was intensifying in Germany, as the country’s economy tanked following the First World War. Due to this economic instability, Gerda’s father’s business collapsed. The family relocated to Leipzig in hopes of starting over.
But social and political strife only escalated. In 1933, Gerda was caught distributing leaflets that criticized the rise of Hitler’s National Socialists government and advocated for left-wing politics. She was taken into custody for several weeks. Luckily for Gerda, the family still had Polish citizenship and Polish diplomats intervened on her behalf. But Gerda’s time in prison exposed her to the growing power and abuse of the Nazi regime. Her father’s new business had also been destroyed in anti-Jewish boycotts. Gerda’s family decided staying in Germany was untenable so they fled to Yugoslavia. Gerda, however, went to Paris.
In Paris, Gerda met Hungarian photographer Andre Friedmann - who would later best be known by his alias, Robert Capa. Andre enjoyed early career success after capturing powerful photos of Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky. The evocative images are still considered classics of photojournalism. Yet when Andre arrived in Paris, he too was fleeing anti-Semitism and had minimal job prospects.
Before long, Gerda and Andre were intertwined both romantically and professionally. Gerda took to photography immediately and greatly admired Andre’s skills. Determined to improve herself, Gerda found work as a darkroom assistant for a fellow German-Jewish refugee, Fred Stein. A former doctor who was unable to continue his practice in France, Fred imparted the nuts and bolts of photography to Gerda. Yearning for more, Gerda took a job with a photography agency, Alliance Photo, that was run by another refugee of Nazism. She was issued her first press pass as a photojournalist in 1936.
As both Gerda and Andre continued to build up their professional networks they realized one thing stood in their way: their names. Concerned that their work would be rejected due to anti-semitism, they decided to adopt new names that would hide their Jewish roots. Andre Friedmann became Robert Capa and Gerda Pohorylle became Gerda Taro.
It was under these new names that the two travelled to Spain to capture the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. In July of 1936, Spain’s democratically elected leftist government was under attack from a military coup led by the fascist, General Francisco Franco. The coup was being funded by both Hitler and Mussolini.
Galvanized by their own strong anti-fascist sentiments, Gerda and Robert felt compelled to document the conflict.
Both independently and together, the two travelled throughout Spain, capturing images of everyday men and women struggling to preserve their democracy. Many who joined the fight were poor and had no formal military or combat training. One of Gerda’s most famous shots captures a woman kneeling in high heels, aiming a gun into the distance.
Gerda not only wanted to document the reality on the ground - she also hoped that her images would compel people to ward off future fascist attacks.
In February of 1937, Gerda journeyed to the Andalusian coast to document the fleeing of over one thousand civilians as the insurgent army advanced. She captured startling images of Madrid in ruin, following a bomb strike. Later that same year, in May of 1937, Gerda recorded the expressions of terrified civilians in Valencia during another bombing.
Two months later, Gerda travelled to the frontlines of the Battle of Brunete. Soon after her arrival, Gerda found herself taking fire and ran for shelter. She found safety on the running board of a car carrying wounded soldiers. But her refuge was short lived. An out of control tank collided with the vehicle. Gerda was rushed to the hospital and died of her injuries the following morning. She was twenty six years old.
Despite the fact that Gerda had only been a wartime photojournalist for a year, she made a lasting impression.
Her body was returned to Paris on the day of her 27th birthday, August 1, 1937. Thousands gathered to mourn her passing -- including anti-fascist intellectuals and artists like Pablo Neruda. She was laid to rest in the famous Parisian cemetery, Pere-Lachaise.
When the Nazis later occupied France, they were so concerned Gerda would become a Joan of Arc type martyr for the anti-fascist movement, that they removed her name from her tombstone.
Gerda’s entire family passed in the Holocaust. But the Nazi effort to remove all memory of Gerda did not succeed.
While her work slipped into obscurity for many years, Gerda is now recognized and remembered for the courageous photojournalist that she was. In 2007, her work was finally given a proper spotlight at the International Center for Photography in New York City. Three years later, in 2010, an exhibition on the Spanish Civil War featured negatives from Gerda’s camera - unearthing thousands of never before seen images.
All month, we’re talking about journalists.
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