Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War

by Vaill, Amanda

  The Rollei’s square film format tightened: Irme Schaber and Richard Whelan each describe Taro working with a Rolleiflex in Schaber, Whelan, and Lubben, Gerda Taro; in fact, Whelan devotes an entire essay in the book to the kind of camera Taro used. Schaber now feels that Taro may have used another medium-format camera, but has so far declined to offer documentation or details.

  Traveling in a press car: I am extrapolating here from an account by the Austro-German sociologist Franz Borkenau, who arrived in Barcelona by train on the same day that Capa and Taro did, and traveled to the Aragon front a few days before them, accompanied by the British poet John Cornford and a French foreign correspondent. There is no reason to suppose the two photographers would have been treated any differently than the three writers. Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit, p. 93.

  “It may be the front begins there”: Robert Capa, Death in the Making (unpaged).

  To compensate for the lack of real action: The pervasiveness of staged photographs is discussed in numerous sources, including Philip Knightley’s The First Casualty, and is examined with respect to Capa’s and Taro’s practice in Richard Whelan, This Is War: Robert Capa at Work, pp. 60–65.

  “I haven’t come here to play at soldiers”: Barea, FR, pp. 549–50.

  senior British diplomats murmured: Paul Preston, SCW, p. 138.

  In the shadows: Barea, FR, p. 553.

  the Communist leader Antonio Mije García: Barea doesn’t identify him by his last name, but his friend is almost certainly Antonio Mije, deputy general secretary of the PCE, political editor of Mundo Obrero, PCE liaison between the Party and the War Ministry, and (as of October 16, 1936) deputy to Álvarez del Vayo in his capacity as war commissar.

  The place was littered with open boxes: The story of the grenades and the grenade factory comes from Barea, FR, p. 566–68.

  “show-off city”: RC to Julia Friedmann, April 9, 1935, ICP.

  Gerda, at least, wanted: GT, letter to Georg Kuritzkes, n.d., in Schaber, Taro, p. 161.

  for the past several months: Leopold Kulcsar’s clandestine activities on behalf of the Spanish government are detailed in Jean-François Berdah, “Un réseau de renseignement antinazi au service de la République espagnole (1936–1939): Le mouvement Neue Beginnen et le Servicio de Información Diplomático Especial (SIDE),” in Fréderic Guelton and Abdil Bicer, Naissance et evolution du renseignement dans l’espace Européen, pp. 295–322.

  He’d managed to hire: Katherine Knorr, “André Malraux, the Great Pretender,” New York Times, May 31, 2001; Louis Fisher, Men and Politics, p. 352.

  Perhaps, it was suggested: In Richard Mayne’s BBC Radio 3 documentary, André Malraux: The Man and the Mask, broadcast in 1992, Ilsa Barea tells of how she traveled to Spain with Malraux.

  It was one of the many ironies: Chim (David Seymour) photographed the palace; photos appeared in Regards (November 26, 1936) and Illustrated London News (November 28, 1936). The building was identified as Communist headquarters in contemporary captions (see, for instance, the digital archive at Magnum Photos: www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL53Z58C).

  “Before they get me”: Barea, FR, pp 574–75.

  There, shortly after sunrise: Accounts of the battle at Cerro Muriano can be found in Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit, pp. 161–65, and Clemente Cimorra, “Relato sobre la march de l’acción de Cerro Muriano,” La Voz (Madrid), September 8, 1936. Cimorra’s piece is datelined September 6 and is written in the historic present but is clearly a report of the events of the preceding day.

  The journalists were billeted: Conclusions are based on personal examination of sites in Cerro Muriano, and on the observations of José Manuel Serrano Esparza (see, for example, elrectanguloenlamano.blogspot.com/2009/05/robert-capa-in-cerro-muriano-day-in_15.htm).

  That was more than Namuth and Reisner: Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit, pp. 161–64, and Hans Namuth, telephone interview with Richard Whelan, December 9, 1982, ICP.

  “They were like young eagles” Gellhorn, “Till Death Us Do Part,” Novellas, p. 306. In her fictionalized telling of the Capa story, Chim is referred to as “Lep,” Capa as “Bara,” and Gerda as “Suzy.”

  Coming upon them at La Malagueña: Cimorra, “Relato sobre la march.” My translation.

  So one morning he and Gerda drove: For many years it was unknown where Capa took the sequence of photographs that included what was to become known as “Falling Soldier.” In his 1985 biography of Capa and in This Is War! Richard Whelan mistakenly identified the site as Cerro Muriano; but José Manuel Susperregui, in Sombras de la fotografía (Shadows of Photography), convincingly identified the locale as Espejo by comparing the present-day topography with that in the images. As for the timing: the hand numbering on the surviving vintage prints of the Espejo sequence (there are no contact sheets or negatives) immediately precedes that written on the Cerro Muriano refugee series, so it’s possible the Espejo trip preceded the Cerro Muriano battle. However, a look at the map and the calendar suggests a more logical itinerary would proceed as follows: Almadén–Cerro Muriano–Montoro–Espejo–Andújar–Toledo.

  just a few days earlier: Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit, p. 157.

  they ran up one of the bare hills: All these images, as described, were photographed by Capa (in 35mm rectangular format) and Taro (in 2¼-inch square Rolleiflex format). Only a handful of the original negatives survive and they were cut apart into single frames or groups of two or three soon after they were developed, then randomly mixed in with negatives of other stories, or reportages. The sequence of events, therefore, is a reconstruction, made by observation of the negatives and vintage prints for which no negatives survive, including the ultimate image, now known as “Falling Soldier.” All prints and negatives are in the collection of ICP.

  a year later a friend: “Capa, Photographer of War, Tells of ‘Finest Picture.’” New York World-Telegram, September 1, 1937.

  Ten years later: Capa interview with Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg, on Hi, Jinx!, NBC radio broadcast, October 20, 1947. Capa archives, ICP.

  one of the rebel Guardia Civil: Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit, p. 157.

  “dejected and defensive”: Hansel Mieth, letter to Richard Whelan, March 19, 1982, ICP.

  I do not wish to hurt: Martha Gellhorn, “Till Death…” p. 280.

  this would have been a heavy one: Alex Kershaw, in his Blood and Champagne: The Life and Times of Robert Capa, cites a biographer of the photographer Gisele Freund, who says Freund told him that Capa claimed to have “killed” the miliciano; in addition, Kershaw reports an NBC radio interview given by Capa on October 20, 1947, which I have not been able to trace, in which the photographer describes milicianos being repeatedly struck by machine-gun fire on the hillside, but seems to say he took only one photograph (Kershaw, pp. 41–42). This story raises more questions than it answers; and like other Capa “publicity” seems designed more for effect than veracity.

  Questioned about this possibility: Captain Robert L. Franks, Memphis (Tennessee) Police Department, in Whelan, This Is War!, p. 72.

  the strips of images cut up: Whelan, This Is War!, p. 66. Either periodicals stopped asking for negatives (rather than prints) or Capa and Taro decided to end the practice of cutting up the negative strips, for by 1937 their rolls of film were preserved intact.

  “The prize picture”: Capa interview with Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg, op. cit.

  The transmitted version: “La defense de Madrid contre les insurgés,” Le Petit Parisien, September 25, 1936.

  even pregnant women: Preston, SCW, p. 132.

  the cobbled main street that ran downhill: Testimony of a Lieutenant Fitzpatrick, cited in Thomas, SCW, p. 399.

  “I want to shoot one”: EH to AG, September 16, 1936, in Carlos Baker, Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (henceforth Selected), p. 452.

  “living on a yacht: Carlos Baker, EH, pp. 266 and 612.

  “one of the most ambitious projects”: “Books: Private Hi
storian,” Time, August 10, 1936.

  Shevlin wasn’t impressed: Thomas Shevlin to Carlos Baker, October 3, 1963, in Baker, EH, p. 293.

  After the hunting party returned: EH to AMacL, September 26, 1936, and EH to MP, September 26, 1936, in Baker, Selected, pp. 453–54.

  he wrote a cheery letter to Dos Passos: EH to JDP, September 22, 1936, JFK.

  On October 22, the first crates: These figures were reported by Louis Fischer, recounting his conversation with Negrín about the treasure, in Men and Politics, p. 364. Orlov and the Spanish treasury undersecretary made separate counts of the boxes; Orlov’s tally was 7,900 and the Spanish count was 7,800—which suggests that one truckload of gold disappeared. Orlov, however, accepted the Spanish accounting because he feared being held responsible for the lost gold.

  “men now in hiding”: Mola quoted in Preston, SCW, p. 181.

  On October 30, in an attack: Barea, FR, pp. 581 and 585. The bombing at Getafe has been questioned by some, notably Robert Stradling in Your Children Will Be Next: Bombing and Propaganda in the Spanish Civil War 1936–1939, who claim it may have been a “fictional atrocity.”

  Meanwhile, far away in Odessa: Background and details of the matter of the Spanish gold reserves are discussed in (among other places) Thomas, SCW, pp. 427–37, Edward Gazur, Alexander Orlov: The FBI’s KGB General, pp. 79–99, and (in less detail) in Preston, SCW, pp. 190–92.

  the woman she regarded: MG, note on her correspondence with Eleanor Roosevelt, MG papers, BU.

  she wrote ER a chipper little note: MG to ER, November 17, 1936, in Moorehead, Selected, pp. 41–43. The date Moorehead gives is November 11 but this must be a mistranscription since in the letter MG talks about her appearance at the Book Fair, which took place on November 17.

  On the evening of November 17: “The Men Smoked Pipes” (Talk of the Town story), The New Yorker, November 14, 1936.

  Describing the proceedings: MG to ER, loc. cit.

  It was much harder to do this: Details of Gellhorn’s and others’ speeches, including quotations, are from “‘Local Color’ Book Relegated To Past,” New York Times, November 18, 1936.

  one of the American correspondents: Barea identifies the man only as “the big American, over six feet and two hundred and twenty pounds or so”; Fischer, a tall and burly man, was by his own account (in Men and Politics, pp. 382–85) the only American correspondent remaining in Madrid on this date.

  Henry Buckley, the slight, sandy-haired, soft-spoken correspondent: Henry Buckley, The Life and Death of the Spanish Republic, p. 261.

  Barea fetched Rubio’s discarded photographs: The photographs had wide and persistent impact. They were used for posters in the United States as well as Europe, were published in periodicals on both continents, were included in a British Labour Party pamphlet, and one was taken for the frontispiece of the poet George Barker’s 1939 “Elegy on Spain.” Virginia Woolf drew on them for her essay “Three Guineas.” They can still be seen on the Internet—see for example, http://libraries.ucsd.edu/speccoll/visfront/newadd13.html.

  For the word on the street was that Koltsov: Preston, WSSD, pp. 177–87. In this book, for reasons that aren’t clear, Preston is highly resistant to the suggestion that Koltsov might have been more than a journalist; but the sources he quotes (including Koltsov’s own published diary) seem to contradict him. See also Thomas, SCW, pp. 380–81, Preston, SCW, p. 182, etc. On the Carcel Modelo, see Preston, SCW, pp. 182–86, Beevor, The Battle for Spain, pp. 173–74, Thomas, SCW, p. 463.

  Ilse felt absurdly elated: The following pages, dealing with Ilsa’s and Arturo’s meeting and their first days in the Telefónica, are sourced from Barea, FR, pp. 602–12; Ilsa Barea, Telefónica, a thinly disguised roman à clef published serially in Arbeiterzeitung (Vienna), May 1–16, 1949; and Ilsa Barea “Alone and Together,” biographical fragment, BP. In his account of this period, Sefton Delmer (Trail Sinister, p. 294) says he traveled alone, on the bus, from Valencia to Madrid; perhaps he did (it certainly makes a good story), but his version seems a bit like self-mythologizing, which Delmer occasionally indulged in. All translations from TelefÓnica are mine, with the help of Janice Kohn.

  “It did not seem worthwhile”: Barea, FR, p. 612.

  for her SAP friends at the Dôme: Schaber, Taro, p. 173.

  The pilots and the tarts: Cedric Salter, Try-Out in Spain, pp. 108–109.

  Regler was instantly charmed by Capa: Gustav Regler, interview with Richard Whelan, ICP. Supplementary information and confirmation in Regler, Owl of Minerva, pp. 281–82. The trousers story exists in many versions, the quote worded differently each time. This version is an amalgam. Whelan states, in “Robert Capa in Spain,” an essay in Heart of Spain: Robert Capa’s Photographs of the Spanish Civil War (p. 34), that Capa “had encountered [Regler] at an association of German émigré writers in Paris,” and sources Regler’s Owl of Minerva (no page given) for this information. I am unable to find any such reference in Regler’s book; indeed, his account of his Madrid encounter with Capa is that of a first meeting, so I have assumed that it was.

  “a good approximation of hell”: Louis Delaprée, The Martyrdom of Madrid (posthumous pamphlet published in 1937 in French, English, and German), p. 40. Although Delaprée’s original dispatches were in French, for the English-language edition of this book I’ve chosen to use the contemporary English translation of his words.

  “the abnormal … had become normal”: Capa, Death in the Making [unpaged].

  For when Franco had found the prize: Thomas, SCW, p. 471.

  And as Capa walked: Details from Capa photographs at ICP.

  “Into the future one dares not look.”: Capa, Death in the Making.

  “I don’t like coming up”: Barea, FR, p. 614.

  “the most reasonable war censorship”: Lester Ziffren to EH, February 18, 1937, JFK.

  “you must feed the animals”: Barea, FR, p. 617.

  Up until now it had been forbidden: Claud Cockburn, Discord of Trumpets, pp. 299–300.

  The maneuver had succeeded: Barea, FR, p. 617; Delaprée and Alving stories cited in Preston, WSSD, p. 371; Capa photographs, ICP.

  He’d hoped he might write: Pierre Lazareff, Deadline, p. 134. Lazareff was Delaprée’s editor at Paris-Soir.

  “You have not published half”: Delaprée, The Martyrdom, pp. 46–47. The last phrase was omitted from published versions but a facsimile of the handwritten text, with Madrid censors’ stamps on it, was reprinted in L’Humanité on December 31, 1936, and I have quoted from that version here in my own translation.

  “I hate politics”: Barea, FR, p. 632.

  Neither of them knew: Virginia Woolf, “Three Guineas,” p. 12; John Richardson, “How Political Was Picasso?” New York Review of Books, November 25, 2010.

  When a former associate: Barea, FR, p. 618.

  “We are here for the story”: Ilsa Barea, Telefónica.

  “the legendary Hemingway”: John Peale Bishop, “Homage to Hemingway,” The New Republic, November 11, 1936, p. 40.

  pointing out where he planned: Key West Citizen, November 21 and 30, 1936. Although the pool was, in fact, completed, the trophy room seems never to have materialized.

  “A man alone”: Hemingway, To Have and Have Not, p. TK. In the first published versions the word fucking was excised. And Morgan’s last words were added only in the very last version of the typescript, in July 1937.

  “the old miracle”: EH to Arnold Gingrich, October 3, 1936, private collection, in Reynolds, p. 240.

  here was a letter: John Wheeler to EH, November 25, 1936, EH/JFK.

  “I’ve got this nice boat”: Matthew Josephson, Infidel in the Temple: A Memoir of the Thirties, p. 428.

  “You were a genius”: Hemingway, To Have and Have Not, pp. 185–86. The most obvious model for Helen Gordon is Katy Dos Passos, who shoplifted just as her fictional counterpart does; but, as her biographer Ruth Hawkins points out, it was Pauline who (Hemingway knew) had had an abortion during their premarital
affair, and had suffered internal damage during her second childbirth—both sources for the rest of Helen’s tirade: “Love is ergoapiol pills to make me come around because you were afraid to have a baby … Love is my insides all messed up…”

  warm, newsy letters: Irme Schaber quotes liberally from them in her biography, although it’s not clear from the book’s source notes where these letters are located, and Ms. Schaber has been reluctant to share this information.

  Georg’s sister Jenny: Material on the Kuritzkes family in Italy and Gerda’s stay with them from Schaber, Taro, p. 174.

  The old militias: Preston, SCW, p. 250.

  scores of people: Delaprée, The Martyrdom of Madrid, p. 14. Delaprée puts the figure in the hundreds, but the number seems extreme, given a total estimate of 10,000 bombing deaths for the entire war over all of Spain.

  Barea said goodbye to his family: Barea, FR, p. 622; Ilsa Barea, Telefónica.

  the Catholic Church had all but instructed: James L. Minifie, Expatriate, pp. 53–54, in Preston, WSSD, p. 19.

  The New York Times’s front page: William P. Carney, “Madrid Situation Revealed,” New York Times, p. 1, December 7, 1936.

  “Simplicity is what works”: Regler, Das Ohr des Malchus, pp. 264–67, quoted in (and presumably translated by) Hans Schoots, in Living Dangerously: A Biography of Joris Ivens, p. 99. The wording is slightly different in the American edition of Regler’s memoirs, The Owl of Minerva (p. 202), but the sense is the same.

  “like a high-school boy”: John Dos Passos, Century’s Ebb: The Thirteenth Chronicle, p. 41.

  they’d begun talking: Schoots, Living Dangerously, p. 114.

  MacLeish was captivated: MacLeish, “The Cinema of Joris Ivens,” New Masses, August 24, 1937, p. 18.

  So MacLeish came up with a new plan: No print exists of the finished Spain in Flames, so it’s impossible to be certain of its final format. My account here draws on Ivens’s memoirs, interviews with Helene Van Dongen in Film Quarterly (Winter 1976), reviews of the film in The New York Times (e.g.), and Carlos Baker’s correspondence with the distributor, Tom Brandon, as well as Schoots, Living Dangerously, Alex Vernon, Hemingway’s Second War, Virginia Spencer Carr, Dos Passos: A Life, and Scott Donaldson, MacLeish.