Why I went

If you’re wondering why I went to France (although why anyone should have to explain going to France, I do not know), it’s because in June I became aware of an exhibition of women war photographers that was running through December at the musée de la Liberation de Paris. I’d recently read You Don't Belong Here, which documented women journalists—mostly photographers—who covered the Vietnam War, so it was on my mind.

(I also am familiar with women who covered and photographed the Second World War, so this ain’t my first rodeo.)

So, of course I decided to go to Paris to see it.

And because not even I’m so loopy as to book eight-hour flights just to see an exhibition, I tacked on two more weeks, rounding it out with Gallo-Roman towns on the Rhône.

But here are some pix of Femmes Photographes de Guerres, my raison de voyager. (You’ll note that there are both reflections off the glass, and distortions as I tried to avoid reflections.)

The first are by Gerta Taro, partner of one of the most famous phojos of the 20^th Century, Robert Capa. Born Gerta Porohylle in 1910 to a Galician Jewish family living in Germany, as a Communist sympathizer, she had double the reasons to get out of town. She moved to Paris, where she met Capa. He taught her the basics of photography, but her visual gifts could not have possibly been learned. She just had the eye.

They began partnering, using the names Robert Capa (he was born André Friedmann, in Hungary) and Gerta Taro, pretending to be Americans. That was enough to get them to Spain to cover the Civil War started by a fascist coup under Francisco Franco.

The two photographers documented the war from the front lines, Taro the same as Capa; she died of wounds sustained at the Brunete front in July 1937, age 27. Because many of her photographs were published under his name, she’s only recently been recognized for the powerful work she did.

Three Republican soldiers at the front near Córdoba, Spain, September 1936:

Republican militiawoman training on a beach outside Barcelona, August 1936:

Crowds at the morgue gates, Valencia, May 1937:

Republican soldiers at Granjuela, Córdoba front, June 1937:

War orphan eating soup, Madrid, 1937:

(Capa went on to cover other wars; he was killed in Vietnam in 1954.)

Possibly the most well-known of the subjects of this show is Lee Miller. An American, she moved to Paris after college and became part of the artistic community that flourished there during the inter-war years. Her lover Man Ray introduced her to surrealism and also taught her photography. She became a noted fashion photographer; during World War II, she was accredited as a correspondent by Vogue magazine.

She got into the swing of things after the Allied invasion of Normandy.

Women accused of collaboration with German occupiers, Rennes, France, 1944:

It should be noted that following the liberation of France, there were wholesale accusations of all kinds of collaboration, in many cases just outright settling of scores. The charges against women who’d had relationships with Germans were particularly vicious and the women were vilified much more than men accused of doing business with the Nazis. Miller was on the side of those who vilified.

Interrogation of woman accused of collaboration, Rennes, 1944:

Entrance to Buchenwald, 1945:

Captured guards at Buchenwald, 1945:

These two had put on civilian clothes in hopes they could escape accountability for their role at the camp. It looks to me as though that tactic was unsuccessful.

Legs of a Buchenwald deportee, 1945:

Freed Buchenwald prisoners scavenging on a garbage dump, 1945:

First funeral at Buchenwald, 1945:

“Nazi Harvest” spread in Vogue, June 1945:

“Germans are like this”, Vogue, June 1945:

The Mayor’s Daughter, Leipzig, 1945:

The mayor, his wife and adult daughter—ardent Nazis—had all committed suicide rather than be held accountable for their actions.

Catherine Leroy was born in Paris in 1944; 21 years later she landed in Vietnam with her Leica M2 to “give the war a human face.” The thing about Leroy was: she was so intent on getting that human side that she learned to parachute from planes and jumped with the soldiers she covered. She earned mad respect from them.

Leroy went on to cover wars in Lebanon, Africa and Northern Ireland.

US attack on Binh Dinh, September 1966:

US soldier at Hué during the Tet Offensive, 1968:

(This could have been any of several million soldiers on the Western Front during WWI.)

Suspected Viet Cong soldier held by US soldier, January 1968:

Soldiers from the 1^st Air Cavalry Regiment capture a suspect VC, January 1967:

(The American has just hit the Vietnamese hard.)

US Navy corpsman Vernon Wilkes tends to a mortally injured Marine at the battle of Hill 881, outside Khe Sanh, April-May 1967:

Leroy tracked Wilkes down decades later and took this picture of him at age 58, Arizona, 2005:

Muslim district in Beirut, September 1975:

Christine Spengler, born in Vichy in 1945, has been covering wars from the victims’ perspective since 1970. That means many of her photographs are of women and children. Her wars ranged from Northern Ireland to the Middle East to Cambodia.

Children after a day of violence in the Bogside, Londonderry, Northern Ireland, 1972:

The Falls Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 1972:

Funeral of an IRA member, Londonderry, 1972:

Boys playing in the Mekong River with shell casings, Cambodia, 1974:

Boy (from previous photo) crying over his father’s body, Cambodia, 1974:

Qom cemetery, Iran, 1979:

A Palestinian woman defends her house, Beirut, 1982:

Nouenna, a fighter with the Polisario Front, Western Sahara, 1976:

This is a bouquet Spengler sent to the exhibition to honor victims of the war in Ukraine, which she is unable to cover:

Françoise Demulder, born in Paris in 1947, studied philosophy, but starting with Vietnam/Cambodia in 1973, she covered wars in Angola, Lebanon, Cuba, Ethiopia and Iraq into the 1990s. She actually learned to use a camera while in Vietnam, and never looked back.

Father mourning over the body of his son, who died of wounds, Saigon, 1975:

Training child soldiers for Lon Nol’s army, Cambodia, 1974:

Child soldier, Cambodia, 1974:

Karantina massacre, Beirut, 1976:

Capture of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 30 May 1991

Susan Meiselas currently lives in New York, but was born in Baltimore in 1948. Like the other women in this show, she follows Robert Capa’s dictum: if your photo’s not good enough, you’re not close enough, as you can see from these shots.

Traditional Monimbo dance mask, used by rebels against Somoza’s regime to conceal their identities, Nicaragua, 1979:

This particular rebel happens to be a woman.

Blood of a student killed while handing out political leaflets, El Salvador, 1979,

Sandinistas, Nicaragua, July 1979:

And a detail from the photo—the Molotov cocktail is in a Pepsi bottle, which I thought interesting:

Mano Blanca handprints on a door, El Salvador, 1980:

Mano Blanca was the signature of the government-controlled death squads.

Carolyn Cole has spent most of her career at the Los Angeles Times, where she still works as a photojournalist. She was the only journalist present when Israeli forces besieged Palestinians who’d taken refuge in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002. She’s covered wars in Iraq and Liberia since then, but now focuses on nature and the conservation of marine environments.

Palestinians in the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, Israel, May 2002:

Palestinian victim of Israeli sniper, Bethlehem, Israel, May 2002:

US Marine wearing camouflage paint, Najaf, Iraq, August 2004:

Iraqi detainees, Kufa, Iraq, August 2004:

Bodies in mass grave, Monrovia, Liberia, August 2003:

Born in 1965 in Höxter, Germany, Anja Niedringhaus was in 1990 the first female photographer hired by the European Pressphoto agency. She covered wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza and Libya. She was killed while covering the presidential elections in Afghanistan on 4 April 2014.

Afghan boy on a merry-go-round celebrating the end of Ramadan with a toy gun, Kabul, Afghanistan, September 2009:

Afghan men on a motorbike passing Canadian soldiers, Salavat, Afghanistan, September 2010:

Canadian soldier chasing a chicken, Salavat, Afghanistan, September 2010:

Seconds after Niedringhaus took the photo, the group was attacked with hand grenades. Niedringhaus was severely injured; she was airlifted out to Germany for treatment, but returned to Afghanistan within a few weeks.

German soldier celebrates his 34^th birthday, Yaftal e Sofla, Afghanistan, September 2009:

US Marines raid the house of an Iraqi deputy in the Abu Ghraib district, Bagdad, Iraq, November 2004:

US Marines capture an Iraqi deputy following a raid in the Abu Ghraib district, Bagdad, Iraq, November 2004:

Badly wounded US Marine Burness Britt, 21, awaits medevac, Sangin, Afghanistan, June 2011

US Marine with action figure he wears as talisman, Iraq, 2004:

Palestinian boys playing with telephone they found, Jebaliya, Gaza, January 2009:

Palestinian girls run across the street during a demonstration, Ramallah, November 2007:

 Yes: it was totally worth the trip to see this collection.