Details
The journey of recently revealed photographs from the Spanish civil war hidden for 70 years.
In 2007 three boxes were discovered in a closet in Mexico City that had been lost in the chaos in Europe at the beginning of World War II. Inside were 4,500 negatives taken by friends Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour, exiled from Germany Hungary and Poland, who were to become some of the finest photojournalists of their time. As committed anti-fascists they travelled to Spain to fight the rise of Franco with their cameras. Through their work, the story of the Spanish Civil War and the exile of over 500,000 Spaniards to Europe and Mexico is revealed.
The Mexican Suitcase looks at the power of memory and asks who owns our memories and where do they belong as a new generation in Spain is beginning to reconcile itself with its own history.
Paul Preston is the Director of Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies at LSE, and the author of ‘We Saw Spain Die: Foreign Correspondents in the Spanish Civil War’.