The Forgotten Soldiers

In his day, Robert Capa was said to be the best war photographer in the world. His first published photograph was of Leon Trotsky making a speech in Copenhagen. His first war work was during the Spanish Civil War where he spent some of his time traveling with Ernest Hemingway, who was working as a journalist, and who later wrote the book For Whom the Bell Tolls about that experience.

Capa was born Endre Ernő Friedmann to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary on October 22, 1913. He fled Hungary at the age of 18 when he was accused of being a communist, and he later fled Berlin when the Nazis came to power.

I recently went to the Memorial Museum of Exile in La Jonquera to see the Robert Capa exposition titled 18 March 1939, The Forgotten Army at the Camp of Argelers. This refers to the soldiers in exile who had been fighting for the Spanish republic against the Franco insurrectionists who had overthrown the elected government. One of the French internment camps was in Argelers, a small beach-side community in the south of France, just 37 kilometers (23 miles) from the Spanish-French border. Some of these men stayed in this and other French detention camps for a year or more. Some were sent to be killed in German camps, and some left or escaped and joined the French resistance.

A mother visits her son

Prisoners made their own shelters

Prisoners cooked their own food

Musicians from the Barcelona Philharmonic

Farewell to the volunteers of the International Brigades
Barcelona, October 28, 1938
Photographs by Robert Capa

Capa was the only civilian photographer who landed with the troops on Omaha Beach on D-Day. General Eisenhower awarded him the Medal of Freedom in 1947 for his work photographing World War II and that same year he founded Magnum Photos in Paris. He died at age 40 on May 25, 1954 when he stepped on a landmine in Vietnam.

Bandidos

 

The Bandidos is an international Harley Davidson motorcycle riding club. I ran into some of them this morning when I was at the seaside resort of Empuriabrava buying some cookies and marmalades and went to my favorite cafe for a coffee and croissant (in 90 degree weather). They were scattered around the terrace, sporting their tatoos and motorcycle club t-shirts and vests.

I approached one of them to ask about the club and where he was from. He was from Andalusia and the club is international he told me. I approached another and he told me the club originated in Texas but is now international with thousands of members including members who have come for this event from Australia. He was from France. Upon further questioning I discovered he was from Nice. I've visited Nice several times and told him that my parents had come to Nice after WW II and my mother became pregnant with me there. You were made in Nice! he exclaimed.

I didn't take any photos -- I felt too shy (a missed opportunity, I know). But I did find their club on the internet when I got home and this video. It is their formal club motorcade entrance to Empuriabrava the day when they arrived. In fact, they came whatever way they wanted from all parts of Europe, and it seemed that this was their last day and they would all be headed home.

Bandidos on the Street

If you like this post, you might like my book: No Regrets: A Life in Catalonia, available at Amazon.com, UK, ES, all the Amazon sites, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, and good old-fashioned brick and mortar bookshops.

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Twosies

When I was a kid we used to sing this song on the bus headed for summer camp up in the San Bernardino mountains. I was reminded of it when I started putting together the photos for this post, which consist of various pairs I saw at the wetlands. There were couples, mother and child, siblings, and oddballs, maybe you could call them twosies.

Rise and shine and give God your glory, glory!
Rise and shine and give God your glory, glory!
Rise and shine and (clap once) give God your glory, glory!
Children of the Lord.

The Lord said to Noah, "There's gonna be a floody, floody."
Lord said to Noah, "There's gonna be a floody, floody."
"Get those children (clap once) out of the muddy, muddy!"
Children of the Lord.

So Noah, he built him, he built him an arky, arky.
Noah, he built him, he built him an arky, arky.
Made it out of (clap once) hickory barky, barky.
Children of the Lord.

The animals, they came on, they came on by twosies, twosies.
The animals, they came on, they came on by twosies, twosies.
Elephants and (clap once) kangaroosies, roosies.
Children of the Lord.

Husband and wife

Mother and child

Siblings

Oddballs

Stork Chicks

The last time I wrote about the wetland storks was in early May. At that point, the adults were tending to their nests, but there weren’t any chicks yet.

It wasn’t until the 29^th of May that I saw the first chick. There it was, a little white head. You could hardly see it because the nests are large and high up, and the chicks were small, so if you were lucky you could just see the top of a little head or a black beak. Adult beaks are orange but chicks are born with black beaks that slowly change color until, after a year, they are orange.

Tending to the nest

There's a little white head below Mom
if you look closely

Two sets of little black beaks being fed

By June 10 things had developed. The chicks were bigger and you could see them more easily. At this point they were trying out their wings, but they hadn’t fledged yet.

By the 20^th of June they were a lot bigger – almost the size of an adult. It was the beak that was still black that gave them away as youngsters. I couldn’t tell if they had fledged yet, but I think not. The nearby horses don't have to learn to fly and were not concerned.

On the 24^th, the young storks didn’t seem to have changed much.

On July 4^th, there seemed to be a change. At this point you could hardly tell the difference between the fledglings and the adults, especially from the back. The park ranger told me most if not all had fledged, but I didn’t see any of the young ones flying. Even once they start to fly the parents will continue to feed them for a while until they are more capable of flying well and feeding themselves.

They all look alike from the back

What I did see was the sure sign of summer. And it’s gotten so hot that I probably won’t go back until the fall by which time the nests will be empty. But that’s OK, there will be a whole new cycle next year.

Disappointment

 

When I recently called ahead to my favorite restaurant, El Pont Vell in Besalú, to reserve a table, I was, of course, disappointed when they told me they would be closed that day. That being a Sunday, I was also surprised. Closed? Yes, closed. In fact, the whole village would be closed. They would be filming a Bollywood movie that day and much of the village would be closed off. So I went somewhere else, somewhere new, recommended to me by an acquaintance, where the restaurant was attractive, the food was excellent, but the view was of an ugly street and so it wasn’t the wonderful experience I always have in Besalú. This morning I decided I would have that wonderful experience again. It seemed too early to call, so I figured I would call to reserve once I got there.

I bumped my way into a dirt parking lot and walked into the village. It was hot. This was why I hadn’t decided beforehand if I would be coming today or not. But the weather forecast was for two degrees (celsius) cooler than yesterday, and if I didn’t seize the day and instead waited for good (cool) weather I would be waiting til the fall.

Some huge equipment lumbered past me as I was walking in and just as I got past the huge plaza and to the narrow passage that leads into the oldest part of town, I saw what they were up to. They were tearing down a building. But not just any building. They were tearing down the Cafe Spendide, that evocative semi-ruin that I had photographed last year. How could they! Such a charming old place. Couldn’t they have refurbished it and put it to good use?

That question was answered for me by the antiquarian whose shop is just a few feet away from the demolition zone. That had never been a cafe. About a year ago, when they were filming some other movie, they had painted that sign on the wall and distressed it to make it look old. It was supposed to be a cafe in Marseille. Could have fooled me. Did fool me. No wonder, when I saw it last year, I didn’t remember ever having seen it before.

On my way to find a coffee and sit and relax and recover, I called the Pont Vell. There was no answer and their message referred me to their Whatsapp for reservations. So I sent a Whatsapp and almost immediately received a response. They were on vacation and would reopen on 5 July.

I took solace in my coffee and raspberry muffin – a rare find in a country where about 95% of all muffins are of one flavor, your basic yellow cake flavor. A trip to Besalú is never wasted because the place is always beautiful. There is the Fluvià river, the picturesque medieval bridge, all the beautiful medieval stone buildings, the wonderful 12^th century, romanesque parish church and just the feel of it all. It’s no wonder people come from all over the world to film movies there.

And as my friend Evie always says, we make plans, and God laughs.