Re: [Leica] Robert Capa Photo

["Alan Hull" <hull@telia.com>]

From Sal DiMarco Jr. 
It is amazing how many people are ready and willing to accept some half
baked story about a faked photo.
The Spanish Loyalist Soldier is REAL.
About two years ago, he was positively identified by a relative.
- -------------------------
What I find amazing is how anybody can believe the above raw statement
that an identification more than sixty years after the event, by a
sister-in-law in 1996 from a photograph taken in 1936 can be called a
positive identification.  Even if it is backed up by military records
that a man named Garcia died on that day does not in any way prove that
it is the same man in the photo. 

Only the bare essentials of a soldiers death are recorded and held in
official archives.  Garcia could even have died from wounds received
earlier in a different place.  In the UK the details of a mans death
are sometimes held, if they exist at all, in battalion notes and diarys
from de-briefings of commanders and are not part of the official
archives.  Believe me, I have been there, it is very difficult to
determine cause, place, and time of injury in random skirmishes. 
Participants, have naturally other things to do than take notes, and
memories after the event are innacurate.

In London and Paris (and possibly in Arlington) there is a Tomb to an
Unknown Warrior.  My brother tells me that even today there are
relatives who try to claim the body.  Despite the fact that soldier
sailor or airman is unknown.  And they even get the war wrong. 

I am certainly not on a crusade about this, but I do find it amusing
that people will grasp at any data to prove a point, irrespective of
whether that data is so full of holes that a double decker bus could be
drove through it.

I am not trying to prove that the photo is a fake.  I am just pointing
out that this proof that it is genuine would be laughed out of any
court in the world.  Except Sweden if taxes were involved:-)

When it comes right down to it, it is impossible to PROVE that this
photo is genuine or not.  Each individual must look at the photo and
decide on his gut feeling, using his own experience of life, whether it
is a fake or not.  It is all a matter of opinion, and as such is quite
worthless.

There is a cloud of suspicion surrounding this photo, and no amount of
rightious statements will dispel it.  Discuss it, have fun with it, but
for goodness sake don't make a religion of it.

Alan.