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

by Vaill, Amanda

  Barea’s trip to Valencia: Details on the following pages, including dialogue, are from Barea, FR, p. 627–37, and Ilsa Barea, Teléfonica.

  It was Martha’s mother: Edna Gellhorn and Sloppy Joe’s, Bernice Kert, The Hemingway Women, p. 290; Sloppy Joe’s description from Baker, EH, p. 192.

  “glorious idol”: MG to ER, no date, in Moorehead, Gellhorn, p. 105.

  “a fixture, like a kudu head”: MG to PPH, January 14, 1937, in Moorehead, Selected Letters, pp. 46–47. In a 1980 interview with Bernice Kert for The Hemingway Women Gellhorn maintained she visited the house only once (p. 291).

  mostly they just talked: EH and MG’s conversations from MG to Eleanor Roosevelt, January 8 and 13, 1937, in Moorehead, Selected, pp. 44–46.

  “Pauline cutie”: MG to PPH, January 14, 1937, in Moorehead, Selected, pp. 46–47.

  “I suppose Ernest is busy”: Josephson, Infidel, p. 428.

  Once, Hemingway was driving: Kert, The Hemingway Women, p. 290.

  “the oldest trick there is”: Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, p. 209.

  “I’m a fool with women”: Josephson, Infidel, p. 428.

  He had let her read: MG to ER, January 8 and 13, 1936, in Moorehead, Selected, pp. 44–46.

  they stayed in close touch: MG to Betty Barnes, January 39, 1937, in Moorehead, Selected, pp. 48–49.

  “This is very private”: MG to EH, February 15, 1937, in Kert, The Hemingway Women, p. 294.

  “Me, I am going to Spain”: MG to Betty Barnes, January 30, 1937, in Moorehead, Selected, p. 48.

  PART II: “YOU NEVER HEAR THE ONE THAT HITS YOU”

  The paunchy, red-faced general: Preston, SCW, p. 178, is only one of several sources for this description.

  The Loyalist prime minister: Memo from Vladimir Gorev (“SANCHO”) to Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, People’s Commissar (minister) for Defense, September 25, 1936, in Ronald Radosh, Mary Habeck, and Gregory Sevostianov, eds., Spain Betrayed, pp. 58–63.

  If Moscow wanted to defeat: Ibid., October 16, 1936, pp. 66–70.

  “I could not live”: Barea, FR, p. 642.

  although Robles had been working: Much ink has been spilled about Robles, his motives, connections, work for the Soviet advisors, etc. I’ve tried to pick my way between varied (not to say opposing) versions of his story told by Paul Preston (see WSSD, pp. 62–92), Stephen Koch in The Breaking Point, and Ignacio Martínez de Pison in To Bury the Dead. As for Robles’s movements, Louis Fischer (Men and Politics, p. 395) places him in Madrid on November 15; by sometime in December he was in Valencia, and in custody.

  a sure grasp of the stakes: Herbert L. Matthews, “Spain is Battleground of ‘Little World War,’” New York Times, published January 11, 1937. It should be noted that this story was written and bylined November 29, 1936; the Times’s pro-Franco night editors, Raymond McCaw and Neil MacNeil, frequently cut, spiked, or delayed Matthews’s stories because they perceived them as partisan.

  even Cockburn admitted: Claud Cockburn, A Discord of Trumpets, pp. 307–9.

  After all, the rebels were issuing: The Nationalist propagandist Antonio Bahamonde “described the process whereby ‘atrocity’ photographs were faked” (Preston, SCW, p. 205); and the collector Dr. Rod Oakland points out (www.psywar.org/spanishcivilwar.php) inconsistencies in such a photograph that illustrate how the process was managed.

  the great man had told him: Barea, FR, p. 353.

  a telephone call came for Ilsa: Barea, FR, p. 649, and Berdah, “Un réseau de renseignement antinazi au service de la République espagnole,” in Fréderic Guelton and Abdil Bicer, op. cit.

  She left the next day: Barea, FR, p. 649.

  He’d gone to Madrid: Whelan, Capa, p. 109.

  “a nest of newspaper correspondents”: John Dos Passos, Journeys Between the Wars, in Dos Passos, Travel Books and Other Writings, 1916–1941, p. 460.

  with the exiled German composer: Although there is no photographic evidence to document this trip, Irme Schaber, using Kantorowicz as a source, places Gerda, Eisler, and Kantorowicz in Valencia at this time. See Schaber, Taro, pp. 178–79.

  She told Ruth Cerf: Ruth Cerf Berg, interview, quoted in Kershaw, Blood and Champagne, p. 52.

  “He shared the perils”: “Sur la ligne du feu,” Regards, December 17, 1936. My translation.

  Perkins had confessed: MP to EH, October 1 and December 9, 1936, JFK.

  Perkins should read: Kert, The Hemingway Women, p. 294.

  He visited his sister-in-law: Ruth A. Hawkins, Unbelievable Happiness and Final Sorrow, p. 196.

  “If you didn’t get killed”: EH to PP, December 9, 1936, JFK.

  was even more negative: PP to EH, February 9, 1937, JFK.

  they asked Hemingway the question: The documentary evidence surrounding Hemingway’s initial involvement is thin, which suggests negotiations were handled in person. A letter dated January 28, 1937, from MacLeish to “Jerry” (possibly Jerome Chodorov, one of the people named by the director Jerome Robbins to HUAC in 1953—in a marginal note MacLeish identifies him only as “a communist in NY charged with … agit-prop”), says that “Hemingway has joined the group” working on the full-length film “and will write the dialogue if things go as anticipated.” [AMacL to “Jerry,” Archibald MacLeish papers, Library of Congress.]

  “a great fair”: SWM, in Calvin Tomkins, Living Well Is the Best Revenge, p. 38.

  He and Sidney Franklin left: GCM to PPH, January 22, 1937, JFK.

  “very good reliable”: GCM to EH, January 8, 1936, JFK.

  he stopped at his bank: Michael Reynolds, Hemingway’s Reading, 1910–1940: An Inventory, p. 28.

  In the first months of the new year: Le Temps, “La Guerre Civil en Espagne,” February 2, 1937.

  Gerda and Capa clambered all over: GT and RC photos, ICP.

  “seventy miles of people”: T. C. Worsley, in Preston, SCW, p. 194–95.

  he could give her his speedy compact Leica: Although the photos taken by Taro during her time on the Málaga front were made with her Rolleiflex, she appears in a photograph taken shortly after her and Capa’s return to Madrid holding the Leica II, and the photos she took from this point on were made with that camera, according to research by Richard Whelan, Irme Schaber, and Kirsten Lubben (see Whelan’s essay “Identifying Taro’s Work: A Detective Story” in Schaber, Whelan, and Lubben, Gerda Taro, pp. 41–51).

  Up to that point their photographs: Richard Whelan, “Identifying Taro’s Work: A Detective Story,” Gerda Taro, p. 46; Kirsten Lubben, “Reportage Capa & Taro,” The Mexican Suitcase, p. 117. The stamp/credit issue is, however, something of a chicken-and-egg question: the surviving Almería prints at ICP don’t carry the “Capa & Taro” stamp, but the photos were published with that credit line.

  his cameraman and compatriot John Ferno: Ferno, born Johannes Hendrik Fernhout, used the more easily pronounced “John Ferno” for his film credits and I have followed his usage.

  a title MacLeish: EH to Waldo Peirce, July 27, 1937, in Baker, Selected, p. 458.

  “a great struggle”: Ivens, The Camera and I, pp. 104–6. Ivens doesn’t identify MacLeish by name but MacLeish described his part in the scenario to Lillian Hellman (AMacL to LH, December 24, 1936, Lillian Hellman papers, Harry Ransom Research Center). MacLeish’s responsibility for the film’s title is mentioned in EH to Waldo Peirce, July 27, 1937, in Baker, Selected, pp. 458–59.

  conferred about it as they sailed: A letter from Hellman’s secretary to H. M. Behram, December 28, 1936 (HRC), confirms she sailed with Ivens on Saturday, December 26, arriving December 31.

  “the direction is in the hands”: Ivens, “Brief aan de Groene,” De Groene Amsterdammer, December 25, 1937, in Schoots, Living Dangerously, p. 119.

  Ivens sought out Carlos and Mikhail Koltsov: Schoots, Living Dangerously, p. 119. Ivens’s The Camera and I (pp. 123–24) implies these conversations took place later, in the spring, after Hemingway’s arrival, but other aspects of this chronology are so confused (and confusing) as to
cast Ivens’s memory or his notes in doubt. See, e.g., Vernon, Hemingway’s Second War, pp. 102–3.

  the closest they could come: Descriptions are from Spanish Earth footage, various reels.

  But The New York Times’s correspondent: Herbert L. Matthews, The Education of a Correspondent, p. 94. Other details of the battle come from Beevor, pp. 208–15; Thomas, pp. 571–78; and Buckley, pp. 280–88.

  They found the Garibaldi Battalion on the road: Footage from The Spanish Earth, Reel 5; Ivens, in “Het Volk,” March 6, 1937.

  a steady rain of ordnance: Per Eriksson, from Swedes in the Spanish Civil War, P. A. Norstedt & Söners Forlag, 1972, on www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPthaelmann.htm.

  “You should hear the silence”: Ivens, The Camera and I, pp. 114–15.

  As the filmmakers were driving back to Madrid: Regler, Owl, pp. 294–96. Regler’s chronology is somewhat whimsical; he claims Hemingway was present at the time of this incident, but Hemingway didn’t arrive in Madrid until a month afterward. The name “Maximovich” appears to be Regler’s coinage, possibly a pseudonym for Gorev.

  the Abraham Lincoln Battalion: The Abraham Lincoln Battalion is sometimes, erroneously, referred to as the Lincoln Brigade; in fact, the archives of the battalion, at New York University’s Tamiment Library, are called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. Notwithstanding, in the Spanish Civil War, a brigade was a military unit comprising four to six battalions. Thus, for example, the Lincoln Battalion was part of the Fifteenth International Brigade.

  In Madrid, Ilsa Kulcsar learned: Barea, FR, p. 652, and Thomas, SCW, pp. 571–79. Also Beevor (p. 153) and Preston, SCW, pp. 195–96.

  at least one of the resident journalists: Delmer, Trail Sinister, pp. 315–16.

  Lionel Barrymore: ABC, February 12, 1937, p. 15.

  Gerda and Capa headed to the Telefónica: Schaber, Taro, p. 181. She believes that Taro was staying with Capa at the Alianza (see below) but other sources (Whelan, Allan, etc.) say they were at the Hotel Florida. Absent documentary proof to the contrary I’m siding with the Floridians.

  The restaurant was in the Gran Via’s basement: Dos Passos, Journeys Between Wars, p. 470; Ted Allan, This Time a Better Earth, p. 103; Virginia Cowles, Looking for Trouble, pp. 16–18.

  his first sight of the two photographers: Ted and Norman Allan, Ted (an unpublished annotated autobiography), chapter 2; this document has been published online by Allan’s son, Norman Allan, at www.normanallan.com/Misc/Ted/Ted%20home.htm

  Allan held on: Allan, This Time a Better Earth, pp. 31–32.

  “couldn’t say shit or sheets”: Ted Allan, interview with Richard Whelan, ICP.

  Allan turned to Bethune: Allan, Ted.

  Years later, Capa would explain: Robert Capa, Slightly Out of Focus, p. 80.

  he and Gerda saw the bear: Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, photographs from negative rolls 52 and 53 in the Mexican Suitcase collection, ICP.

  There was no sign outside the “21” Club: The placing of this meeting at “21” comes from Dos Passos’s roman à clef, Century’s Ebb, pp. 40–44. The details about the appearance of “21” at the time are from Jeffre Pogash, “The Most Reputable Speakeasy in New York,” Bartender, Spring 2008, and from “21’s” website, www.21club.com/web/onyc/21_club.jsp. The phalanx of jockeys now in position wasn’t introduced until later; the first jockey was donated in “the late 1930s.”

  And Hemingway and Dos Passos would each be going: Spencer Carr, Dos Passos, pp. 362–64. Interestingly, the essays about the Spanish and European situations that Dos Passos later collected in Journeys Between the Wars were published in Esquire and Redbook, not Fortune.

  “one of the simplest things of all”: Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon, p. 2.

  Some of the participants: The account of the dinner comes from Dos Passos, Century’s Ebb, pp. 40–44.

  he was happy to oblige: Ira Wolfert, “Hemingway to Dig into Spanish War,” Hartford Courant, March 1, 1937, p. 10.

  “I’m very grateful to you both”: EH to the Pfeiffer family, February 9, 1937, PUL, in Baker, Selected, p. 458.

  Just before he and Katy were due to depart: Dos Passos, Century’s Ebb, pp. 44–46; also in Dos Passos, The Theme Is Freedom, p. 116.

  “a phase of prudent consolidation”: Le Populaire, February 14, 1937, in Bernier, Fireworks, p. 252.

  the high priest of French Marxism recounted: André Gide, Return from the USSR [Retour de l’U.R.S.S.], p. xv.

  On the rue Froidevaux: Michel Lefebvre and Bernard Lebrun, “Where Does the Mexican Suitcase Come From?” MS, vol. 2, pp. 75–82.

  the Associated Press reporter Lester Ziffren: LZ to EH, February 18, 1937, JFK.

  Meanwhile, he himself telephoned: EH, dispatch 1 (“Passport for Franklin”), Hemingway Review, p. 13. Hemingway’s dispatches from Spain were published (sometimes in slightly differing form) in a variety of newspapers subscribing to the North American Newspaper Alliance. For the sake of consistency and authority I rely on the texts as edited by James Braasch Watson and published in The Hemingway Review, vol. 7, no. 2, Spring 1988, henceforth referred to as HR7.

  When time hung heavy on their hands: Solita Solano to Carlos Baker, January 17, 1962, in Baker, EH, p. 301.

  Hemingway probably didn’t understand: Schoots, pp. 120–21.

  He even found himself trying: Joris Ivens to Jeffrey Meyers, quoted in Jeffrey Meyers, Hemingway: A Biography, p. 311.

  the two men went out: Paul Quintanilla, Waiting at the Shore: Art, Revolution, War, and Exile in the Life of the Spanish Artist Luis Quintanilla, p. 199.

  Twenty miles from the French border: Baker, EH, pp. 301–2; P. Quintanilla, Waiting at the Shore, p. 103; and EH, dispatch 2 (HR).

  A week later, two other journalists: Whelan, Capa, pp. 112–13; Capa photographs, ICP.

  The Casa de Alianza de Escritores Antifascistas: Details on the Alianza and its activities and inhabitants come from Schaber, Taro, p. 182; Arnold Rampersad, Langston Hughes, vol. 1: I, Too, Sing America, pp. 347–48; Stephen Spender, World Within World, pp. 245–46; Gerda Taro photographs, notebook #1, Archives Nationales de France.

  Alberti and Maria Teresa offered to help: Alberti, “Capa and Gerda Taro,” La Arboleda Perdida, vol. III, chapter 14, in Schaber, Taro, p. 244.

  she and he had chronicled: Taro and Capa, notebook #7, Archives Nationales de France; Mexican Suitcase rolls 55 (Capa) and 56 (Taro), ICP. Neruda, whose government recalled him from Spain because of his Loyalist sympathies, wrote a poem about the destruction of his house, “Explico Algunas Cosas” (“I’m Explaining a Few Things”).

  She wasn’t sure she saw a future: Kershaw, Blood and Champagne, p. 52.

  Certainly she said that: Allan, Ted, part 2.

  The German photographer Walter Reuter: Schaber, Taro, p. 185.

  When they crossed the Jarama north of Arganda: Taro photographs, ICP; Schaber, Taro, pp. 194–96; Allan, This Time, pp. 163–201, and Ted, chapters 1 and 2.

  The poor visibility produced: Thomas, SCW, p. 582.

  On the fifth floor of the Telefónica: Allan, This Time, p. 106.

  At dinner at the Gran Via: Spender, World, p. 248.

  He’d seen what the Italians had done: Allan, This Time, p. 112.

  Sitting at the telephone: Barea, FR, pp. 653–54. When the dispatch was published Matthews was enraged to discover that “Italian” had been changed to “Insurgent” throughout. On March 22 he cabled the Times: “IF YOU DON’T TRUST YOUR CORRESPONDENTS EITHER RELIEVE OR DISCHARGE THEM BUT EYE WONT STAY MADRID UNLESS EYE HAVE YOUR FULL CONFIDENCE” (HLM to Edwin James, March 22, 1937, Matthews papers, HRC, quoted in Vernon, p. xvi).

  very nearly including Ted Allan and Geza Karpathi: Allan, Ted, chapter 1; photos from Charles Korvin photographic archive, Brandeis University.

  abandoned Fiat tractors and Lancia trucks: Koltsov, Ispansky dnevik [Spanish Diary], p. 450, in Beevor, The Battle for Spain, p. 219.

  a mailbag his men had seized: Barea, FR, p. 654.

  T
hen, a few freezing, sodden days later: Accounts of the battle of Guadalajara mainly from Beevor and Thomas.

  in the streets of Madrid: Allan, This Time, p. 129.

  Finally, she was able to commandeer a car: Allan, This Time, pp. 125–26 and 137–38; Schaber, Taro, p. 191.

  But she had taken “wonderful pictures”: Although Whelan and Schaber both claim that Taro’s photos of Guadalajara were published in Regards and Volks Illustrierte under the mistaken byline “PHOTOS WARO,” it’s also possible, if not probable (as Cynthia Young points out), that the credit was that of a Brussels photo agency of that name. There are no prints or negatives of any Guadalajara photographs in Taro’s archives, nor any contact prints in her notebooks; possibly, whatever photos she may have taken at Guadalajara were lost or inadvertently destroyed. The only documentary evidence for Taro’s presence at the battle is in Allan, This Time, pp. 126–39, and Schaber, Taro, p. 191 (which references Matthews).

  Valencia was in full battle dress: GT photographs of Valencia, Mexican Suitcase roll 77, ICP.

  “To win the war”: Berzin to Voroshilov, copy to Stalin, February 16, 1937, Russian State Military Archive, in Radosh et al., Spain Betrayed, p. 127; unnamed French correspondent (presumed to be Marty), early March 1937, included in March 23, 1937, report to Voroshilov, Russian State Military Archive, in Radosh et al., Spain Betrayed, pp. 164–65.

  Gerda evolved: Koltsov’s words summarized in Schaber, Taro, p. 200.

  “WE UNWANT DAILY RUNNING NARRATIVE”: H. J. J. Sargint, cable to EH, March 18, 1937, JFK.

  he told Spender he couldn’t wait: Spender, World, p. 252.

  Constancia, nicknamed Connie: Background: Fox, Constancia de la Mora, pp. 6–17 and 38–39; De la Mora, In Place of Splendor, pp. 1–7, 290 ff.

  on the morning of March 20: EH, dispatch 12, HR7, pp. 43–44.

  “the true gen”: EH to Charles A. Fenton, July 29, 1952, in Baker, Selected, p. 775.

  “the biggest Italian defeat”: This and earlier descriptions of the battlefield from EH, dispatches 4 and 5, in HR7, pp. 20 and 22.