John Morris, former picture editor of Life, talks about the great photographer and his most historic roll of film – of D-Day
Capa was born in Budapest as Endre Friedmann, son of a Jewish dressmaker. He was jailed as a leftist student, and in 1931 left for more tolerant Berlin to study journalism. He intended to be a writer. But he began working as an errand boy for a photo agency, took a noted photograph of Leon Trotsky and, when Hitler came to power, fled to Paris and became a photographer. It happened partly because he was Hungarian: speaking a language that couldn’t travel with him, he was forced into images rather than words. Or in his words: “It’s not enough to have talent. You also have to be Hungarian.”
