Background
Ginestà was born in Toulouse, France, and moved to Barcelona with her parents at the age of 11.
journalist politician translator
Ginestà was born in Toulouse, France, and moved to Barcelona with her parents at the age of 11.
lieutenant is one of the most iconic photographs of the Spanish Civil War. Ginestà later joined the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia. As the war broke out, she served as a reporter and a translator assisting Mikhail Koltsov, a correspondent of the Soviet newspaper Pravda.
Before the end of the war, Ginestà was wounded and evacuated to Montpellier.
In 1946 she was forced to leave the country because of the persecution of dictator Rafael Trujillo. In 1952 Ginestà married a Belgian diplomat and returned to Barcelona.
She moved to Paris in the early 1970s. Marina Ginestà died there at the age of 94 in January 2014.
The famous photograph was taken on 21 July 1936.
lieutenant shows the 17-year-old girl posing with a rifle on the top of Hotel Colón. As she was a reporter, it was the only time Ginestà was carrying a gun. The picture was later seen in the cover of the book Las Trece Rosas by Carlos Fonseca.
The hotel was destroyed after the war and on its place is today the building of the Banco Español de Credito.