Lini Bunjes, Dec. 1936. Photo Juan Guzmán.
How an Anti-Fascist Photographer Landed in a Republican and Francoist Jail
THE LINI BUNJES STORY By Sílvia Marimon Molas with research by Montserrat Bailac
The Dutch photographer Lini Bunjes was among the first foreign volunteers to join the defense of the Spanish Republic. A free-spirited and independent woman, she attracted suspicion from both the Republican and Nationalist authorities and spent several stints in jail. When she left Spain, in January 1941, she was 23, had an infant son, and was poised to continue the fight against fascism in her home country.
C
arolina Bunjes, known to her friends as Lini, looks confidently into the camera, smiling. In the picture, taken by Hans Guttmann, aka Juan Guzmán, in December 1936, she’s wearing her arm in a sling. The photograph was distributed widely, along with others shot around same time by the Republic’s best-known photographers. “The Woman Fighter,” the caption of a full-page portrait on the back cover of the popular magazine Mundo Gráfico read: “This girl, the German antifascist Lini Dunjes [sic], … continues to fight … despite her hand wound.” Thanks to the investigative work of Montserrat Bailac, a researcher, we now know that the story behind the picture is more complicated than that. For one thing, Lini was a photographer herself. She had arrived in Barcelona from Paris shortly before the Popular Olympics that were supposed to begin on July 19, 1936; and although she was only 18 at the time, she was among the 1,200 women who immediately joined the front as milicianas. For another thing, she was persecuted by both Republican and Francoist security
agents and ended up imprisoned by both sides. By the time she left Spain, in January 1941, she was 23 and had an infant son. She’d continue to fight fascism in her home country, the Netherlands. Lini Bunjes was a precocious political activist. Born in Utrecht in 1918, she didn’t find out that her family was Jewish until she was 13 years old. Her father had fled Germany after deserting the army during World War I; her mother was Dutch. As a teenager, Lini joined various antifascist organizations. When she was 16, she met Franz Lowenstein, a young German Communist in exile, with whom she eventually moved to Paris, and who accompanied her to Barcelona in the summer of 1936. In the Catalan capital, Franz and Lini made a living as sports and news photographers. Once the failed coup of 1936 devolved into a civil war, both joined the front. Franz fought in the Thälmann Centuria in Aragón and would eventually be appointed to the General Staff of the International Brigades in Albacete. He died in the Battle of the Ebro in September 1938. By then, he and Lini had already separated.
December 2020 THE VOLUNTEER 15
