ALGERIAN CIVIL WAR (1957)

Kryn Taconis (b. Rotterdam, 1918) was the only Dutchman who has ever been a member of the legendary Magnum photo agency. He made his first photographs during the Second World War, in the course of producing false documents for the resistance. He also worked for the Underground Camera, a group of Dutch photographers who secretly recorded the German occupation. After joining Magnum in 1950, he want to Algeria in 1957 to photograph the activities of the FLN (Front de Liberation National) there. For two weeks the recorded the guerrilla war that the Algerian resistance movement conducted from the woods against the French colonialists.The FLN fought with weapons captured from the French. Good contacts in the countryside provided for sufficient food and clothing. During the time he was with them, the resistance group attacked a French convoy. According to the French radio eight guerrillas were killed in the action, while in reality no one was even wounded.