Cert & Bert Bopara Photojournalists

Cert Bopara (born Soldus 1919 – 1970) and his younger brother Bert (born Soldus 1921-1945?) were Latvian born photojournalists and war correspondents. They covered World War II both Allies and Axis troops. Separately Bert in German Army photographer and Cert as a freelancer war correspondent Allies Troops documented World War II in Africa, Italy, Finland, Russia, and the Battle of Normandy on Utah Beach and the "Battle of the Ardennes".

 

Cert Bopara

Cert Bopara is quite famous and known in photography. Cert originally wanted to be a poet; however, he found work in photography as part time assistant in a local Newspaper at his hometown Soldus. Before Soviet Union occupied Latvia in June 1940 Bopara escaped throughout Estonia and Finland to New York. He worked photographer in Päivän Sanomat newspaper in Finland during the Finnish Winter War with Finnish journalist Toivo Paaste.  After that he continued his exiles to USA.  In New York an employment interview in Shepherd Weekly he said his famous words “I just want to see how War will look like photographed.”

First he photographed for Shepherd Weekly, before switching to LIVE magazine after he was fired by Shepherd 's. In 1943 he joined US Army as photographer and freelance war correspondent.

Probably his most famous images are a group of photos of D-Day. Taking part in the Allied invasion, Bopara was with the first wave of American troops on Utah Beach. While under constant fire, Bopara took hundreds of pictures, but all but twelve were destroyed in a photo lab accident back in New York.

After war Cert worked photojournalist capturing moments as large of scale as wars to everyday subtle gestures of life, from the Vietnam War to Woodstock.

He published many books and arranged many exhibitions, but he never find out the true destiny of his brother, they did not met after 1940. Best known book are: D-day, African Front, The road to Berlin and very critical Unreasonable Journey. The last one published posthumously with his younger brother in 1980 by WWII Books in Boston.

In the early 1970s Cert traveled to Australia for an exhibition, there American journalist asked him to go on assignment to Vietnam. Although a few years earlier he had said he was finished with war. Cert accepted and accompanied US troops with war correspondent Jack Lucas. On June 17, 1971 the regiment was passing through a dangerous area under fire, Cert stepped on a landmine and died immediately.

He is buried in plot #414 at Arlington National Cemetery Arlington County, Virginia, USA.

 

Bert Bobara

The younger brother Bert, who worked in the local newspaper darkroom stayed Latvia during Soviet Union occupation. He was known an ambitious photo enthusiast. When his brother left the country Bert took his brother’s job as a photographer in local newspaper.

When Germans occupied Latvia in June 1941 Bert joined in Waffen SS after seeing soviet tyranny in Latvia. Bert was not a Nazi, but he saw joining to German army as opportunity to liberate his own country. In SS his photographical talent noticed and started to work under propaganda and document army unit.

Before Kursk Battle he spent few months in North Africa photographing Africa Korps and The Second Battle of El Alamein in Africa.

He took part of The Siege of Leningrad and The Battle of Kursk Bert, he slightly injured in Kursk. After Kursk Bert wrote in his notebook his famous words about photography: “The only difficult thing in photography is reloading your camera when you are under fire.”

Bert photographed pictures for the Nazi propaganda, but he also kept some critical distance to the war and Nazi actions. For example he photographed war prisoners, captured partisans and civilians misery in the Russian front. Some of these negatives were destroyd by orders of  SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto von Schcreck.

After seeing many brutalizes in eastern front and recovered in Military Hospital in Berlin he requested to move in Italy. His request was accepted mainly because Hitler moved Army focus to Italy and reorganized troops from Russia to Italy.

We don’t know much more about Berts life or career, because before the end World War II it seems that he has vanished or died. Some people think that he was falling to the disgrace because his critical consciousness of his photos. Many people thought that he was killed during the battle of Berlin.

We do know that both Bopara’s brothers were took part of The Battle of Bulge 1944-1945. Bert evidently injured in Ardennes, but after that there aren’t any documents of his destiny. Some rumours claim that he was killed accidentally in curfew by Volkssturm troops in Berlin few days before Nazi Germany surrendered.

Berts negative archive, personal items and diary was found in private house near Spandau in German countryside 1994 after the fall of Berlin Wall, nevertheless most of negatives are still missing or destroyed. After that Latvian art curator and historian Zemgus Kultdas arranged with Finnish curator Usko Paaste an exhibition in the Cologne 2005 as a title  “Bert Bopara’s Unreasonable Journey”.

In their pictures there are a viewpoints of the both sides Allies and Axis of war. Bopara’s brothers’ pictures and work can be perceived as the icon of World War II and redefining wartime photojournalism. The unifying element in their pictures is compassionate humanism. They were not capturing the spectacle of the combat, but individual affliction in the war.