Gerda Taro, the war photographer and namesake of the alt-J song Taro, was a bona fide badass lost too soon.

Gerda, whose given name was Gerta Pohorylle, was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1910. She bounced to Paris right around the time Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933. Being Jewish, this was paramount. While in Paris, Gerda, who by now earned the nickname “little red fox” for her ginger hair and small build, met another Jewish refugee from Hungary, named Andre Friedmann. The two hit it off romantically as well as professionally. He taught her the ABCs of photography and she taught him how to love. They created a joint alter ego by the name of Robert Capa to which they both contributed. Soon though, Gerda decided to create her own alter ego named Gerda Taro and leave Robert Capa behind. Andre took up the name Robert Capa as his own, and thus got credit for all of the work that Taro contributed to the name, which is some BS if you ask me.

Taro paid no mind as she was too busy being the first female photographer to take pictures on the front lines of the Spanish Civil War. Her talent was obvious but short-lived. At the age of 26, at the Battle of Brunete, Gerda Taro hopped onto the footboard of a car transporting wounded soldiers when she was side-swiped by a tank. She died of her wounds in a hospital a few days later. Her last words were, “Did they take care of my camera?" Her funeral took place on what would have been her 27th birthday and it was a scene. She became a martyr for the anti-fascist cause and as such was buried a hero. Pablo Neruda and Louis Aragon were at her funeral and Alberto Giacometti designed the memorial for her. She was the first woman to photograph the front lines of war and was the first to die doing so.