Better known as Tania the guerrilla, Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider (1937 – 1967) is a communist revolutionary, the only woman to fight among the troops led by Che Guevara in Bolivia.
A highly politicized youth
Daughter of Nadia Bider and Erich Bunke, German communists who took refuge in Argentina when Nazism came to power , Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider was born on November 19, 1937 in Buenos Aires. She and her brother Olaf grow up in a highly politicized atmosphere; their place hosts refugees and political meetings, serves as a base for clandestine publications and even sometimes as an arms cache.
Tamara distinguished herself growing up as a brilliant student and gifted athlete. In 1952, his family moved to Stalinstadt, East Germany. The girl continued her studies there and enrolled in political science at Humboldt University in Berlin. She soon joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and the World Federation of Democratic Youth. Within this organization, she participates in the World Festival of Youth and Students in Vienna, Prague, Moscow and Havana.
Cuba
Thanks to her origins and her studies, Tamara speaks five languages:Russian, French, English, Spanish and German. She quickly became a translator for the international service of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. His work brings him into contact with visitors from all over the world; in 1960, she thus met the Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara who was visiting East Germany with a Cuban delegation.
Inspired by the Cuban revolution, Tamara moved to Cuba the following year. At first, she volunteered in the Cuban countryside to build homes and schools and to teach. Her efficiency, her dynamism and her sense of service were quickly noticed and the young woman was hired to participate in the Cuban literacy campaign. Subsequently, she worked in particular within the Ministry of Education.
Laura Gutierrez Bauer
Che Guevara wishes to expand the revolution in South America to challenge American imperialism, and Tamara is recruited to take part in an expedition to Bolivia. Trained by Dariel Alarcón Ramírez, she learned the use of weapons and the transmission of coded messages by radio. It was during this period that she took the nom de guerre Tania. In her training camp, she stands out for her intelligence and skills, but also for her sociable and friendly character.
In October 1964, Tamara traveled to Bolivia as Laura Gutiérrez Bauer, on a mission to gather information on political elites and the Bolivian armed forces. Talented and intelligent, Tamara passes herself off as an expert in folk music, she quickly infiltrates the high society of La Paz; she even manages to bond with President René Barrientos, with whom she goes on vacation to Peru. To gain Bolivian citizenship, she marries a young Bolivian.
Will my name one day be forgotten
At first, she communicates information to Fidel Castro in Havana, as well as to Che on the ground, thanks to a radio concealed in his apartment. In 1966, weaknesses in his network repeatedly forced him to go to Che's camp in Ñancahuazú. During one of these trips, a captured communist agent gives the location of a house where Tamara left her jeep and her address book. Her cover exposed, she must join Che's troops in the field. With the guerrillas, Tamara is in charge of radio broadcasts and supplies. She is the only woman in the group, among the 47 guerrillas.
Without the information sent by Tamara, the revolutionaries find themselves very isolated and Che decides to send small groups out of the camp. In August 1967, the revolutionaries were ambushed as they crossed the Rio Grande. Tamara is shot twice while she is waist deep in water. His body is found a few days later; at the request of local peasant women, she is buried according to Christian rites rather than being thrown into a mass grave.
Upon learning of her death, Fidel Castro declared "Tania the guerrilla" a heroine of the Cuban revolution. Che will be captured and executed a month later. In 1966, Tamara Bunke wrote in a poem:
"Will my name one day be forgotten
and nothing of me remain on the Earth?" »