Sicilian Peasant Telling an American Officer Which Way the Germans Had Gone

Capa had already photographed a large amount of material related to the ongoing invasion of Sicily, when he took this photograph, in Sperlinga, near Troina, on 4 August 1943. It went to become one of his most popular and the most emblematic from the group taken during the Sicily campaign.

The photograph depicts in the foreground an old Sicilian peasant, dressed in traditional clothing, talking to a young American soldier, who listens, in a crouched position, while he points with his cane to the direction where the Germans have gone. The old man does not hide his enthusiasm in helping the liberators of his island, while the soldier listens with interest. There is a certain complicity between both men, despite their differences in age and origin. In the large background, there is a Mediterranean landscape, with grazing land and some trees.^[2]

There are prints of the photograph at the International Center of Photography, in New York, and at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire.^[3][4]