‘The Story of Ita’: New Documentary About Woman Revolutionary Who Fought Alongside Che in Bolivia

She was a woman of many names — and talents. Born Haydee Tamara Bunke, she fought as a guerilla with the secret alias Laura Gutierrez Bauer, and was nicknamed Ita by her family — but above all, she was best known as Tania The Guerrilla.

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Tania, the East German revolutionary and spy whose communist family fled to Argentina with the rise of the Nazis, was the only woman to fight alongside Marxist guerrillas under Che Guevara during the Bolivian Insurgency from 1966 to 1967. Killed by the CIA-backed Bolivian Army Rangers on August 31, 1967, her illustrious life has come anew in a recently-released documentary that premiered this week in Bolivia.

Written by Cuban historians Froilan Gonzalez and Adys Cupull, “La Histoire de Ita” — “The Story of Ita” — follows her life from when she first joined the Cuban Revolution, to her last days as a guerilla and spy in Bolivia. 

"They accused her of being Che's lover, of following him because she was in love. It is one thing to follow someone for ideas and another for love," said Gonzalez of the hotly-spread rumors she was Che’s romantic partner.

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“Her life was very rich and intense because when she traveled as a youth to Germany she became politically involved, which formed her ideological base,” he added. “When she arrived to Cuba she became active in political activities … from there the Argentine-German was selected to join the guerilla group that would form in Bolivia under the command of Che Guevara.”

While the documentary premiered in the city of La Paz on Friday, it will also be shown in the Bolivian cities of Santa Cruz and Cochabamba. At the end of the month, the film will also travel to Bueno Aires, in Argentina, the birthplace of the late revolutionary.