Ilse Bing began her career as a photographer in Berlin in 1929. Being Jewish, however, she felt increasingly constrained in Germany and left for Paris. During the 1930s, she became the “Queen of the Leica”: her photographs attested to an unconventional and new visual language. When the Germans invaded France in 1940, Bing was among the persecuted and was interned at Camp Gurs. She later reported of the time she spent there: “It felt like a concentration camp.” After her release, she waited in Marseille with her husband for months for a visa to travel. They were ultimately able to travel to the United States via Trinidad. She stopped taking photographs in the 1950s, turning to other art forms. Her photographic oeuvre was only rediscovered in the 1970s and 1980s.