..November 2016.. ..Nagasaki..
From Above will be exhibited at the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims as a part of 2016 Nagasaki International Peace Film Forum. The opening is on December 10th and the exhibition runs through December 25th.
The project hasn’t been exhibited in Nagasaki for two years so there are plenty of new portraits that will be shown for the first time in Japan.
..November 2016.. ..Dresden..
I recently found out that Mr. Rudolf Eichner passed away. He was one of the first fire bombing survivors I photographed in Dresden.
Mr. Eichner was photographed holding a chess piece that was given to him by his father while he was staying at the hospital. His father regularly visited him to play chess.
The hospital was destroyed by the second wave of bombers on February 13th, 1945. The injured struggled to scramble out of the hospital. Rudolf and a few others sought refuge in a nearby garden where they were cornered by the growing firestorm.
Every year on the anniversary of the bombings Rudolf returned to the spot where he had fought the inferno. Three years later, February 13th, 1948, he found a chess piece, a black knight, from the chess set destroyed by the flames.
Mr. Eichner was a proud man who rigorously fought during the DDR times and after unification for recognition of those who perished in the destruction of Dresden.
..October 2016.. ..Rotterdam…
I received the sad news that Mr. Adriaan de Winter passed away earlier this year. Mr. de Winter was a Rotterdam fire bombing survivor I photographed during January 2015 for From Above.
As a 14 year old, Mr. de Winter learned about the harsh reality of war immediately. On the second day of the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, his house was destroyed. Four days later on May 14th, 1940 the house his family was staying in was smashed during the great air raid of Rotterdam. For the second time his family lost everything and that was just the start of the war.
During the occupation, Mr. de Winter was a member of the resistance. He and his father risked their lives secretly radioing Nazi positions to the Allied forces during air raids. While everyone was hiding in cellars during Allied raids they were transmitting coded messages near windows with small hand set radios.
After being caught he was sent to an internment camp where he escaped while being transported by cattle car. He managed to walk through most of the country reaching the Allied lines in Belgium. He fought bravely along side Scottish Rangers as the Allies advanced closer to the Netherlands. At the end of the war he witnessed the V2 revenge bombings in Antwerp and had the grisly experience of clearing dead bodies after one scored a direct hit on a movie theater.
I consider myself lucky to have spent time with Mr. de Winter. He experienced more as a boy than most do in a lifetime. It was an honor to have known him.
..August 2016.. ..New York..
Earlier this week I received the sad news that Mrs. Yoshiko Hashimoto passed away in February at the age of 94. Mrs. Hashimoto was the first Tokyo fire bombing survivor I photographed.
I photographed her in an cemetery containing the unidentified bones of many who died when Tokyo was razed on March 10th, 1945. At the time of the firebombings Mrs. Hashimoto was 24 years old. Running with her younger sisters and her infant son scrapped onto her back, Mrs. Hashimoto was chased by the ravenous fires for hours. Her younger sister was engulfed by the inferno when she ran into a stampede of fleeing people. Finally at the end of a burning labyrinth, Mrs. Hashimoto was corned on a bridge. Her only option for survival was a desperate jump far below into the frigid Tatagawa River with her son still on her back. The high tide allowed them to be carried by a strong current towards floating wooden debris.
“As the changed face of my neighborhood passed me in a blur. I could hardly recognize it through my aching eyes. I couldn’t feel sadness or surprise. I just pulled along on that cart while clinging my boy to my chest.”
Her testimony about the surviving the destruction of Tokyo was brutal. The last time I saw Mrs. Hashimoto was walking in Asakusa in 2010. I will always remember her and I consider myself lucky that she shared her story with me. It was an honor to have known her.
“It’s hard to put into words; it left a mark on our lives.”
-Anita John
Nora Lang (left) and Anita John (right) were close friends growing up. They lived down the street from each other in Dresden-Johannstadt. Nora was 13 1/2 and Anita was 12 years old when Dresden was destroyed during the infamous WWII air raid.
Nora was separated from her family during the chaos but luckily everyone survived. Anita’s family and neighbors took shelter in a cellar. Soldiers clearing debris on top of the collapsed cellar found Anita passed out sixteen hours after the raid. She lost her parents and was the only survivor in the cellar.
Mrs. Lang and Mrs. John are photographed in front of the damaged church, Trinitatiskirche. It is located a few streets from where they experienced the bombings. Mrs. Lang and Mrs. John were one of the few survivors I met who continued to live near to where they had lived at the time of the bombings. For Mrs. John, I believe in some respect it is a way for her to still be close to her parents.
..September 2008 Nagasaki..
7AM walk before 2nd day of portraits
….500 feet above my head the 2nd atomic bomb detonated on August 9th, 1945. Blood, fire, black rain, and heat engulfed everywhere around me. For a split second the temperature at the epicenter reached 1 million degrees. 100 feet to my right corpses piled on the river creating a dam of death that stopped the flow of water. The Urakami Cathedral a 1/2 mile down the street collapsed and fell down a hillside. Part of the tower still sits at the bottom.
..2nd day in Nagasaki at the epicenter of the atomic bomb, I don’t think the entire story has ever been told or ever will be comprehended.
The reality hit me seeing the bell tower of the Urakami Cathedral at the bottom of the hill. It once towered on the top of the hill overlooking canal. Toppled like a home made of wooden blocks thrown across a room.
I took some rocks from the grounds of Urakami Church and wrote Love, Peace, Compassion. Took a bunch of rocks home with Japanese writing. An unlikely souvenir that I will always keep.
