..April 2016.. ..Dresden..
“I didn’t see anything. I didn’t cry a tear. Nothing at all.”
-Mrs. Margarethe Buhr
I received the sad news that Mrs. Margarethe Buhr passed away a couple of weeks ago. Mrs. Buhr was one of the Dresden fire bombing survivors I photographed during my first trip to Dresden. She was the oldest survivor I photographed from Dresden.
Her portrait became the photograph I used to present the Dresden survivors in the From Above exhibitions. The photo was used on the book jacket.
She was already partially blind when I photographed her portrait against a surviving baroque churches, but her eyes were the most telling eyes I have ever photographed. Her eyes seemed to pierce through the camera lens.
Her testimony about the surviving the destruction of Dresden was one of the most brutal I have heard. She was living in an area which was pummeled into ash. People boiled to death when they jumped into fountains thinking they could escape the raging fires.
I will always remember her saying that she was born in 1919 at the same time the German troops began to return home from WW I. The war ended months before but troops didn’t return home from the front until the spring of 1919.
Mrs. Buhr was 96 year old. I consider myself lucky to have spent time with Mrs. Buhr. She will be greatly missed. It was an honor to have known her.
The last time I saw Mrs. Buhr was at a gathering with other Dresden fire bombings survivors in Mrs. Lang’s home.