The standing boy of Nagasaki
"We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children" – Howard Zinn
The boy standing by the crematory is an historic photograph taken in Nagasaki, Japan in September of 1945, shortly after the atomic bombing of that city on August 9, 1945. The photograph is of a boy of about 10 with his dead baby brother strapped to his back, waiting for his turn at the crematorium.
The photograph was taken by Joe O'Donnell, then working for the United States Marine Corps.
I saw a boy about ten years old walking by. He was carrying a baby on his back… I saw that the baby was already dead. The men held the body by the hands and feet and placed it on the fire. The boy stood there straight without moving, watching the flames. He was biting his lower lip so hard that it shone with blood. The flame burned low like the sun going down. The boy turned around and walked silently away
— Joe O'Donnell
O'Donnell made personal copies of his Nagasaki photographs and kept them hidden in a trunk until 1989, when he put together a traveling exhibit and a book. O'Donnell's Japan 1945, Images From the Trunk was published in Japan in 1995 and read widely.
Read more
https://mainichi.jp/eng…/articles/20190827/…/00m/0fe/021000c
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