Archive for the ‘From Above’ Category

Margarethe Buhr, Dresden firebombing survivor

Thursday, February 15th, 2024

“I didn’t see anything. I didn’t cry a tear. Nothing at all.”
-Margarethe Buhr, Dresden firebombing survivor

“After the first attack, our flat was almost untouched. Following the second wave of bombing the street was completely ablaze. Families fled into the cellar. In the cellar, there was an argument between my father and an officer in the Wehrmacht. The officer had lost his mind and was threatening to kill his own family. My father tried to calm him down, but the altercation escalated. The men decided to continue the struggle outside in the street, but they never returned. My father’s charred remains were later discovered by the front door.

We stayed in the dark cellar until the morning. We crawled across the floor but were exhausted because of the smoke and lack of oxygen. A young man helped bring my ill sister to the garden in front of the home. My brother was blinded by the smoke. When we went outside, I witnessed destruction all around. None of our home remained standing.

I had to leave my sick sister in the garden, covered with a coat borrowed from a stranger. With my brother, sister-in-law, and their two children, we walked toward the Great Garden. Arriving on the Tiergartenstraße I realized that every house had been hit by bombs. Among the debris, a woman stood in the middle of the street. I explained that we needed an ambulance for my sister. Then the woman pointed something. There were five or six disintegrated ambulances that had melted in the catastrophic heat.”

Mrs. Buhr was twenty-five-years-old at the time of the attack. She lived in an area that was a short walk from the main train station, which was completely obliterated. She returned to Dresden a week after the bombings, nothing was left of her family’s home. She learned that her sister and father had burnt to death in the fires. One of her brothers disappeared in the forest while traveling, never to be found. Her surviving brother helped clear rubble from the area where their house once stood. Mrs. Buhr’s sister was found under the wreckage. She was cremated in the town square, the Altmarkt.

This portrait is a part of my From Above project, which is a collection of portraits and reminiscences of atomic bomb survivors and firebombing survivors from Dresden, Tokyo, Coventry, Rotterdam and Wielun. A portion of From Above is permanently exhibited at the Nagasaki Peace Memorial Hall for Atomic Bomb Victims. It has also been exhibited in museums and exhibition spaces throughout Asia, Europe, North America and including the United Nations.

From Above was released as a limited edition book that was sold at PhotoEye.com. The book is sold out on the site, but I have the last 20 copies that can be bought directly from me. Contact me through social media or at paule.saviano@gmail.com if you’re interested in purchasing a book.

John Huthwaite, Coventry blitz survivor

Sunday, February 11th, 2024

“I was about ten years old when Coventry was destroyed.  After the raids, we used to go out and play in ruined houses.  We used to find a lot of shell fragments and bits of bombs.  Sadly, damage was also caused by our own anti-aircraft shells.  The shrapnel from the shells exploded in the sky and showered down onto the roofs.  

Sometimes, after the raids, they would bring in crashed planes.  I remember getting into the cockpit of a Messerschmitt 109.  There was hatred against the Germans.  Once an airplane went down, the pilot was pitchforked by a farmer.”

-John Huthwaite, Coventry blitz survivor’

The British city of Coventry was bombed several times during the Second World War by the German Luftwaffe. The most devastating of those attacks came on the evening of November 14th, 1940. During “Operation Moonlight Sonata,” high explosive, incendiary,and landmine bombs cascaded upon the city. When the fires smoldered, the majority of the city lay in ruin. The city center and more than 4,000 homes were destroyed. The raid had resulted in such epic levels of destruction for the time that the Germans used the term “Coventrated’ when later describing similar levels of destruction to enemy cities.

This portrait is a part of my From Above project, which is a collection of portraits and reminiscences of atomic bomb survivors and firebombing survivors from Dresden, Tokyo, Coventry, Rotterdam and Wielun. A portion of From Above is permanently exhibited at the Nagasaki Peace Memorial Hall for Atomic Bomb Victims. It has also been exhibited in museums and exhibition spaces throughout Asia, Europe, North America and including the United Nations.

From Above was released as a limited edition book that was sold at PhotoEye.com. The book is sold out on the site, but I have the last 20 copies that can be bought directly from me. Contact me through social media or at paule.saviano@gmail.com if you’re interested in purchasing a book.

Jean Taylor, Coventry blitz survivor

Thursday, February 8th, 2024

“We lost quite a lot of friends and we never found the bodies of some.”
-Jean Taylor, Coventry blitz survivor

Jean Taylor was eleven years old when the air raid sirens sounded at 7pm (19:00). She, her younger brothers and mother, crammed into a bomb shelter with 400 others. The shelter was basically a deep hole dug across the road that had two buckets used as toilets.

“In the morning, we came out of the shelter. Everything looked horrible. All the windows at our home were blown out. We had no water, electricity, or gas. In the estate next to us there was a huge crater the depth of two double-decker buses. My mother made a little fire in the garden to cook a pot of stew. I told my mother I was going to school. She insisted that I wouldn’t make it there, but I still tried. I got as far as half a street when I began to see bodies covered in blankets and firemen with no water as everything was burning. Then a fireman said to me:

‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘I’m going to school.’

‘You can’t get to school!’

As I was standing there in my school uniform, one of my classmates came. He took me through the burning rubble,and we finally got there. We started in September with 27 students in the class. After the blitz ,here were 17 remaining. We never discovered what happened to the other 10.”


The British city of Coventry was bombed several times during the Second World War by the German Luftwaffe. The most devastating of those attacks came on the evening of November 14th, 1940. During “Operation Moonlight Sonata,” high explosive, incendiary,and landmine bombs cascaded upon the city. When the fires smoldered ,he majority of the city lay in ruin. The city center and more than 4,000 homes were destroyed. The raid had resulted in such epic levels of destruction for the time that the Germans used the term “Coventrated’ when later describing similar levels of destruction to enemy cities.

This portrait is a part of my From Above project, which is a collection of portraits and reminiscences of atomic bomb survivors and firebombing survivors from Dresden, Tokyo, Coventry, Rotterdam and Wielun. A portion of From Above is permanently exhibited at the Nagasaki Peace Memorial Hall for Atomic Bomb Victims. It has also been exhibited in museums and exhibition spaces throughout Asia, Europe, North America and including the United Nations.

From Above was released as a limited edition book that was sold at PhotoEye.com. The book is sold out on the site, but I have the last 20 copies that can be bought directly from me. Contact me through social media or at paule.saviano@gmail.com if you’re interested in purchasing a book.

Alan Hartley, Coventry blitz survivor

Tuesday, February 6th, 2024

“To see the searchlights sweeping the sky, hearing the loud noise of exploding bombs and the fires- it was like a great big barn fire. Because you were occupied, you didn’t have time to be afraid. Until 70 years after, I wonder how did I do that? It took courage, but it had to be done.

On the night of November 14th, 1940 I was an Air Raid Precautions messenger in Coventry. After midnight, the Germans started dropping canisters of incendiaries. When the canisters got to a certain height all the small incendiary bombs would fall. They would aim for the roofs of houses so that when the incendiary landed on the roof, the house would burn. The burning houses lit up the target area to make the factories visible which was what they were after. We were going around to put these incendiary bombs out. But the Germans knew and put an explosive cap on the tail of some. Our warden was injured while trying to extinguish a bomb. Suddenly it exploded and threw hot metal into his face and hands. His clothes were on fire.

Someone had to get an ambulance for the warden. I told the deputy that I would take my bike- but she said “No, I have children your age. It’s too dangerous at the height oft he blitz!” I told her, “This is my job! I’m going!” I got on my bike and rode towards the center of the city. The sky was glowing and there were flames, sparks and smoke all over. Big shards of red hot shrapnel and ammunition were falling around me because whatever the anti-aircraft guns shot up had to come down when the shells burst. When I got near the city center, houses and shops were burning and at the end of Spon Street there was a huge crater 30 yards deep. Through the flames I could see water at the bottom of the crater because the River Sherbourne goes under the city. I had to cross the crater to get to Broadgate. Fortunately there was two feet of pavement and a wall on my right that didn’t fall into the crater. With my tin hat and gas mask, I carried the bike on my shoulder and edged my way along the wall until I got to the other side. I couldn’t ride my bike further because there was rubble and glass sprune all over. As I went up a narrow road there was a shopping arcade with a glass roof. Heat and flames were shooting out of it and the whole thing collapsed with a big roar of broken glass. When I got to Broadgate, in front of me was the Council House and across the road an incendiary had just landed on the cycle shop. Outside there was a fireman with a blackened face, he stood there holding his hose with just a trickle of water coming out because all the water mains were damaged.”

-Alan Hartley, Coventry blitz survivor

The British city of Coventry was bombed several times during the Second World War by the German Luftwaffe. The most devastating of those attacks came on the evening of November 14th 1940. During “Operation Moonlight Sonata”, high explosive, incendiary and landmine bombs cascaded upon the city. When the fires smoldered the majority of the city lay in ruin – the city center and more than 4,000 homes were destroyed. The raid had resulted in such epic levels of destruction for the time that the Germans used the term “Coventrated’ when later describing similar levels of destruction to enemy cities.

This portrait is a part of my From Above project, which is a collection of portraits and reminiscences of atomic bomb survivors and firebombing survivors from Dresden, Tokyo, Coventry, Rotterdam and Wielun. From Above is permanently exhibited at the Nagasaki Peace Memorial Hall for Atomic Bomb Victims. It has also been exhibited in museums and exhibition spaces throughout Asia, Europe, North America and including the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

From Above was released as a limited edition book that was sold at PhotoEye.com. The book is sold out on the site, but I have the last 20 copies that can be bought directly from me. Contact me through social media or at paule.saviano@gmail.com if you’re interested in purchasing a book.

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Anita John

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2024

“It’s hard to put into words, it left a mark on our lives.”
-Anita John

I received the sad news that Mrs. Anita John passed away a few months ago. She was 12 years old when Dresden was destroyed by fire bombs on February 13th and 14th, 1945.  

Mrs. John was one of the first people I photographed in Dresden for my From Above project. I photographed her in front of the destroyed church, Trinitatiskirche, where her parents were married and where she received confirmation. It is located a few streets from where she survived the fire bombings. For most of her life, she lived just a couple of minutes away from her original home and the church.  
The family survived the first bombardment during the attack by taking shelter in the cellar of their home. Anita remembered her mother lying on top of her as the bombs rained down on the house. After the first wave, the roof of their flat was on fire and the windows had shattered.  However the first floor of the building was not yet ablaze. She saw a china set sitting peacefully on a small table, still resting in the exact spot they were prior to the bombing.

They brought valuables to the cellar to save them from the fire. Her father asked what she wanted from home, she said, “my doll carriage and school bag”. They did not evacuate the area and were caught unaware by the second attack. Fire raged outside the steel cellar door. It was producing extremely high temperatures inside the cellar. Oxygen quickly became scarce.  

Anita and her family lay down on the floor together with the other inhabitants of the building. She covered her mouth with a damp bathrobe that helped her to breathe whilst smoke filled the cellar. They all survived, until the immense heat from the raging firestorm consumed all the oxygen inside the cellar. All, but one, died of smoke inhalation.

Sixteen hours later, a soldier looking through the ruins for his wife broke a small window accessible from the street. Oxygen rushed into the bunker. Only Anita woke up amongst the dead. Her parent’s bodies lay silent, close by on the floor. The soldier saw Anita’s body move and took her to the aid station. The water in the damp bathrobe had allowed just enough oxygen to keep Anita breathing. The last memory Anita has of her parents is telling her father “I want to lie here”. Her mother responded, “Then let’s stay”.

I hadn’t seen Mrs. John in years. I kept in contact through three of her childhood friends that were photographed in From Above. I also photographed Mrs. John and her best friend, Mrs. Nora Lang, in front of the Trinitatiskirche. It was an honor to have Mrs. John as a friend.

Inosuke Hayasaki

Tuesday, August 22nd, 2023

“I thought the world was exploding. I can remember it as if it were yesterday.”

-Inosuke Hayasaki

地球が爆発しているんじゃないかと思った。その時のことは今でも昨日のことのように覚えている。

I received the sad news that Mr. Inosuke Hayasaki passed away on April 28th. Mr. Hayasaki was 14 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. He was working at a Mitsubishi arms factory 1km away from the hypocenter. I photographed him solemnly standing at the hypocenter, underneath the exact point where the bomb detonated over Nagasaki. It’s usually a place that a few random people walk through to get from one part of Nagasaki to another. That early morning in December, we were alone. Only the birds were criss crossing from one tree to another while we quietly photographed.

His portrait was taken years after my book, From Above, was published. But it was exhibited at the Nagasaki Peace Memorial Hall for Atomic Bomb Victims in 2017.

Yoshitoshi Fukahori

Thursday, August 17th, 2023

I received the sad news that Mr. Yoshitoshi Fukahori passed away from pneumonia on May 21st. He was 93 years old. The first time I met Mr. Fukahori was in 2010 during my second trip to Nagasaki. He was fourteen years old and 3.5km away from the hypocenter when the atomic bomb was detonated.  

Hours after the bomb was dropped, he and a friend went to retrieve the bodies of his older sister and uncle that were trapped underneath the rubble of their home located close to the hypocenter. They didn’t reach the house until the next day because the fire and debris made it impossible to get to. His aunt’s body was never found. “My sister didn’t die instantly. I regretted not coming to help her the day before. That memory still hurts me. On August 12th, I went back to Nagasaki with my mother to cremate my sister. My mother never looked at the fire. She stood still, staring at the ground, praying. That was the most difficult sight.”

On my second trip to Nagasaki, I asked Ayumi if I could meet Mr. Fukahori. I read an article that after the war, Mr. Fukahori started speaking about his experiences. But he believed words would not be enough, and he established the Committee for Research of Photographs and Materials of the Atomic Bombing in 1979. He collected more than 3,000 photographs taken of the bomb’s aftermath. Many of the photos depict similarly harrowing scenes to those Mr. Fukahori witnessed. I was interested because he wanted to tell the story through photographs. Most hibakusha use their words or paint and pictures to describe their experiences. Mr. Fukahori’s collection of photographs hit me harder because it is a snapshot of reality. No imagination was needed, and the brutality was right there in the photograph.    

I visited Mr. Fukahori for the last time in December 2018.  He had moved into a home for the elderly, but he was still sharp and affable. He spent an hour talking to us and joking how the staff at the elderly home had him on a schedule to exercise.  This the last frame I photographed of him when he walked Ayumi and me to the elevator.  I photographed from the elevator as he disappeared behind the curtain.

Yoshiro Yamawaki

Friday, November 18th, 2022

…Nagasaki…This morning I received the sad news that Yoshiro Yamawaki passed away on September 17th.  I photographed Mr. Yamawaki during my first trip to Nagasaki in September 2008.  His portrait is in my book, From Above, and has been exhibited several times.  He was the only hibakusha, atomic bomb survivor, during that visit who spoke to me in English.  He learned English when he retired so that he could communicate his experiences about the atomic bomb and educate more people about the dangers of nuclear weapons. 

Mr. Yamawaki was eleven-years-old when the atomic bomb was detonated over Nagasaki.  He was at home 2.2km from the hypocenter.  His testimony was about him and his brother venturing through a sea of rubble to find their father’s body at the Mitsubushi Steel Works Factory the day after the bomb destroyed the city.  The two young boys then had to cremate the body.  The next day they returned to the burned out factory to get the ashes, but because of the lack of wood the body wasn’t fully cremated.  They wept at the sight of their father’s lifeless body and vowed never to tell their mother they weren’t able to cremate his body. 

I only saw Mr. Yamawaki twice after my initial trip to Nagasaki.  He came to the exhibition at the Nagasaki Peace Museum in 2010 and the exhibition at the Peace Memorial Hall in 2017.  He was a true ambassador, and I wish more of the people we assign as diplomats would learn a lesson from his desire to communicate the truth about the suffering war and nuclear weapons cause.  I’ll always remember him insisting that he tell me his testimony in English.  His efforts educated everyone he spoke to, but the job of educating the world about the horrors of war and the use of nuclear weapons is far from completed. 

Ron Scholte

Saturday, August 13th, 2022

“After the war I saw the photo of the mushroom cloud, but I thought they should have shown photos of the people underneath. It’s a bloody shame!”

-Ron Schlote

Ron Scholte was serving in the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) when he was taken as a prisoner of war by the Japanese when they invaded Java in 1942, and later sent to Fukuoka Camp 14 in Nagasaki.  He was used as a forced laborer until the end of the war in August 1945.  He was one of 120 Dutch POWs to survive the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.

Ron was working inside a tunnel about a mile from the hypocenter when the atomic bomb detonated.  When the workers heard a plane approaching, some of them went near the tunnel’s entrance to peek out.  When they only saw a B-29 I thought it couldn’t have been an air raid.  Then a small parachute was dropped.  Suddenly a bright flash of light blinded me and I was tossed back into the tunnel by a strong gust of wind.

“I didn’t know the type of weapon that was used.  I was in the middle of the chaos and couldn’t think of the end of the war.  We went back to the city without knowing the consequences of radiation exposure.  For a couple of days my task was to gather dead bodies to be cremated.  It was the most painful thing I had to do- especially when the bodies were children.  Sometimes I would pick up charred bodies which would just break apart.  There were a lot of wounded.  I also carried a wounded soldier on my back through a field to get medical attention.  I felt it was my duty to help no matter how badly I had been treated previously.

Nagasaki is now a beautiful city but it was totally destroyed.  I had to stay on top of a hill for two nights because the city was burning.  I saw the entire city in flames.  Many of us were burned and our open wounds were attacked by maggots.

I didn’t learn about the surrender until a couple of days after.  A Japanese man approached me and said “War Finished.  Japan and America are now friends.”  The soldiers disappeared and only the honcho (boss) from the Mitsubishi shipyard was there.  He told me that he lost all his family and had nothing to eat.  I had a little food and gave it to him.  I hugged him when we said goodbye.  I felt deep sympathy for his loss.  Three weeks later we were liberated.”

I had the privilege of photographing Mr. Scholte in January 2015.  I had learned about his story and it took me a long time to find him.  Even on the day of our meeting my train connections to the southern Netherlands were delayed because of a small snowstorm in Amsterdam.  I arrived at his home as the sun set, a few hours late, and snapped this photograph when I caught him glimpsing out a window as I walked to the front door.  I didn’t think this would be the portrait I would use in the project.  But as time passed and I thought about his story it made sense.  When I look at this photograph, he is beginning to fade away in the reflection of the landscape.  A few years prior, he had begun writing down his experiences in Nagasaki because he was diagnosed with dementia.  The story was too important to be lost in his fading mind so I’m grateful he had documented his experiences in great detail.  That day he was able to speak for hours about what he had seen in Nagasaki. 

He was living alone but shortly after my visit was moved to an elderly home as his mind rapidly deteriorated.  He lived a little less than four years after we met and passed away at the age of 94.  Not many people know that there were Dutch POW’s affected by the atomic bomb.  Most of them died from various forms of cancer within ten years of 1945.  The majority of Dutch people I speak to about Mr. Schlote and the other Dutch POW I photographed are shocked to learn about their stories.

This portrait is a part of From Above, which is a collection of portraits and reminiscences of atomic bomb survivors.  From Above is permanently exhibited at the Nagasaki Peace Memorial Hall for Atomic Bomb Victims. It has also been exhibited in numerous international museums and exhibition spaces. From Above was released as a limited edition book released as a limited edition book available at https://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation.cfm?catalog=I1040&i=&i2

From Above featured in KYODO NEWS article

Thursday, August 11th, 2022

An article written by Miki Shirasaka for KYODO News about From Above was published in several newspapers around Japan.  From Above is a collection of portraits and reminiscences of atomic bomb survivors and firebombing survivors from the Second World War.  From Above is permanently exhibited at the Nagasaki Peace Memorial Hall for Atomic Bomb Victims. It has also been exhibited in numerous international museums and was most recently exhibited in Dresden, Germany. 

The article also introduced my portraits of Ukrainian teenagers who have fled the war that is currently raging in their country.  Miki was one of the first journalists to write about From Above when I began the project in 2008.  I’m grateful for her interest throughout the years.