Vandaag werd ik zogezegd ‘getriggerd’ door een bericht in de NRC over een expositie van foto’s van W. Eugene Smith. Frits Abrahams schrijft: ‘Hoe indrukwekkend de fototentoonstelling over W. Eugene Smith in het Amsterdamse FOAM ook is, het is jammer dat uitgerekend de belangrijkste foto in een nogal donkere nis hangt. Die foto heet Tomoka Uemura in Her Bath. De foto is even bijzonder als het verhaal erachter. Een moeder baadt op deze sobere zwartwitfoto haar mismaakte dochter. Alles op de foto straalt liefde en overgave uit. Die foto mag niet meer gepubliceerd worden en is daarom alleen nog op tentoonstellingen en op internet te zien’.
Het verhaal deed mij denken aan een ervaring die ik vorig jaar had in Nagasaki. In het museum waar de ontploffing van de tweede atoombom wordt herdacht zag ik een foto van Joe O’Donnell. Ook een beetje verstopt, met een verbod om een foto te maken, en met een mooi verhaal. Dit is de foto:
en dit is het verhaal over A Boy Standing at a Crematory in Nagasaki, 1945:
Joe O’Donnell took photographs of Japan after the Second World War as a news photographer for the American military. Recently he spoke to a Japanese interviewer about his picture of a boy standing amid burned ruins next to a crematory. The following is a paraphrase of what he said:
‘When I arrived at Nagasaki from Sasebo, I looked down at the city from the top of a low hill, I saw some men wearing a white mask. They were working near a ditch full of burning coal.
I noticed a boy about ten years old walking by. He was carrying a baby slung on his back. In those days, in Japan, it was common to see children playing in vacant lots with their little brothers or sisters on their backs, but this boy was clearly different. I could see that he had come to this burning ground for a serious purpose. He was barefoot. When he reached the edge of the crematory, het stopped and peered ahead with a fixed expression. The infant’s head was tipped back as if the baby were fast asleep.
The boy stood there next to the area for about ten minutes. The men in white masks walked over to him and gently began undoing his cords that were holding the baby. Then I first realized that the baby was already dead. The men held the body by the hands and feet and placed it gently on the hot coals.
The infant’s body made a hissing sound as it was placed in he fire. Then it lit up in brilliant flames like a deep red of the setting sun. The boy stood there erect and motionless with his innocent cheeks shining scarlet. I noticed that the lips of the boy were also streaked with red as he watched the flames. He was biting his lower lip so hard that it shone with blood. The flames burned low like the sun going down, and the boy turned around and walked silently away from the burning pit’.