Photo Essay: Pictures for Our “Honorable American Friends”

An American minister’s outrage over a celebration of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan led to a generous gift of school supplies for students at a primary school in Hiroshima City. In gratitude, students at this school sent dozens of drawings and paintings to the minister’s church. This exchange was inspired by the minister’s Unitarian faith and moral decency and realized through the generosity of his parishioners. But the Japanese children’s artwork can be read in several other ways that greatly complicate the story and implicate Cold War narratives of victory and defeat as well as powerful memories of the destruction, death, and suffering caused by the war. This essay accompanies the “Hiroshima Children’s Drawings” photo essay featured in the March 2013 issue of Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review...