world war II | Onelargeprawn

I’d like to think that there is a super hero in each of us, lying in wait for the right time to burst out and rescue humanity for evil. 91-year-old Hungarian grandmother Frederika Goldberger showed great courage in World War II when she helped to hide her Jewish friends from a life of forced labour or worse, death in a concentration camp. Under threat of death herself, she had to leave her home town of Budapest and move to France.

A few years ago, Frederika’s grandson and photographer Sasha Goldberger found her in a lonely depressive state and to cheer her up, he suggested that they play dress-up. At first the grandmother was reluctant but as the shoot progressed, Sasha reports that she even started suggesting unusual, comical poses of her own. More uplifting is the fact that she has not shown a hint of depression since then. Sasha titled his series Mamika.

Have a look at his shots of Mamika, the caped crusader after the jump.

Last week we covered the horrific events of August 6th, 1945, where the nuclear weapon “Little Boy” was dropped on the city of Hiroshima in Japan. This was the first atomic bombing the world had seen.

Yesterday marked the 64th anniversary of the second atomic bombing, this time on the city of Nagasaki. On August 9, 1945, the 4,630 kg the plutonium bomb nicknamed Fat Man, was dropped from a B-29 bomber, Bockscar, and in similar fashion to Little Boy, it detonated at an altitude of about 550 m over the city. The explosion generated heat estimated at 3,900 degrees Celsius and winds estimated at 1005 km/h. The fireball created rose to a height of approximately 6 km (20 ooo feet), forming the ominous mushroom shape.

Nagasaki’s mountainous topography meant that the destructive effect of the bomb was not as great as Hiroshima but it resulted in 73,884 deaths, 74,909 injured, and another several hundred thousand diseased and dying due to fallout and other illness caused by radiation.

Japan surrendered to the Allied forces on August 15th 945, thus ending World War II.

Sources: 1 | 2 | 3.

BONUS: Did you know that 93-year old Tsutomu Yamaguchi happens to one of the few people who survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings?