The grandson of a U.S. serviceman who flew on both planes that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 has devoted himself to a project almost unimaginable 70 years ago: spreading the stories of horror experienced by the hibakusha.
Freelance photographer Ari Beser, 27, has documented the voices of the survivors since 2011, when he first visited Japan on a research grant to write a book on his connections to both sides of the atomic bombings. Beser's grandfather, Jacob, was an army lieutenant and radar specialist who became the only man in the world to fly on both of the B-29s carrying the "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" atomic bombs.
The Baltimore native also had family connections to the niece of an atomic bomb survivor living in Japan. The survivor, a woman from Hiroshima, was friends with his grandfather on his mother's side and underwent reconstructive surgeries on her keloid-scarred face in the U.S. after the war, and later lived in Baltimore through her marriage.