Life After Death

They are called the hibakusha, survivors of a day when the world went dark. About 85,000 people who lived in Hiroshima and its environs on Aug. 6, 1945, are still alive. For many, that morning was the beginning of a lifetime of struggle--to overcome not only the physical ailments associated with radiation but also the psychic trauma caused by years of rejection from their own society, which shunned the survivors out of fear they could contaminate others. French photographer Gerard Rancinan traveled to Hiroshima this year to photograph the hibakusha and record their stories. Seventy agreed to pose, some holding childhood photos or pictures of family members killed in the bombing. The survivors wrote their names in white marker next to their portraits and recorded how far they were from ground zero on Aug. 6. Taken together, the pictures are striking reminders of the bomb's life-altering effects. And they bear witness to the human capacity to withstand the worst ravages of war.