Kobe, Japan

"Grave of the Fireflies" (1988, Studio Ghibli). I watched the film on Netflix with my parents,

and by the end of the movie, we were all immersed in deep thought, sadness, and tears.

My great-grandfather, or my mom's grandfather, remembered those times my mom revealed.

There was a massive food shortage due to farmlands and various infrastructure being burned. Everybody fled, and my mom said he used to steal food to feed himself and his younger brothers. One time, he got caught like the protagonist in the movie and was beaten so severely that he walked with a slight limp all his life thereafter.

He survived WW II, but one of his younger brothers didn't. His younger brother was separated in the chaos of one of the bombing raids, and when he was found later, he was severely malnourished and sick.

Although I never witnessed the horrors of war and its aftermath, I saw my great-grandfather in the characters and wept. What's more, I felt a little ashamed for not knowing about it until now.

*The second picture is of a boy with his sister who passed away, taken by an American photographer Joe O'Donnell in 1945. He waited in line to have her cremated. It is one of the pictures that inspired the film.

Joe O'Donnell: "The boy stood there straight without moving, watching the flames. He was biting his lower lip so hard that it shone with blood. The flame burned low like the sun going down. The boy turned around and walked silently away."