The Eyes of War presents forty men and women who were blinded as children or young soldiers during World War II. Former enemies from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, England, Russia, and Ukraine are united by their fate as blind people and victims of war.
In interviews, they recount the circumstances in which they lost their sight and describe their lives after the war.
From Cees Nooteboom’s introduction: ‘.....Most of the stories in this book begin epically. “I had to urinate and left the air-raid shelter to go to the bathroom.” “I turned my head because I thought my friend Wally had been hit by a Japanese bullet.”
What makes such sentences so inescapable is knowing that something terrible usually follows.
This book consists of inescapable stories and unforgettable faces, which are unforgettable above all because they can no longer see anything themselves.
Why this is so and how it happened is told in the stories that photographer Martin Roemers recorded in spare, stripped-down prose that hits you head-on because there is nowhere to hide......’
The Eyes of War - Martin Roemers
Pages: 128
Price: € 35.00
Publisher: Hatje Cantz
ISBN: 9783775734004. Languages: English, Dutch, and German. This article refers to the multilingual edition.
