I grew up under the watchful eyes of three Russian icons that survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. They belonged to my father’s parents, refugees from the Russian Revolution who were quietly eating breakfast with two of their three children when the Enola Gay flew over their city on Aug. 6, 1945, and dropped the bomb that turned most of it to dust.
Miraculously, my father’s family escaped unscathed. To everyone’s surprise, so did the icons. Today they hang on my mother’s dining room wall in Reno, Nevada, priceless symbols not only of the Russian Orthodox faith but of the impact of the 20th century’s upheaval and violence on the lives of one family.
Continue reading at The Icons That Survived Hiroshima
