The Face of Victory

World War II was the most destructive bloodletting the world has ever known: 55 million dead, 60 million on the edge of starvation, 35 million held in gulags and prisons, 28 million left homeless, and 5 million children orphaned.

The war's end brought sheer euphoria to the leaders and citizens of the winning countries — as anyone who has seen the famous VE and VJ Day photographs already knows.

But the true face of that victory was far more complex than those delirious shots of sailors kissing nurses suggest. For millions on the losing side, the war's end meant imprisonment and servitude; for millions more caught in the middle, it meant hunger and privation. The Face of Victory is a portrait of that more complicated reality.