Children - despite their suffering in war and abuse, dream of peace. Humanity dreams of peace. Our dream rises above the terrible figure of war, and, onto the second panel, the dream/mist, turns into a rainbow.

Humanity’s collective yearning for peace defeats the atrocities and injustices of war – the statue of war has been toppled over, and peace prevails, as represented by the doves standing on the broken statue.

Children whose countries have been enemies are coming together in peace to discard weapons of pain and fear. My father chose to paint American, Japanese and Russian children in the center of the mural because he wanted to portray the “super powers” finally learning peace and not continuing the legacy of Hiroshima, Pearl Harbor, and Stalinism.

My father felt that Germany, with its history of the Holocaust, needed to be portrayed as finally learning peace the most, so he has the German child “beating swords into plowshares.”

We dedicated the image of the German child to Hans and Sophie Scholl, two Christian German university students who spoke out against the Nazis – they were martyred because they distributed leaflets imploring German citizens to rally against Hitler.

My father, a Christian, loves the passage in the book of Micah and wanted to show people coming together in peace and refusing to wage war.