“A human life holds more weight than that of the earth.
Nuclear weapons and humans cannot coexist.
Peace cannot be derived from a hateful heart.”

“On the morning of August 6, I was expected to be at the demolition site as a student laborer. However, I fell ill due to long days working under the sun. My mother did not wake me up for work that morning. Perhaps she knew that I was exhausted, or was abiding by my father’s wishes.

My father spent 14 years in the US during the Taisho era as a laborer to send remittances back home. He knew a lot about the US. “We are destined the lose this war,” he often told us. “The US is an expansive country with plenty of natural resources. What do we have? Don’t force the children to go to school or the work sites,” he advised my mother.

When I woke up, it was too late to go to work. I leaned against a post in the sitting room and folded an origami crane for my two-year-old brother. My little brother stared intently at my fingertips, eating beans out of a bowl, one by one.

That was when our neighbor dropped by to borrow an ishigaki (stone grater). My mother emerged from the back, and the two began to chat. My little brother approached the neighbor with his bowl of beans. “Auntie, please have some –”

Suddenly, a great orange flame engulfed the side of our house, and set the shoji walls on fire. As I instinctively walked toward the kitchen for water, the tatami floors gave out from under me and I cowered over underneath the house as debris began to fall on my head. Moments later, it became eerily quiet. “Meguchan, meguchan,” I heard my mother call. As I emerged from under the floors, I saw that the entire house was in smithereens. My mother, brother, and the neighbor emerged from the cloud of smoke with severe burns on their bodies.

My mother and brother were in no condition to walk. I was the only mobile one. I walked to my aunt’s place 4, 5km away to borrow a rickshaw to carry my mother and brother to safety.

“What happened in Hiroshima?” my aunt asked me upon my arrival. “We felt the ground shake. The wind keeps blowing debris over here,” she told me. I notified her about my mother and brother’s condition. She offered me the rickshaw, and helped me carry it over the hill.

On the journey back, I encountered military officers treating burn victims in the bamboo forest. Trucks continued to pull up, dumping bodies by the load. I also encountered a group of burn victims walking toward me. Their hair was scorched off, revealing faces blackened with soot. Their tattered clothes hung limply over their bodies. I turned my head down as I passed them. I was the only one walking towards the city – with a rickshaw in tow, no less.

By the time I arrived home, it was dusk. One of my sisters had returned, and we got word that my other sister was also fine. However, we had yet to hear about my sister Sachiyo, who was working at a bank 500m from the hypocenter that morning. Later that evening, my father came home. He was relieved to see me, but when I mentioned that Sachiyo hadn’t returned, his eyes welled up with tears.

The next day, my father and I went to go look for Sachiyo at her workplace. As soon as we opened the doors to the bank headquarters, we were met with bodies crammed wall to wall, begging for water and calling for their loved ones. They all looked similar to the group I had encountered the previous day. It was truly a hellscape. “Is there a Sachiyo Sera here?” my father called out. We asked around, to no avail.

My father and I looked out toward the Aioi Bridge. There were corpses everywhere, scorched and blackened like the group from yesterday. There were children led by their mothers, mothers still clinging onto their children, individuals who could not bear the heat and had dunked their heads into the fire water tank. I remember seeing 2, 3 horses turned over with their legs splayed up, revealing swollen bellies split down the middle with yellow-ish entrails spilling out.

I also remember seeing a woman’s body laid upon a straw mat. “Who put the mat there?” I wondered. Beside her was a young boy – close to my brother’s age, about two years old – without a single scratch on his body. The boy was sitting there beside his mother’s corpse, alone. There were 5, 6 biscuits laid out in front of him. I still wonder, to this day, what happened to him. We couldn’t find Sachiyo that day.

We continued our search for Sachiyo the next day, to no avail. That evening, I woke up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and saw my mother sitting alone, staring out into the street. “What are you doing?” I asked her. “Waiting for Sachiyo to come home,” she said, softly.

On August 15, the Jewel Voice Broadcast announced that Japan had lost the war. My father was right. As soon as the war was over, my cousin and older brother came home from the military. However, they both died of leukemia after going to my cousin’s dilapidated house 1.5km from the hypocenter to collect his belongings. They were so healthy when they returned from the military. I believe that they died from radiation sickness.

By September, my little brother’s burns were mostly healed. He had recovered well – in fact, whenever he heard an airplane overhead, he ran out into the front yard and yelled, “Give me back my sister! Give me back my sister!”

By October, however, he fell ill with chronic diarrhea – another symptom of radiation sickness. Due to the severe food shortage after the war, we couldn’t feed him anything substantial. “Mama, I don’t want to eat pumpkins anymore,” he said weakly as my mother wiped away her tears. Soon, my two and a half year old brother shrunk like a frail skeleton and joined my sister in heaven on October 22.”

“Showa 20, August 6, morning

A single bomb detonated above a city where regular civilians lived in peace. It killed 140,000 cherished lives in a single moment, turning the city into a hellscape. There I was, living in the center of this city, Hiroshima. I was nine years old.

All four members of my family miraculously survived the bomb, but we later suffered radiation sickness, and we were all afflicted with cancer.

The atomic bomb not only took many lives, but it also irreversibly damaged the spirits of the tens of thousands of survivors it left in its wake who were met with an unquantifiable hell and are forced to live through tragedy after tragedy, even to this day.

Some believe that “nuclear weapons are what preserve international harmony.”
To them, I offer the following counterargument:
“Nuclear weapons and humanity cannot coexist.”
Nuclear weapons are an absolute evil!!

2017. 12. 15
Hayashi Yuriko (age 81)”

“‘Why couldn’t I save them? Why did I get to survive?’ Those who were afflicted by the atomic bomb carry these sentiments with them for the rest of their lives.

I may be the youngest hibakusha in the world; I was 24 days old at the time of the bombing. Still, my entire family was implicated by the atomic bomb. My older brother was afflicted as a student laborer; my aunt incurred severe burns and insisted on wearing long sleeved shirts during the summer. Even at 2.4km from the hypocenter, she lost part of the flesh on her arm due to radiation. Hydrogen bombs today are several hundred times more powerful than weapons we had back then. Russia has successfully conducted experiments with nuclear weapons that are 3,000 times more powerful than the ones we had back then. The earth is on the verge of utter destruction, yet only the power of people can prevent it.”

“Though the power of a single citizen may be small, a circle of many can yield great power. Even if it may seem unremarkable or tedious, we must continue to pass down – not negate – the unadulterated truth about our past to future generations. I believe that this is what will lead us to the peace which we all seek.
–
2017-12-19
Teramoto Takashi”

“I was in the fifth grade that year. I had been living in a group evacuation site outside of the city. I fell ill that summer and my mother came to pick me up, on August 4. The plan was to head back home to Hiroshima on the morning of August 6, but I begged my mother that we return a day earlier. I hadn’t even considered how exhausted she would have been, trekking all the way to the evacuation site. Indeed, if we had headed back on the morning of August 6 as planned, we would not have encountered the atomic bomb.

We were back in Hiroshima by the evening of August 5. The next morning, I was outside my home in a short-sleeved undershirt and underpants, playing and chatting with a group of friends about the B-29. ‘Hurry up, we’re going to the hospital,’ my mother called. When I went back inside the house to prepare for our outing, a bright light flashed through the back window. Suddenly, everything went dark. I was disoriented, and could not move for a while. When I came to, I saw an eerie glow in the distance. I walked toward it, and somehow reached the main road. A woman from the neighborhood approached me and asked, ‘Who are you?’ ‘I’m Takashi,’ I replied. ‘Oh, Takashi! Here, get on my back. We need to get out of here,’ she offered. The woman carried me on her back and we headed toward the mountains. She later told me that she could not tell who I was because my entire face was covered in blood.

We headed toward an evacuation center in Furuichi. On the way there, an aid truck stopped and offered us a ride to a local temple. It was crowded with injured people, like us. There, I encountered one of the friends whom I had been chatting with moments before the bomb dropped. He was burned badly, with his arms outstretched. Loose skin drooped from his limbs like rags. I heard that he passed away a couple days later.

That evening, I was reunited with my father. ‘Mother is at a camp under the Yokogawabashi bridge,’ he told me. I felt slightly relieved. The next morning, I was sent off to my aunt’s place outside of the city on a crowded train full of burn victims.

On August 15 – or was it the day after Japan’s surrender – I was told that my sister and mother were coming to get me at my aunt’s place. I waited all day in anticipation. Alas, only my sister showed up. ‘Where’s mom?’ I asked. My sister pulled out a small box. ‘She’s in here,’ she told me.

Within 2-3 months, I learned that the kind woman from the neighborhood who carried me on her back and the acquaintances whom I encountered at Furuichi were all dead. Toward the end of the month, I too fell ill – I woke up one day to discover that my hair had fallen out and was stuck to my pillow. My body began to ache all over, and I was bedridden for days. I remember hearing murmurs over my bed as I drifted in and out of consciousness. ‘Those affected by the pika (Japanese onomatopoeia for the atomic bomb) lose their hair and start bleeding from their gums. Some form dots all over their bodies and pass away,’ ‘Will this child be saved?’ Strangely, I don’t recall feeling any fear of death.

By April of 1946, classes were resumed, and I did the fifth grade all over again. Though I could redo grade school, the memory of 1945 I simply cannot erase. Above all, I regret worrying my mother, and begging her to return a day early to die under such harsh circumstances.”

“My wish is that there comes a day when there are no more nuclear weapons in this world.

Sado Ikuko”

“On the morning of August 6, my one-year-old sister and I were sent over to my grandmother’s house in Kaminagarekawa-cho. At around 8:15, we were playing in the backyard under the blazing summer sun. My grandmother’s house was 870m from the hypocenter.

As soon as I heard the pika! don (Japanese onomatopoeia for the atomic bomb blast), my sister and I were knocked off our feet and blown far from where we were playing. I suffered minor burns on my hands and forehead. My little sister, on the other hand, was wearing only a light dress due to the summer heat and suffered burns all over her body. Her skin was ulcerated and draped limply over her limbs.

Our family house – a wooden structure – was wiped out instantaneously due to the blast and set ablaze by the 3,000-5,000°C heat wave. We no longer had a home amidst the flames and rubble, so my grandmother and I decided to carry my wounded sister to the higashi-renpeijo (eastern military training grounds). We proceeded toward the Enkoubashi bridge to get to the training grounds. Mountains of rubble lined the path. We swatted away embers and smoke as we walked. People with severe burns begged along the side of the street. ‘Give me water! Please – give me water!’ they screamed. Some had fallen in the river and were begging for help.  Others were floating in the river, lifeless. It was as if we were walking through hell.

I’m not certain how many hours it took, but we finally arrived at the eastern military training grounds. My sister’s burns were serious – her shoulders, neck, chest, hands, and legs were red and inflamed, and her dress was drenched with blood. We asked the military doctor for help. We were told to wait our turn. I remember the anger I felt, to this day. There were numerous blackened corpses scattered throughout the training grounds. The area was brimming with people screaming in agony from festering burns, or sobbing loudly to lament a lost one. It was as if we were being sucked into hell.

The next morning, I woke up to my sister crying. When I checked on her, maggots were feeding on her wounds. My sister was thrashing her legs about – due to the itchiness, perhaps. I asked the military doctor for a pair of chopsticks and removed the maggots. Her cries subsided and she soon fell asleep.

On August 8 – two days after the bombing – my sister’s body grew colder and colder, and she passed away. Her face, I recall, was very beautiful. The next day at around five in the evening, we borrowed a dolly from a military officer and took my sister’s body and some firewood to a nearby park. We cremated her.

The park had transformed into an impromptu cremation ground. Bodies were shuffled in one by one; military officers poured oil on them and set them alight. It was a particularly hot time of year, so the decay was quick and the smell was potent. A military officer ordered us to pick up my sister’s ashes and place it into a can. We took her back with us to our tent in the military grounds, which we now called home.”

“I experienced, first-hand, the bombing of Hiroshima and its revival from a city reduced to ashes. At present, hibakusha are on the verge of extinction. I plan to preserve this body, even a year longer, (as long as I am alive), to continue recounting the “truth, reality, and sensory experience” of the atomic bomb. For the future of mankind.

(At the time of the bombing: first grader in elementary school, age 6, male, currently age 78)

H 29, December 22
Kajiya Fumiaki”

“That morning, my older sister and I were at an impromptu classroom set up inside a local resident’s home, 1.8km away from the hypocenter. She was in the third grade; I was in the first grade. We had washed the floors of the foyer, and were arguing which one of us would take out the bucket of dirty water. My sister – completely out of character – quickly agreed to take it out. As soon as she turned the corner to head out back, the powerful air blast hit us. I was knocked off my feet and buried under the house. With much effort, I crawled out from under the rubble and reached the main street. I joined the hoards of people, running with all my might. My sister did not even cross my mind. All I felt was fear.

My sister had died instantaneously under the house, I was told. Still, my father pulled her body out of the rubble, and took her to the higashi-renpeijo (eastern military training grounds).  My mother, who was at home not far from our classroom, later joined my sister at the camp. Glass shards had struck my mother in the left eye and inflicted a 10 centimeter-long cut across her cheek. Some shards were buried so deep in her skin that she could not pry them out. Moreover, upon discovering my sister’s death, my mother suffered a psychological wound that never quite healed after the war.

It must have been about two decades after the bomb attack. My mother had sobbed every year on the anniversary of the bombing. I finally told her one day: ‘Mother, you’ve suffered enough. You don’t have to cry anymore.’ That was when my mother confessed, ‘Your sister would have been alive, if it weren’t for me.’

During the summer of 1945, my sister was sent to an evacuation center outside the city, according to my mother. About a week before the bombing, my mother visited her to bring her a change of clothes. Upon seeing my mother, my sister begged, ‘Please mom, take me back home with you.’ My mother refused. ‘What if there’s an air raid? I cannot take you back to Hiroshima.’ My sister clung onto my mother’s arm, desperately. ‘Watashi wa okaasan to issho ga eenja! (I just want to be with you, Mom!)‘

They struggled for a while, but my mother eventually gave in. ‘Fine. If we die, we die together,’ they promised each other.

‘If only I hadn’t taken her back with me,’ my mother lamented. ‘I had wronged her, my poor, poor child –’ Suddenly, it hit me. After returning to Hiroshima from the evacuation center, my sister was on her best behavior. She did her chores and avoided getting into fights with me so as not to inconvenience my mother, who granted her request to come home. That was why she had agreed so quickly to take out the dirty water, which cost her her life.

Meanwhile, I was somehow allowed to survive.”

“75 years since the bombing! Though I am a hibakusha who was exposed to the bomb 550m from the hypocenter, I did not become the hibakusha that I feared for the most. Instead, I became a mother blessed with healthy children, a mother blessed with a happy life, and I am currently living happily with my children.

I hope to continue living a life brimming with health and happiness, along with my children.

In the past, I have been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, thyroid cancer, and breast cancer. But I hope to live a healthful life.”

(Translated from an article Ms. Teramae penned for magazine publication Heiwa Bunka on July 1, 1985. Content has been edited for length and clarity.)

“I became a handicapped person due to the atomic bomb attacks. Glass shards pierced through my face, and left me blind in my right eye.

Back then, I was in my third year at Shintoku Girl’s High School and worked as a student laborer at the Hiroshima Central Telephone Exchange, 550m away from the hypocenter. Start times for the morning shift were staggered at 7am, 8am, and 9am. On August 6, 1945, my shift began at 7am.

That morning, I left my evacuation site at what is now Itsukaichi-cho on the first train out. I stood in line in the hallway to begin my shift when I glanced out the window and noticed a shiny object falling in the clear blue sky. ‘What is that?’ As soon as I turned to my friend, we were engulfed by a powerful flash that turned our surroundings bright white. Normally, I was not able to see past the buildings – but at this very moment, I was able to get a clear view of the entire city. Soon, a great cloud of dust wafted into my eyes and mouth, and everything went pitch dark. A loud boom! permeated the air, followed by the deep rumble of collapsing buildings. I began to choke on the consequent smoke – poisonous gas, it seemed like – and vomited uncontrollably.

‘Mom!’ ‘Mom, please help!’ ‘Mom, it hurts –’ When the dust settled, the hallway began to echo with young students begging for their mothers. Wakita-sensei, our homeroom teacher, yelled back, ‘Gakuto wa gakuto rashiku ganbarunoyo! (We must endure this, like the proud scholars that we are!)’ We were consoled by Sensei’s familiar voice, and the begging subsided.

I soon realized, however, that I could not move my body. A thick substance oozed down my face and into my mouth; my clothes were mysteriously drenched. (I soon learned that this was blood from the injuries on my face). I suspected that a bookcase in the hallway had fallen on me and pinned me to the ground. With much effort, I crawled out from under and searched for an exit, through pitch darkness. Since the stairwell was blocked with bodies piled on top of each other, I jumped out of the second-story window and climbed down a telephone pole. I made my way to Hijiyama for safety.

When I arrived at the cusp of the Kyobashi River, I turned back to see the city I left behind engulfed in a sea of fire. An immense fear took over me, and I could no longer look back. I had to escape, immediately. However, the river was at full tide and the only bridge, Tsurumibashi, was on fire. At this point my vision was faltering, and my face was painfully swollen. As I sat at the river bank in defeat, my shift manager from the telephone exchange, who had heard about my face injury, found me and handed me a batch of tobacco – a rarity back then – and applied it to my wounds. Soon, Wakita-sensei, who had also heard about my injury, came to my rescue.

‘The bridge is burning so we must swim across,’ she said. ‘Hang on to me tightly.’ I clung onto her arm as she pulled me through the current. I lost my vision completely about midway through the river. ‘We’re almost there!’ Wakita-sensei reassured me. ‘Hang in there!’

We finally made it to the other side, and Wakita-sensei took me to an evacuation center in Hijiyama. The facility was full of burn victims screaming in pain and begging for water. It was a true hellscape.

‘Wait right here,’ Wakita-sensei told me. ‘I have to go find Horikawa-san (another student with a serious injury).’ She then disappeared back into the city, the sea of fire.

That was the last time I saw Wakita-sensei. She saved my life, yet I was not able to tell her a simple ‘thank you.’ I deeply regret this, to this day. Wakita-sensei passed away on August 30, 1945, at the tender age of 20.

Thank you, Sensei.”

“Peace is our number one priority.”

“American B-29 bombers dropped leaflets all over the city, warning us that Nagasaki would ‘fall to ashes’ on August 8. The leaflets were confiscated immediately by the kenpei (Imperial Japanese Army). My father somehow got a hold of one, and believed what it said. He built us a little barrack up along the Iwayasan (a local mountain) to hide out in.

We went up there on the 7th, the 8th. The trail up to the barrack was rugged and steep. With several children and seniors in tow, it was a demanding trek. On the morning of the 9th, my mother and aunt opted for staying in the house. “Go back up to the barrack,” my father demanded. “The US is a day behind, remember?” When they opposed, he got very upset and stormed out to go to work.

We changed our minds and decided to hide out in the barrack, for one more day. That was a defining moment for us. At 11:02am that morning, the atomic bomb was dropped. Our family – those of us at the barrack, at least – survived the bomb.

We were later able to reunite with my father. However, he soon came down with diarrhea and a high fever. His hair began to fall out and dark spots formed on his skin. My father passed away – suffering greatly – on August 28.

If it weren’t for my father, we may have suffered severe burns like Aunt Otoku, or gone missing like Atsushi, or been lodged under the house and slowly burned to death. Fifty years later, I had a dream about my father for the first time since his death. He was wearing a kimono and smiling, ever so slightly. Although we did not exchange words, I knew at that moment that he was safe in heaven.”

“The Hellscape That I Saw That Summer When I Was Six Years Old

Konishi Shinichi

Pika! Don!
It was a fireball explosion that emitted a blinding light and a loud reverberation that shook the earth.
Nagasaki instantly became a wasteland, due to its air blast, heat and radiation.
The hellscape that I saw that summer when I was six years old has never faded from the recesses of my mind.
I would like to continue communicating my thoughts on the importance of peace by depicting the realities of the atomic bomb and the dignity of all life forms.
The origin of peace lies in the ability to share the pain of others.
The Gospel of Mark 12:31 reads “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It teaches us to be kind to others and cherish life above all things. It also greatly inspired the novels “Nyokoaijin” and “Heiwawo” by Dr. Nagai of Urakami. As a member of the Nyokonokai, I too am currently striving to relay this message of peace.”

“When the bomb was dropped, I was standing in front of the Madonna in white at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Nagasaki, 4km from the hypocenter. I was on my way home from Sunday School studying for my first Communion, and had ritually prayed before the statue located at the center of the entrance. At that very moment, I was engulfed by a blinding light and fell on the ground.

There was a loud reverberation – a sound that I’d never heard in my six years of life. Shattered glass from the second floor rained down on me, and I was instantly covered in blood. The harsh contrast between the bright red blood and blinding white light has never since faded from my memory.

I later escaped to one of three air raid shelters near the church. Friends and family were concerned about my safety. I was one of the last ones to arrive – covered in blood, of course. The bleeding eventually stopped. Later on, a number of priests arrived. Although they were ostensibly healthy upon arrival, four died in the air raid shelter within an hour. Although I was very young back then, I will never forget the smell of burning flesh that permeated the air raid shelter. The summer heat made it especially unbearable.”

“It has been 72 years since the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The cruel and inhumane nature of this weapon has been proven, time and time again.

Naturally, I have believed in and prayed for the abolition of nuclear weapons, but I carried no doubts about the “peaceful” use of nuclear power, and believed that it was a power source that was worth pursuing.

I came to discover after the Fukushima nuclear crisis in 2011, however, that there is no such thing as a “foolproof” solution when it comes to nuclear power usage.

At this point, I have come to believe that nuclear power usage – and nuclear weaponry, of course – should be terminated.

My hope is that we are able to revisit and adopt the provisions of the much-debated Nuclear Weapons Convention, and in addition, the world is able to come to a consensus to abolish nuclear power usage so that we can continue to sustain this beautiful planet.

Yamada Kazumi”

“I was born in Manchuria near Harbin and raised there until I started primary school. My family lived in the outskirts, and the closest Japanese primary school was too far away for a daily commute. So my parents sent me to Nagasaki to live with my grandmother.

My grandmother owned a general store, and we lived there with my aunt and uncle. On the morning of August 9, I was playing shogi (Japanese chess) with a friend at home as we had no classes that day. We got into a bickering match, and my friend went down to the river for a swim. I went off on my paper route to cool my head. On my way back home, I noticed several villagers looking up at the sky.

“Rakkasan, rakkasan (parachute, parachute),” they said. I glanced up but saw nothing. I continued on my way. As soon as I walked into a shaded area tucked behind a knoll, there was a bright flash. Everything turned white. There was no sound or air blast, from what I remember – just scorching heat. “This is how I’m going to die,” I thought.

When I opened my eyes, the villagers who had just been peering up at the sky a moment ago were suffering severe burns. A thatched rooftop was on fire. Crazed cattle were storming around in circles. I headed back home, terrified. As I approached my home, I began to pass by more burn victims. Some were bluish-white and looked as if they were uninjured from far away – that is, until I realized that their skin had been completely peeled off their upper bodies, piled up at the waist. A heavily injured factory worker with a detached eyeball stopped me. “Bouya, kono kataki tottekureyo (Little boy, avenge this tragedy).”

I found out later that my friend whom I’d been playing shogi with died in the river. There is a fine line between life and death. If I’d been peering up at the sky with the other villagers for a second longer, my fate would have been the same.”