“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)”

“Passing On the Spirit of Hiroshima

Hiroshima – a city in which 8,200 seventh- and eighth-grade students were mobilized as laborers, of which 6,300 passed away on the morning of August 6.

As a legacy successor, I pass on the stories of those who survived, those who have carried guilt for their entire lives because they did not share the same fate.

My father lived on an island off the Seto Inland Sea and entered Hiroshima for three days immediately after the bombing as part of the relief effort. I was not able to hear his story.

I hope to continue telling the story of how  広島 (author’s note: ‘Hiroshima’ in kanji, as it is traditionally written) became ヒロシマ (author’s note: ‘Hiroshima’ in katakana, an alphabet system reserved for foreign words. This indicates the rising ubiquity of Hiroshima among non-Japanese speakers as it has become synonymous with the atomic bomb), the many individuals that lost their lives in an instant and the many more individuals that suffer, to this day, due to radiation sickness. I hope to relay the messages of the hibakusha who have provided their testimonials in hopes that no one ever has to experience what they went through.”

“‘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.”

“Japan – a country that has been in a constant state of turmoil since the Meiji era – has not engaged in war for the past 72 years, since the end of World War II. At present, the majority of Japanese have never experienced war. I am one of them. Still, war and conflict persist to this day in various corners of the world, victimizing many people. This is not a foreign topic for any of us – at any point, we may easily become victims or perpetuators. During the war, Japanese soldiers brutally murdered many innocent people from other countries. The leaders of the Imperial Japanese Army led many of their own officers to die in vain. The atomic bomb detonated above a region that housed regular people living day by day, and implicated a large number of them. The victims are always regular people – people with families whom they loved dearly. War drives humans to commit horrific acts. It martyrizes individuals who kill the most people. I do not believe that killing – under any circumstances – is the correct course of action. Nor do I believe that there is any way to justify war. My hope is that one day, every individual in this world is able to say that they have never experienced war.

Seino Kumiko Kumiko Seino”

(Transcribed from a speech that Ms. Seino prepared in English for a presentation at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Here, she describes her mother’s account of the atomic bomb.)

“On August 6th, 1945, my mother left home early in the morning, as usual. She worried about her two-year-old brother because he was crying. Her mother said, “It’s nothing. Your younger brother just spilled some soup and burned himself a little bit. You had better be on your way.” So, although not wanting to leave the house, she headed for work. This was the last conversation that [my mother] had with her family.

After the morning meeting at work, my mother and her friend were walking towards a nearby elementary school. They were carrying big containers filled with boxed lunches. Just after 8 o’clock, she heard the noise of an American plane, the B-29. She looked up saying, “The enemy plane,” then the entire area turned orange with a loud noise. She thought a bomb must have fallen nearby. She forgot what she was carrying and jumped into a rice paddy. Nothing happened, so they went back into the office. Wondering where the bomb hit, they started talking about it. Then they heard something that sounded like lightening and large black raindrops began to fall.

After a while, injured people started coming from downtown. Each one of them was badly burnt or injured. My mother and her friend gave first-aid at an elementary school. They applied medicine to the wounded. They treated burns with grated cucumber because of the lack of medicine. The burned people all said, “Water, water, water.” […] A person nearby with a burnt face said, “I want to drink water,” but my mother didn’t give him water. At the time, people thought that giving water would make them die. When she told him that it was bad to drink water, he said, “I want water to wash my face.” Then my mother filled a helmet with water and gave it to him. At once he drank down all of the water and died the next morning. To this day, my mother regrets that episode, thinking that she killed him with the water.

During the rescue, she didn’t see anyone from her neighborhood in the rescue center. She thought her family was safe. Then she heard someone say, “All of Hiroshima is flattened. I could see the port clearly from the center of the city.” She couldn’t believe it.

Nobody could enter Hiroshima that day, so she spent the night in a classroom in the elementary school. Worried about her family and not able to sleep, she looked out the window in the direction of Hiroshima. It was burning red. She said it was very strange.

The next morning my mother and her friend each got a rice ball and headed into the city. Along the road, injured people wearing ragged clothes were walking slowly. When they got into the city, my mother looked into a burnt streetcar and saw the driver, dead. The passengers were also dead. Everything was spread around everywhere. She couldn’t see the roads anymore, so she followed the streetcar tracks. Half-naked dead bodies were on the streets. There was a large water tank. Someone in the tank suddenly stood up and said, “Hey girl, water please.” She screamed and ran. She had been walking by dead bodies, and was surprised to see someone alive. Even today she can’t forget.

Electric poles had fallen over. Roof tiles had burnt off. Water tanks were lying around, but she finally made it to the T-shaped Aioi Bridge. The whole area was burnt out and very quiet. […]

On the bridge, a dead mounted soldier looked like he was still riding his horse. His horse was lying, dead near him. An American POW (Prisoner of War) was tied up with wires. He was still alive. Some people had seen others throwing bricks and tiles at him. After Japan was occupied by the United States, people were afraid of being punished by the US, and kept this a secret for about ten years after the end of the war but my mother didn’t tell me for 65 years. There were 12 American POW’s in Hiroshima at that time. These American POW’s are now memorialized in the cenotaph along with the other victims of the Atomic Bomb.

My mother parted with her friend at Aioi Bridge and went alone, into the city center. The only buildings left were the present Rest House, a bank, and the public toilet near the movie theater. People who had entered the area wrote messages in charcoal on the wall of the public toilet, for their families. My mother also picked up a piece of charcoal from the burnt ruins and wrote, “Kyoko is safe and in Nagatsuka.” She prayed that her mother would see this and come to find her.

The city center was badly damaged and still burning. She walked over the burnt ruins. She didn’t have leather shoes, so she was wearing flat shoes. She said her feet became very hot. When she got close to the house, she recognized a water tank so she knew where she was. The faces of the corpses lying on the ground were burnt and couldn’t be recognized. She wondered if one of them was her mother. Their clothes were burnt and she didn’t have the courage to pick the heads up to make sure. She continued crying while walking through the sea of dead bodies and the burnt remains. When she passed the side of the A-bomb Dome, she saw the corpses of a mother and two children. The mother’s hair was burnt and frizzled. She was lying face down. Two small boys were lying by her, one on either side. Blood was dripping from the older boy’s nose. They looked like her family, but she couldn’t be sure. Their faces were burnt. There was a rumor that when you see the corpse of your family, they shed blood. She thought that those people must have been her family. She felt bad that she didn’t try to turn their bodies over or check their faces and clothes carefully. She still regrets this now.

Starting the next day, she went to her relatives’ houses and walked around to a number of shelters in Hiroshima City asking about her family. She couldn’t find them. She wondered if there were some bones in the remains of her burnt house. She dug around to look for them. All she could find was a lens from her mother’s glasses. It had melted like candy. She took it with her as a keepsake.

My mother’s family was never found. To this day, there hasn’t been a funeral. The family grave is empty because her mother, father, and her two brothers’ ashes are not there. Because of that, my mother considers the cenotaph and the atomic bomb memorial mound in the Peace Memorial Park to be her family grave. The Peace Memorial Park was built by covering the area with dirt. When I think that the bones might still be resting somewhere, I also feel that this is our family grave. For two weeks, my mother searched for her family. Her house burned down, with her family photos. There is no picture anywhere of her younger brother, who died at two years old.”

“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.”

“A Message to Future Generations: For A Brighter Future
Morikawa Seishi

A definitive trait of nuclear disaster is that it causes pain and suffering across multiple generations. As a second generation hibakusha (my father was exposed to the bomb in Hiroshima), I have felt this time and time again. Sickly from a young age, I spent my days in and out of the hospital due to bouts of high fever and gastrointestinal diseases. In addition, minor scratches and cuts took a long time to heal and often became infected – one of many symptoms that left doctors perplexed and were marked down as “cause unknown.”

At the age of 33 I was graced with a life partner and blessed with a child two years after marriage. Still, no matter how much time went by, the child never developed inside of the womb. I held back tears when I learned that my child was unable to enter this world as a solid life form. On the one hand, there are healthy second generation hibakusha who never experience complications – however, there are a substantial number of us who are sickly like me, those that pass away from diseases such as cancer, leukemia, and cardiovascular diseases, and unborn second and third generation hibakusha who never even enter to see this world.

In modern day Japan, there is a pronounced tendency – deeply rooted in our custom, culture, and value system – to censor, manipulate, and look away from these realities. This can not only be observed within the government or corrupt politicians, but also within advocacy groups that allegedly call for peace and nuclear abolition.

Indeed, Japan is not the only country that has ever experienced nuclear disaster. Hiroshima is not the first ever atomic bomb site, and Nagasaki is no longer the world’s last atomic bomb site. On July 1945, the first atomic bomb test was conducted in Alamogordo in the US, implicating local soldiers taking part in the experiment. Even in regards to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, approximately 10 percent of the victims were of Korean, Chinese descent or from other parts of Asia and western countries. In addition, the nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll also implicated many local inhabitants of the Marshall Islands, many who have died or suffered from radiation sickness ever since. Despite all of this, over 2000 nuclear tests have been conducted so far around the world, and the effects can be seen globally.

Similarly, nuclear arms production necessitates nuclear reactor facilities and nuclear fission processes, of which plutonium is a byproduct. This is why nuclear power plants exist. Nuclear accidents including Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima have afflicted or even killed many people through radiation sickness. Indeed, nuclear arms production and uranium extraction is heavily reliant on human labor (which has been largely filled by locals) and cannot be sustained without inflicting more harm on laborers and local communities. Nuclear arms and humanity simply cannot coexist.

Dear young readers – I hope that you do not limit yourselves to the narrow-mindedness or one dimensional, victim-driven narratives that many Japanese are inclined to. Instead, I hope that you seek out the realities of nuclear disaster from a global, multilateral perspective and are able to join forces to achieve nuclear abolition.”

“I first learned of the term hibaku nisei (second generation hibakusha) when I was in middle school, I believe. From a young age, I had a weak digestive system and was quite sickly. Whenever I got a puncture wound, it took a while to heal and easily got infected. During summer breaks, the heat would get to me, and I spent most of my days at home in bed, from what I recall. As I transitioned from a student to a working adult, I was exposed to more news coverage, articles, and books relating to the hibaku nisei, and was granted more opportunities to connect with other second generation hibakusha. While there was a fair share of healthy second generation hibakusha, there were those like myself who suffered various health complications. It was painfully apparent that we needed healthcare programs catering specifically to hibaku nisei.

When the average age of second generation hibakusha was younger, there was some media coverage on the topic of employment and marriage discrimination against second generation hibakusha. I, for one, have experienced both. Since then, however, I was blessed with a life partner and got married at the age of 33. In the following year, we were blessed with a child. But no matter how many days went by, the baby never developed inside of the womb. I held back tears when I discovered that my child could not be brought into this world as a solid life form. I cannot accept the notion that this has no correlation with the fact that I am a second generation hibakusha.

On the one hand, because my domicile was close to the hypocenter in Hiroshima, I was heavily interrogated during job interviews about my ties with those affected by the atomic bomb. I was never hired after these interviews, and as a result, I took up a job position at the local post office, where such discrimination did not exist. Still, my placement back then required me to work many night shifts, which was not sustainable for a sickly individual like me. Ten years after I took up the job, the company finally granted my request to be transferred to a field underwriter position selling insurance policies, with no night shifts.

This position allowed me to go home in the evenings to rest – to me, this was a prized placement that I needed to keep at any cost. I dove headfirst into the job and worked with all my might, fearing that if I failed at this job, I would have no other prospects. Thankfully, 21 years later, I now serve as the Deputy Director of the organization.

In retrospect, I believe that I was able to excel at my job because of an impending fear that I had nowhere else to go, but also because of my unique perspective and value system as a hibaku nisei. Perhaps I was able to share with my clients my heightened awareness and respect for life and health as a result of my experiences.

From early on its inception, the post office has supported subsidized healthcare for hibaku nisei, like free physical exams, due to the mobilization of various union and advocacy groups. However, substantial healthcare/prevention programs and insurance policies should not be limited to a handful of companies or municipalities – it should be carried out as a nationwide government-led initiative.

The nuclear disasters in Fukushima and consequent radiation poisoning… Along with the social stigma that follows signify that the nuclear problem is not limited to specific groups like the hibakusha and second generation hibakusha, but is quickly becoming a national problem.

As a hibaku nisei, I urge the government to provide healthcare subsidies not only for hibakusha and second generation hibakusha but for all victims of nuclear radiation, to create programs targeted to eliminate social discrimination against these groups, and to shut down existing nuclear power plants and allocate more resources to fund natural and sustainable energy programs.”

(Translated from a biographical piece written by Mr. Morikawa on April 22, 2012.)

“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.”