Shadow on Stone

A survivor and a victim of the atomic bombing at Hiroshima, 08/06/45. (photo: Hiroshima Historical Archives)

 

Reader Supported News | Perspective

he went about her morning routine, signed the attendance book, dusted desks and prepared for another day of work at the bank. She was 20 years old.

He was 32, had just finished breakfast, and was on his way to work at the newspaper where he was a cameraman.

A 17-year-old schoolgirl and her two friends jumped aboard the streetcar on their way to another friend's house. It was the start of holiday from school and student mobilization labor.

At 08:16 Little Boy delivered hell via "pika don," which means "brilliant light and thunderous blast."

It was morning - August 6, 1945 - in Hiroshima.

Akiko Takakura, 20 - Yoshito Matsushige, 32 - Tomiko Sasaki, 17 - became "hibakusha" which means "those who were bombed."

You can read excerpts of their testimony here, about how the only colors of that day were fire red and black and brown doom, and how the smoke and dust choked people and made them so thirsty they opened their mouths to drink the black rain that fell to quench their thirst and cool their burning bodies.

In 1974 or 1975 I went to see Woody Allen's "Sleeper" at the neighborhood theater. My neighborhood was a small city in Japan called Kuni Tachikawa, and the theater often showed American and European movies with Japanese subtitles. There was a newsreel about Hiroshima before "Sleeper" began. I remember how overpowering the newsreel footage was, and how it made me want to learn more and maybe hear firsthand accounts about that day.

I asked my Japanese friends, and some of the students with whom I traded English for Japanese lessons, what they knew of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the hibakusha. I was surprised how little they knew or cared. They thought I was odd for wanting to talk to some old survivors about old history and the bombing.

Over time, I learned that hibakusha became outcasts in mainstream Japanese society for many years, even decades, after the war. As it turned out, having survived a blast that instantly vaporized an estimated 66,000 people in Hiroshima and some 30,000 human beings in Nagasaki was not such a good thing after all.

For decades many Japanese did not want their children to marry a daughter or son of a hibakusha for fear of having deformed children or passing on cancer or some other deadly form of atomic disease. Many women survived the bomb but never married because they were ashamed of their appearance and worried that they could never bear children. Men often found themselves viewed as less than healthy stock, after all, who would want to marry someone who could die a painful and excruciating death within a year or two of the wedding?

So little was known about the effects of the new atomic age, but radiation sickness, tumors and massive scars, and sparse clumps of hair were obvious identifiers of "them." Science fiction, come to life - the "other" that must be avoided. People feared drinking from the same cup of tea or water glass that a hibakusha used, and for many years even the touch of a hibakusha was reason for concern. They were denied jobs, and over time there arose a shame with being known as a hibakusha. You had to hide the fact you were a survivor in order to survive.

I also learned that there were niju hibakusha, or the "twice-bombed." These people, burned and wounded in Hiroshima, sought escape to family and relatives in Nagasaki only to be caught under Fat Man three days later.

There was a particular display at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum when I first visited and I assume it is still there. It was stone steps taken from the front entrance of the Sumitomo Bank building that was about 200 meters from the hypocenter of the blast. A shadow on the steps is believed to have been a person who sat down, waiting for the bank to open, just as the first blast hit. The heat wave was estimated at 1,000 to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. A shadow was all that was left of a human being from that morning.

This year, for the first time in 65 years, America will participate in the Hiroshima commemoration. Already, FOX has made a story on why it's bad and appears to be an "apology" and makes America look weak. The forces of imperial empire are never forgiving and are forever ravenous - or maybe they just fear a world at peace.

At 08:15 Hiroshima will stop - a moment of silence in remembrance. Flowers and water will be offered to the dead and then bells will ring in hope of bringing peace to the souls of the dead and those of the living.

Bombs kill fast and slow all at the same time. They drag death out for generations, incite fear and prejudice, and haunt the living forever afterward. Bombs ignite arrogance and shame, defiance and conquest. Bombs never, ever, go away. Ask the hibakusha and niju hibakusha. Ask their children and grandchildren. Ask a WWII veteran or their survivors and descendants. Bombs are always around.

I hope that the major nuclear powers that attend this 65th commemoration in Hiroshima will make time to find their way to those preserved bank steps and think about that one unknown person - that flash of shadow on stone.

-Peace-

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