Remembering the bombing of Nagasaki
How is it there? Do you feel at ease there? I’m doing fine, by some means or other. I never forget the ninth of the month. If I forget it, my sister will hit me.
– Yoshitoshi Fukahori, victim, 86
SURVIVORS of the Aug 9, 1945, atomic bombing of Nagasaki, bereaved families and others grieve on the ninth of each month — the monthly anniversary of the victims’ deaths. During the monthly meetings, people offer prayers for peace at their homes, churches, schools and in the streets.
Atomic bomb survivor Kimiko Moriyama, 97, is one of those offering prayers at the Megumi no Oka nursing home for atomic bomb survivors in Nagasaki. Moriyama, who was a teacher at Shiroyama Primary School until 1944, lost many of her students in the bombing. “I remember the death of a woman holding an infant, with pieces of broken glass piercing her back, and a boy whose skin was burned so badly the bone was showing. These terrible sights are ingrained in my memory,” she says. “War as well as atomic bombings should not be carried out again.”
Another survivor, Yoshitoshi Fukahori, 86, prays at Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki the ninth of each month in front of the church altar in the morning and evening. Fukahori was a victim of the bombing when he was 16 years old and working under a student mobilization program during World War II. The workplace was located about 3.5 km from the blast’s hypocentre.
“How is it there? Do you feel at ease there? I’m doing fine, by some means or other,” he says, addressing his elder sister, Chizuko, who died near the hypocentre. “I never forget the ninth of the month. If I forget it, my sister will hit me.”
Inosuke Hayasaki, 84, was a victim of the atomic bomb while working at a weapons factory. He stands before a memorial in Nagasaki Peace Park almost every day, calling on people to dedicate water to the memorial. When his colleagues died in the bombing, “They died uttering the words, ‘Give me water, give me water,’ “Hayasaki says. Many people pass by without stopping. “Even a single word would be fine,” he says. “I’d like to spread the word as a person who survived the atomic bombing. That’s my mission.”
Keiko Takahashi, 64, head of the Fukuoka prefectural chapter of the Japan Congress Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Gensuikin), has been staging a signature-gathering campaign for nearly 40 years. “If we keep our mouths shut, peace will not continue,” she says. “Because there were those who spoke out against the agony of war, we have peace now.”
The atomic bomb, dropped by a US bomber a few days before the end of World War II, claimed a great number of lives in the city. — WP-Bloomberg