Hiroshima

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Today I visited Hiroshima, a city that manufactures Mazda cars, has one of the world's best symphony orchestras and some of the best sports teams in Japan. But Hiroshima is also a city which is only known in the west for being the first place in the world to suffer an atomic bomb when one was detonated 600m above the city at 8:15am on the 6 August 1945.

During World War II Hiroshima was the main base for Japanese troops and as a result there was a huge need for military housing and buildings. There were no men in the area available to demolish buildings and use the materials to build new ones, so instead, by 1945, the city was full of children at 'work camps' - doing heavy work on building sites from around 6 - 17 years old.

Hiroshima was just one of a handful of sites outlined as a target for the first A-bomb. Its fate was sealed by clear weather on the morning of the 6 August 1945, and the American bomber plane Enola Gay headed straight to the city. The bomb was detonated above the city directly killing 80,000.

That's the part of the story we were taught in History lessons in school. The part that was left out was even worse.

"Shigeru Orimen was a first-year student at Second Hiroshima Prefectural Junior High School. He was exposed to the bomb at his building demolition work site at Nakajima-shin-machi. His mother Shigeko searched for him desperately through the devastated city, but failed to find him. Finally, she got information about him from an acquaintance and, early in the morning of August 9, she found a body with a lunch box clutched to the abdomen. Shigeru had worked diligently in place of his father and brother who were away at the front. He ploughed the field and cultivated gardens on the mountain and in a bamboo grove. His lunch that day was made from the first harvest from his new field, which he had brought home so happily. Shigeko's grief deepened when she realized that Shigeru never got a chance to eat the lunch he had been so eagerly anticipating."

"Shinichi Tetsutani (then 3 years and 11 months) loved to ride his tricycle. That morning, he was riding in front of his house when, in a sudden flash, he and his tricycle were badly burned. He died that night. His father felt he was too young to be buried in a lonely grave away from home, and thinking he could still play with the tricycle, he buried Shinichi with the tricycle in the backyard. In the summer of 1985, forty years later, his father dug up Shinichi's remains and transferred them to the family grave. The tricycle, Shinichi's best friend, was donated to the Peace Memorial Museum."

"Hiroko Yamashita was exposed to the A-bomb in Ote-machi where she was trapped under her collapsed house. She crawled out of the rubble with her younger brother Yusaku (then, 6), and they fled barefoot toward the suburbs from a city bursting into flame. Hiroko's hands, shoulders, and legs were severely injured. Yusaku, who appeared uninjured, fell ill on the 21st. His hair fell out, he developed a high fever, his nose bled heavily, and he died on the 24th.
On the 21st, the day Yusaku's hair fell out, Hiroko also lost her hair in large clumps. Her condition worsened for some time, but under the devoted care of her mother, Kyo (then,46), she managed to survive. In preparation for the worst, Kyo had kept this hair to treasure as a reminder of Hiroko."

Every exhibit in the museum was like this, and there were thousands. These children weren't killed by the blast, they suffered for hours with burns, blindness, radiation sickness and in complete agony. Parents nursed them and just as they seemed to improve they would die.

Getting around the museum, and later around the Peace Park, was difficult. The exhibits were raw and honest - acknowledging Japan had caused enormous suffering abroad and that in many respects an escalation was completely understandable, expected and deserved. However, the stories of the children of Hiroshima make you certain that civilians should never, ever be a target, and that atomic weapons should never be deployed.

Hiroshima today is a remarkable city. People in Japan and polite and friendly, but in Hiroshima they are caring and loving. As I came out of the museum a couple were stood on the bridge offering 'free hugs' with an English sign. As a city their suffering has been huge as a result of a western war tactic, and whoever's 'fault' it was, the level of forgiveness was in someways hard to contemplate.

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Photos

A Bomb Dome
Unchanged since the day of the bomb, this was one of the only buildings left standing.

Children's memorial
Sadako Sasaki was 2 when exposed to the bomb, she died at 12. She had Lukeamia. She tried to fold 1000 paper cranes as she thought she would then have a wish granted. She didn't reach her goal so her classmates carried on. Now children over the world fold paper cranes and send them to this memorial to remember the children of Hiroshima.