Hiroshima will be commemorating the 69th anniversary of the “Atomic bomb day” on the 6th. The average age of the survivors is 80. “It is probably the most important memory in all of history”, said AKB48’s Hirata Rina (16), as she came to visit near the bomb site, where her great-grandfather died because of the explosion.
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"Scary, scary, they’re scary…". Clothes are all ragged, hair all singed. Their inflamed skin sagged and with both arms sticking out like ghosts, were a mother and her children. As she stood in front of the 3 body exhibits at Hiroshima’s Central Ward’s Peace Memorial Museum, Hirata trembled.
There are actually two different views on the human exhibits, “The truth is actually far much worse than this” and “This is too stimulating for children”. But come next year, they will be removed in a revamp. “it’s true that it was really a lot worse than this. But to be honest, it’s already so terrifying that it’s very hard to look straight at it. So we can understand the wish to have them removed.
How many nuclear warheads each country owns mapped onto a “Nuclear Globe”; the remains of the wall scarred by the “black rain” etc. Every single exhibit will stopped tracks and left her gasping. When she saw the picture before the ‘mushroom cloud’, she said “It was as if the world opened up a hole” with a distraught face.
After the tour, she wrote on the interactive notebook in the museum “Great-grandpa, I wanted to meet you! I wish for world peace.”
Her great-grandfather was injured during the war overseas and was in his home, recuperating, when the bomb was dropped. By sheer coincidence, her great-grandmother brought her daughter (Hirata’s grandmother) back to the family house in Fukuoka, and were unharmed. 2 years ago, her late great-grandmother told her “Your great-grandpa was a kind man with a stout heart”. Her grandmother would call by phone her every morning on the 6th August to remind her “Today’s the Day of the Bomb”.
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When Hirata was born, the sad event had made is mark in history for a whole 53 years. With her American father and Japanese mother, she was born and raised in Arizona. Her beloved father and younger brother both still live in America, the country which had killed her great-grandfather by dropping the bomb.
3 years ago, she passed AKB48’s research students’ auditions and moved to Japan together with her mother, just the 2 of them, to chase her dreams. That was when her English her stronger language. After leaving the Peace Memorial Museum, she placed her hand onto the Cenotaph for the Atomic Bomb Victims, and then went to the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims.
Together with a group of overseas exchange students, Hirata joined in to listened into Ogura Keiko (77), a representative of the citizen group of translators meant to continue on the passing on of information of the Atomic bombs “Hiroshima Translators’ Group (HIP)”, about the experiences of the atomic bomb, in English.
When Ogura was 8-years-old, she was 2.4 kilometers away from the hypocenter. She vividly recounted the swarm of flies at the burnt skin of the dead bodies around her house, and more. “I will never forget that America had sent aid to Hiroshima after the war, by sending us food and clothings for example. Sure I was angry at the people who dropped the bomb, but to those who didn’t, I did not bear that grudge against them.” Tears started to swell in Hirata’s eyes.
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Its steel frames squashed, and bricks out of place, the world heritage site Hiroshima Peace Memorial still has the burn patterns from the nuclear bomb, and scars from storms. As Hirata gazed at the Motoyasu river that flows right beside it, she said “A lot of people had dived into this river and died, didn’t they”
After our initial interview schedule, Hirata told us “I want to go to the hypocenter”. It is about 150 meters south-east from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. In front of Shima Hospital was a monument, and she placed her hand on it. She didn’t know whether her great-grandfather lost his life very close to the hypocenter or not. “That’s why I wanted to come here. I wanted to get closer to my great-grandfather”
From Hirata’s point-of-view: The situation of a victim, I wish to talk to my father about this someday
In my 4th year of elementary school, I flew back to Japan with my mother and temporarily went to an elementary school in Fukuoka, where my grandmother lives. During a lesson then, a teacher said “America dropped the atomic bomb”. Everyone in class looked at me all at once. “It’s your fault”, their gazes hurt. At the same time in my American school, we were taught that “the bomb was dropped for a swift end to the war”.
I was very relieved to have spoken to Ogura, one of the victims from Hiroshima. Like what Ogura told me, everyone in the world knows about the mushroom clouds and footages of the bomb, but very few actually knew how the people at the ground actually suffered.
It’s completely different having physically came here, than having learnt about this from textbooks. Be it the wall scarred by the black rain, or the parts blown away from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, there’s a lot of such places in Hiroshima that would make you think “There was probably a lot of people who died here”.
I hate wars. I want weapons all to be eradicated. Peace can be achieved if all the countries in this world won’t deny and acknowledge that cooperation amongst each other is necessary, right. I want a lot of people to come to Hiroshima. To look at the state of the victims in the Memorial Museum, and to personally hear it from the victims themselves.
Being half-blooded, it hurts to for me to say that America was in the wrong but the incident happened a long time before I was born. My American father also loves Japan and have been to Hiroshima too. One day, I hope to talk to him about Hiroshima. By going one person at a time, won’t we be able to pass the message on like it had been all this time.
Original article can be found here:
http://digital.asahi.com/articles/DA3S11282408.html?iref=comkiji_txt_end_s_kjid_DA3S11282408
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