Stuttgart (Germany) and London (England), October 24th, 2021 – September 2023

Message to the Reader
Dear reader,
Most of us have heard about the atomic bombs that in modern history marked (or some would sayforeshadowed) the end of World War II. For those of us who have not, let me summarize the numbers
briefly: In 1945 the Americans - for the first time in history - dropped atomic bombs (A-bombs) on a
populated area, killing roughly 250.000+ people, most of them civilians. Their targets: two Japanesecities: Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, and - 3 days later - Nagasaki on August 9th, 19451. But have you
ever given second thought to the impacts these bombings had on the human world on an individuallevel? Implications to the then and now? Today, I want to approach this most despicable historic eventfrom a different angle. I will let a witness of that period bring forward a personal testimony. Bringing tolife this atrocity might read as a lore yet lays bare a fundamentally harsh reality. It illustrates a bonemerrowing revelation and teaches a lesson we should never forget.
Before we get to this part and for those of you who are not as familiar with the matter, let me recap inshort the ultimate international implications of these atomic bombs. Both were dropped in 1945 and left
the world in shock – so much that Japan, which had been at war for nearly four years, decided tosurrender almost immediately, on August 15th, 1945, less than one week after the second atomic bomb’s
detonation. The sheer prospect of being targeted by another of these bombs was so terrifying, that an
Oceanic main player of the 2nd World War choose facing the consequences of surrender over thecontinuation of a war that had become everyday life. Consequences which were expected to include not
only captivity, rape, and severe restrictions on and restructuring of life as it was known to the public, butalso executions of military leaders and the very advisors and ruling family issuing the command of
surrender. Yes, in the case of Japan the Tennō, the Japanese emperor and at the time seen as a god-like
entity to his subjects – ultimately got away alive. Fortunately for him, the occupying forces saw him as
too much of a spiritually important figure to be executed.
Yet this was a truly unforeseeable turn of events, that could not have been contemplated in Japan’s
decision to surrender. And despite this – to many contemporary scholars surprising – concession, theTennō had to declare his humanity and assume a solely representative function, while seeing his country
become occupied territory and restructured according to the American ideal, ideas and expectations –right down to the nations very core: its constitution. Furthermore, many of his trusted military leaders,
advisors and quite possibly close friends were not granted the same mercy: In the Tokyo War Crimes
Trial (May 3rd, 1946 -November 24th, 1948) 26 surviving defendants, military and state leaders wereprosecuted. 7 of them, including wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō and foreign minister and ex-prime
minister Kōki Hirota, were sentenced to death by hanging and 16 to lifetime imprisonment2.
So, one might wonder: How terrifying and, above all, shocking must these atomic bombs have been,that Japan’s military leaders preferred the prospect of such fate to the mere possibility of witnessing
another bombing? Especially considering that the bombing itself took place far away from the capital
1 The cities were selected based on the criteria of “a large urban area of more than three miles in diameter…capable of being damaged
effectively by the blast and…likely to be unattacked by [August 1946]”. Initial targets were Kokura (the city with the largest weapon, aircraft andmissile factory in western Japan), Yokohama (an industrial area close to the capital Tokyo with important aircraft manufacturing, docks and oil
refineries), Hiroshima (the base of Japan’s 2nd army’s headquarters and an important center of storage, communications and soldier assembly,
located in a river valley where hills could contain and punctually increase the atomic blast), Niigata (an important port city) and Kyoto (a former
capital, industrial and intellectual center with a population of ~1 million). Secretary of War Henry Stimson persuaded Truman to take Kyoto off
the list considering its cultural value. Navy hub Nagasaki was chosen as its replacement. Yokohama was removed as it had already experienced
severe air-raid damage in spring 1945. Ultimately, Hiroshima and Kokura were selected, but due to sudden clouds obscuring Kokura Nagasaki
became the 2nd target. See for example: https://www.globalzero.org/updates/the-atomic-bombings-why-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/
2
Minear, R. H. (2015). Victors' justice: Tokyo war crimes trial. Princeton University Press.

Stuttgart (Germany) and London (England), October 24th, 2021 – September 2023

Tokyo and thus from the leaders’ doorsteps. Wouldn’t one think that the testimonies to the horrors ofthese attacks must have lost some of their tangibility over such distance? We must also bear in mind
that video footage at that time - where available - was not as high quality and crystal clear as today's
footage.
So how do we comprehend more holistically the sentiment at the time? The reader might allow me toargue that the severity and terror of this age can be best made tangible by those who have sufferedfrom it. Expressed by the people who were there. The few who survived. While we will never be able toinvestigate the deceased military leader’s minds and thoroughly comprehend their decision-making
process, I argue that the A-Bomb survivor’s voices will give us insight into why even diffused informationof the events in early August 1945 could have been enough to make these war-hardened leaders‘succumb’ to the West.
At the very least, I hope that it will cause you, the reader, to vehemently turn away from such atrocities to such an extent that, should it ever come to this again, you will raise your voice and not allow thethreat of another similar atrocity to go unnoticed. In that, this piece of work will have served its purpose.

Stuttgart (Germany) and London (England), October 24th, 2021 – September 2023

Foreword
On Saturday, September 10th, 2016, I had the honour of meeting an atomic (a-bomb) survivor, inJapanese called ‘Hibakusha’. We met in Hiroshima, the place of the first bombing, and she shared her
story with me. Today I want to share this encounter with you, as it can easily be described as one of themost shocking, moving and revealing experiences of my life. I know that one day I might very well be
one of the last people who were granted the chance to speak to an A-bomb survivor face-to-face.
Therefore, this testimony must be passed on. Considering the gravity of the subject at hand and at therisk of my memory betraying me, I have consulted my diary, to ensure truthful account. To all those who
might feel triggered or irritated by the at times highly graphic descriptions: I apologize in advance but
trust me when I say: The sad and disturbing true story of the unfathomable atrocities inflicted on thepeople of Hiroshima must be told and retold again in all clarity. Today we will hear about the droppingof the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and its impact on the city and its inhabitants through the lens of a little
girl called Sadae. While I will neither exaggerate nor downplay her story, note that I will amend its oral
account to fit the style of writing, without deviating from the overall account.
Before I begin, I want to thank Ms. Sadae Kasaoka for sharing her story, her niece for her heartfelt oraltranslation, the nameless painter of illustrations that accompanied her story, Ms. Sumiko for her
guidance at the Peace Memorial Park and for laying her heart bare, my university teachers forencouraging me to write this (years after graduation), and last-but-not-least, my deceased and deeply
missed grandparents, who experienced the war first-hand on another front and who taught me that
there are always two sides of a coin and that which side you are by default standing on does notdetermine your character or humanity. I believe that their experiences have sharpened my receptivity
and empathy for this highly important topic. Last but not least, I thank YOU reader for reading thisaccount and for becoming another witness to important 20th century history and hopefully a keeper ofpeace.
Yours sincerely,

Katrin LooseStuttgart (Germany) and London (England), October 24th, 2021 – September 2023

Encountering an A-Bomb Survivor❖ How we met
After one year of Japanology studies at Goethe University, I decided to improve my Japanese over thesemester break by taking a language course in Japan. For the duration of the 3-week course I would staywith a host family in Fukuoka (Japan), and I was so excited to indulge in Japanese life firsthand! Yet, Ialso wanted to deepen my understanding of the country’s culture and history. Thus, I booked my flightto Hiroshima, which left me with 2 days in the city before I would continue to my studying destination by
night bus. Wanting to make my stay a memorable one, I diligently compared accommodations online.

3

I stumbled upon a place called “World Friendship Center”. Tucked away in a featureless street a few
stations from the city centre, this place has a mission: Making as many people as possible aware of thedangers of nuclear power and ensuring that it will never be used again for wrongs such as mass
destruction. Apart from a charming atmosphere, loads of books on atomic studies and a good deal on
stay and breakfast, they offered the chance to meet and talk to an A-bomb survivor, as well as tours
around the Peace Memorial Park upon prior booking. Naturally, enthralled me booked both straightaway. The chat with the A-bomb survivor was scheduled in the morning of Saturday, September 10th,
2016. With my Japanology studies having given me a rough understanding of the events that took placein Hiroshima on August 1945, I felt nervous but comfortably prepared for this encounter. In hindsight I
must admit that I was slightly naïve. Ironically, it turned out that I had been thoroughly underprepared
for what was about to come. Personally, I feel that humans are sometimes in need of these humbling
lessons, but may the reader feel free to make up their own mind and argue accordingly. We all love achallenging debate.

3

Entrance of World Friendship Center Hiroshima. https://www.wfchiroshima.org/english/

Stuttgart (Germany) and London (England), October 24th, 2021 – September 2023

Ms. Sadae Kasaoka’s Story– ‘And most of all, I was lucky.’
Ms. Sadae Kasaoka, an A-bomb survivor in her 80’s, arrived a few minutes past 9 am. We sat down in
the living room and without much bravado went into the testimony. She had even brought pictures
along to improve visualization, painted by another witness inspired by her story. And with that she
started telling me what would become one of the most reflection-inspiring stories I had ever heard – herniece’s steady, pleasant voice easily matching her matter-of fact narration with her smooth English
translation.

❖ August 6th, 1945, 8:16 am
Sadae was 12 when the atomic bomb fell on her city. She remembers the morning when the bomb hit inperfect clarity. She was at home and resting at her parent’s home, which was tucked away behind a hill a
couple of kilometres east of the city. She remembers standing in front of the wide window in her livingroom, facing outside, staring at the bright sky. There might have been a bird or two singing. Or maybe acicada? That she does not recall so well. In hindsight it seems like the calm before the storm. Back then,it was just a normal morning – until a sudden flash of light hit. For a moment Sadae was engulfed in it –and then nothing, as she lost consciousness.

❖ Waking up to destruction
Almost 4 years into the war the children of Hiroshima’s life had changed drastically. Sadae’s class was
not going to regular school anymore. Instead, they had been assigned to several physical labour tasks intown on a rotational basis. This was a scheme set about by the Japanese government to support theJapanese war economy, which at that time had been hardly hit by sea road blockages and systematic
bombings by the US. On six days of the week, Sadae and her classmates would thus tear down wooden
houses in the city centre or make themselves useful in other ways. The city needed wide streets for the
military. Moreover, supply of raw materials was getting scarce, and the extracted wood would then be
used to keep Japanese warfare machinery going. Sadae did not know exactly how their efforts
benefitted the slowing economy and she did not ask. Her country was at war, and in her mind she andher classmates did what they had to do, dutifully contributing their part to ending the war and tobringing back peace – or at least getting by. If her contribution was tearing down wooden houses, so be
it. Why question what you can neither understand nor change?
With roughly a third of her life and almost half of her memories collected during wartime, war was aconstant. Yet it felt far away at the same time. Japan was raided by air bombs, but apart from far-away
Okinawa in the south, there was no direct fighting on the mainland, and Hiroshima – unlike the capitalTokyo - had so far been spared by more severe air-raids making war a faceless, looming thread, that she
was long tired of. Sadae herself had lost one brother to the front and knew that she did not want to lose
another of her five siblings. On August 6th, she was resting and in fairly high spirits, as her second
brother had just come back for home holiday. He had survived another year and they would finallyspend some well-deserved family-time together – the way they were supposed to. Had she ponderedthat thought while standing in front of that window? Mentally preparing herself to go back to town with

Stuttgart (Germany) and London (England), October 24th, 2021 – September 2023

her classmates again the next day? She cannot recall, but the overall joyful spirit of that morning is still
imprinted in her memory. And that was all it would ever be – a daydream on a sultry summer day…
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When she came to herself, she was lying on
floor of the living room. Still disoriented, sheturned her head sideways, focusing ontransparent, glistering objects around her –glass. Everywhere. The window must haveburst when what she would later come toknow was the shock wave of the detonation
had knocked her out. Her grandmotherhurriedly entered the room and helped her up.
Moving hurt. Shards of glass had torn deep
into her skin when the window shattered. Not
that she had felt any of this in this briefest of
moments when the light bulldozed over her,but she did now, when they tried their best to
remove them, one after another. A tedious,
yet pointless task, for the shards were too
many and too different in size to be removed
with normal tweezers, carefully handled
under her grandma’s kind, wary eyes. For
years to come Sadae would have to see
doctors to remove those stray shards thatsuddenly decided to wander to the surface
and leave her skin paining. Yet she would not mention those years of physical distress in but the briefest
sidenote to her account. It paled in comparison to the mental anguish that was to follow, diminishing
the constant, paining throb into mere soreness, that one would never let oneself lament about. That day
she looked into her grandmother’s eyes. Her lingering question reflected in hers: What had justhappened?

❖ The searchThis question would remain unanswered to the people of Hiroshima for very long. Yet, its impacts lay
clear at hand. Sadae remembers that her parents had gone downtown to help friends with someerrands and had not gotten home by the time she had recovered. Together with her brother, theydebated over what to do next. Minutes stretched into hours without their parents returning and thesiblings decided to go into town to search for them, leaving their grandmother to guard the house. The
once neatly arranged neighbouring houses had taken blows – several dispatched roofs and crumbled
walls, but nothing too severe, as their location behind a hill from the city centre had shielded them fromthe worst impact. The closer they got to the city centre however, the more devastating the conditions
became and when they entered the wrecked downtown streets, she could not believe what she saw.
Gone was the coordinated impression of Japan’s 10th largest city. Houses with blackened walls, somecrumbled, some burning, while of others nothing but mere structures remained. And wounded people
everywhere. At first, they passed people with big bruises like hers and people with small burns, then4 Map of Hiroshima 1945, Sadae’s house was situated in the eastern outskirts behind a hill -https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fd/88/06/fd8806239ed5d62e2f542ee0ae5e7b60.jpg

Stuttgart (Germany) and London (England), October 24th, 2021 – September 2023

people with more severe burns as well as those with missing limbs - and more and more corpses. So
many corpses. They followed the river, but it was not a crystal stream anymore. Dead and dying bodies
were floating in it. People – barely recognizable as such - screaming out to them for help. With those
who could still walk being busy searching for family members or tending to the ones still alive nobody
thought about dragging the corpses out and heaving them up into piles along the river road and thus
the stream of death drifted on downstream.
Sadae and her brother were still focused on the task of finding their parents, desperately clinging on to
the fleeting hope that by some miracle, they had made it out alive and unharmed. Maybe they had still
been on their way to the city centre and just gotten disoriented on their way back? Countless people she
did not recognize cried out and asked for help, but Sadae and her brother could offer none. By the timethey had made their way downtown she had gotten used to the unfathomable despair and pain all
around her. The sheer number of bodies numbed her senses, as if a part of her did not process what she
was experiencing as real. That was when a cracked voice called out to her ‘Water!’. She whirled aroundto look at the speaker and saw a hairless, slightly deformed humanoid shape with black, ashen skin andred eyes. ‘An evil ghost!’ she thought, fear building up. Sadae had never truly believed in Yōkai, thedemons that according to Shinto religion haunted the Japanese land, but what else could this be? ‘I needwater!’ a mouth with no lips uttered in a hoarse voice. More voices joined the shape, some of them with
deformed bodies, missing arms, feet, ears, or fingers, most shockingly forming understandable words ina lamenting choir. Slowly the horrifying realization dawned: these voices belonged to humans. Living
humans, whose flesh had been scorched away by the heat wave that had followed the detonation. Their
hair, lips, clothes, and skin had been burned away – or in some cases melted together and now theseunfortunate souls were wandering through the streets of Hiroshima without orientation. Unable tocomprehend what had happened to their bodies they waded their way through the city, stoicallyclinging on to life, until they fell into the river and joined the stream of death.

❖ WakeEventually, Sadae and her brother returned home. Despite their vigorous efforts, they had not foundtheir parents, leaving them fearing for their lives. All the more joyful they were, when her grandmothertold them upon their return that her father had made it home! Yet when she entered his room, it
became clear that this was not the person she had expected. The man lying on her fathers’ bed did notresemble him in the slightest: black skin, a hairless scalp, bloody beads instead of lips, his facial featuresburned beyond recognition – it was not until he spoke that she recognized him as her father. His familiar
voice, the voice that had explained the world to her in vivid stories, that had always been and still was fullof love – it was hard to bring it to terms with the broken, bed-ridden thing now lying in front of her.
Despite his evident dire state, his top priority was finding his wife. He told his children that they had
been together at the time of detonation but had lost each other amongst the panicking masses when
they tried to make their way home. However, he was certain that she was still alive and would stoicallyrepeat phrases such as ‘Find my wife’ and ‘I want to hold my wife’ - The thought of her wandering thestreets alone and helpless eating away on him. As he was not in any condition to get up, let alone move,
Sadae and her brother set off into town day after day to search for their mother, blissfully unaware of
the possible dangers of such constant exposure to radiation, which now contaminated Hiroshima’s soil.
While their efforts were not met with success, their mother’s name had not come up on any official listof deceased either, keeping a (diminishing) glimmer of hope for a family reunion sparkling.
Meanwhile, Sadae’s father’s condition was decreasing rapidly. At first, she had thought that his blackskin colour stemmed from a layer of ash covering his skin, but when she tried to gently wash it off thereStuttgart (Germany) and London (England), October 24th, 2021 – September 2023

was nothing but red flesh beneath it. The heat had scorched away his skin, leaving his body protected bynothing but a thin, bristle, black layer, that she had now opened. Shortly after, maggots started infesting
his living body, feasting on his open wounds, and eating him up from the inside out. Medicine was
scarce and all Sadae could do was change the poultices regularly, involuntarily inflicting pain on him
every time she did. As days passed, her father drifted into a delirium, first asking, then pleading forwater. He was not the only one infected by this ‘unknown disease’ and the general belief was that water
would only worsen the patient’s suffering and should thus be withheld from them. So, that is what she
did. Little did she know that the water being contaminated by radiation was the main reason for the
weak dying from drinking it. They were later followed by many otherwise healthy people. Ultimately,with her father’s condition deteriorating by the hour and his increasingly ravenous begging for water,
Sadae did not have it in her anymore to withhold it from him. While the water only smoothed hisailment for a while, she would forever remember his expression of gratitude. Her father passed in agony
on August 9th, 3 days after the detonation and the very day the 2nd atomic bomb was dropped on
Nagasaki. He never saw his wife again.

❖ Uncovering
Neither did Sadae or her siblings. But what had become of her mother? How could her trail just havevanished like this? The family kept looking out for possible clues and several weeks later they found hername on one of the deceased’s lists of a nearby temple. Apparently, she had been picked up by monks
scanning the city for survivors. Shrines and temples at the time searched the city and took care of thewounded as best they could, but soon became overcrowded and did not have the means to contact thefamilies of the people in their care. They mostly searched the riverbanks, and so Sadae imagines thatwhen she lost her husband in the panicking crowd, her mother must have tried to follow the stream tofind her way back to her family. Yet at one point she must have become unable to continue and laid
down. She imagines her mother lying on one of the riverbanks she herself had passed on her search,weakening, and hoping to be found by someone familiar, staring out at the constant flow of corpses.
Maybe Sadae had even passed her without recognizing her blackened body? To this day she feels
deeply sorry for her mother having to endure all of her suffering alone and regrets not being by her sidefor her final days. The bottomless loneliness and distress her mother must have been under leaves her
agitated and sad to the core. Yet to most her passing is nothing but a name of thousands on the 1945
lists of Hiroshima’s deceased.

❖ Aftermath
After the passing of her parents, Sadae’s family, like so many others, slowly learned to get on with theirlives. In the days following the detonation unawareness of atomic dangers led many people to expose
themselves to considerate amounts of radiation. This had severe impacts on their future lives, such as
long-term illnesses, proneness to subsequent other illnesses and overall, significantly shorter lifeexpectations. Moreover, the survivors of Hiroshima would often give birth to disabled and deformed
babies, which in turn affected their chances on the marriage market and social standing. Sadae
remembers people fearing the uncertainty of marrying a person from Hiroshima. After all common
people were not well-informed about subjects such as aftereffects and non-infectiousness of radiation.
The social stigma, although scarcely addressed publicly, added to the survivor’s overall trauma, making
their lives even more challenging. Professional mental support at the time was rarely given, and thus
most survivors simply went on with their lives as best they could, burying their experiences, sorrows,

Stuttgart (Germany) and London (England), October 24th, 2021 – September 2023

traumas and often dreams deep inside. Many made sure to hide what they had experienced from theoutside world, so they would not face any form of social scrutiny, pity, or discrimination. Sadae herself
only started sharing her story after she had heard about the Friendship Center’s work and because withcurrent global armament and growing tension in international relationships, she felt a responsibility tomake sure that an atrocity like the one inflicted on the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will never beallowed to occur again. She said telling her story does not get easier, but phrasing and conveying it does
– something she had not done for decades, always hiding, not wanting to bother anyone with her
personal experiences. Overall, she considers herself lucky to be here today and to be able to talk about
the times. After all, she was fortunate that August 6th was her day off and she was again lucky in that she
had suffered comparatively little long-term effects since. She has outlived most of her contemporaries– starting with many fellow students who were working that day. She sees it as her duty to share her
story of the despicable effects that the atomic bomb had on humanity and most importantly, topromote peace - and I hope you reader will do the same.

Stuttgart (Germany) and London (England), October 24th, 2021 – September 2023

Further Testimonies
Dear reader,
Sadae’s story is only one of thousands irreversibly affected and altered by the bombing that day. There
are many more out there. Some of them you can listen to in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Museum,
where an immense collection of A-bomb-survivor statements has been compiled and made accessible
to everyone. I strongly recommend a visit to everyone who wants to familiarize themselves even morewith the subject. The museum has also created an online database of A-bomb survivor testimonies,
including videos and English transcriptions, which is accessible to the whole world via their website5.
Nevertheless, visiting the museum in person should be the ultimate aim for those interested in thematter, as it provides the most thorough, authentic and impactful experience.
Despite better judgement, we so often forget that events do not just affect the survivors themselves,
but also their close ones and I thus deem it fair to say that the atomic bombs have laid root to anintergenerational trauma, whose repercussions we might never grasp fully. Some might perceive thisstatement as bold or exaggerated, which is why I would like to leave you with the testimony of Ms.
Sumiko, a lady in her early 60’s, who showed me the Peace Memorial Park the same day:❖ ‘I myself was born after World War II and thus did not experience the atrocities that took place myself.
My deceased husband however, who was more than 20 years older than me, survived the bombing ofHiroshima. While he was my first husband, I wasn’t his first wife. He had married me after his first wife
died in the bombing. Yet, until his death his mind was still held captive by wartime. He held this sorrowin him and would often scream his former wife’s name in his sleep and apologize for failing her. I
endured this silently, because I loved him with all my heart, but I knew that I could never replace her.
And at the same time, I felt guilty for envying a dead woman. Our marriage was short and childless, as
my husband suffered from long-term effects of the radiation and died young. I was still young enoughto remarry but decided against it. I have never felt the same for anyone else. Knowing how painful it wasfor him still hurts me.’Then she started to cry on me. Later she would apologize for losing her calm, telling me that she had
never cried on a stranger like this, but that keeping things in for too long had broken a dam. I wonder if
me being a foreign stranger she would never meet again gave her the safe environment she had needed.
And I also wonder how many more stories like hers remain untold – Stories that would change thecourse of war-hardened warrior’s actions.

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https://hpmm-db.jp/en/
Another detailed, unrelated testimony can be found here: https://www.pressenza.com/2019/08/interview-with-setsuko-thurlow-hiroshimabomb-survivor/

Stuttgart (Germany) and London (England), October 24th, 2021 – September 2023

The Lesson
Dear reader,
While someone like me, a mere listener to a story such as this will never be able to do it full justice, I tried
my best to convey its content and atmosphere, hoping for it to become a testament and a memorial for
future generations. Most stories of A-bomb survivors have never been told and an increasingly numberof them has been or is about to be forgotten. Yet, aren’t these forgotten stories just as important as theones displayed in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Museum? As the one I have told you just now? How
many untold stories? How many lives destroyed by a single action? Sacrificed for a so-called ‘greater
cause’? I shared this story with you today, so we bear this in mind. So we reminiscent and become awareof our surroundings, course, and cause. Have you ever tried making a paper crane? Even the time spend
to make ten thousand paper cranes will not make up for what one atomic bomb destroyed in seconds6.
A single action carries significance. And no matter the circumstances, we can choose which actions andorders to take and which not, even though the alternative may be harder on us. Please shed away fromviolence that cannot be controlled and undone.

Thank Youhttps://h-s-o.jp/kasaoka/

6

To understand this reference please read about Sadako Sasaki and her paper cranes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_thousand_origami_cranes