Voices of Hibakusha
in Nara, Japan
English edition1

ContentsPreface
Voices of Hibakusha in Nara
1. Moment of flash of explosion
2. Disaster of the A-Bomb
3. Could not do anything but stand by
4. Vain attempts to rescue A-Bomb victims
5. My unbelievable experience
6. Black rain
7. Do not let them have water!
8. A scene in Hiroshima the day after the bombing～an American prisoner being beaten to death in public
9. Fire-balls
10. Just keep burning the dead bodies.
11. Heartwarming memories in the disaster
12. History for the people who did not die directly but survived with serious injuries
13. Wishes and desires by the Hibakusha, the survivors of A-Bomb
Epilog2Preface
The US Airforce used an A-Bomb for killing the citizens of Japan. The first bombing occurred on
August the 6th 1945 in Hiroshima, and three days later, August the 9th in Nagasaki. It was the firsttime in history an A-Bomb was used against humanity.
In the moment of the explosion, the city was destroyed and people did not have time to escape.
They were caught under the falling houses, buried or seriously wounded. The vast majority ofpeople who had more than 20 % of their body surface burned died on the spot or shortly thereafter.
By year’s end, a total of 210,000 citizens had died. This miserable history has no end. The people
that suffered from the A-Bomb and survived after 1946 have lived as Hibakusha. Many of theHibakusha died afterwards from radioactivity. Many of the survivors are forced to live withunreasonable misunderstanding and discrimination about their plight.
After the war, year after year, many Hibakusha returned home or moved to another area ofJapan. In Nara prefecture, where we are, still living about 500 people who are Hibakusha or thesurvivors of A-Bomb continue to reside there.
In our area, Nara, around 30 years ago, the A-Bomb survivor’s association published three volumesof books titled “Memoirs of Hibakusha Survivors in Nara Prefecture”**.
Here in this booklet I would like to introduce several voices cited from these books.
August, 2019
*IRITANI Masanao (editor)*Cultural Property Conservator at BIJYUTSUIN, Laboratory for Conservation of National
Treasures of Japan*Registered A-bomb Legacy Successor in Hiroshima* tel.: 090-4493-7090. / mail address: iritanin5327@yahoo.co.jp** Original edition of this booklet was edited & illustrated and published by IRITANI Masanao, August, 2019.
** All of the vices cited in this booklet come from the following books.
・Wakakusa-no-kai (A-Bomb survivors’ Association), (edited) “Memoirs of Hibakusha Survivors inNara Prefecture”, (original Japanese title is “Gembaku e Heiwa no Kane wo!” (Ringing the bell ofPeace against the A-Bomb) Vol 1, Vol.2 & Vol.3, 1986, 1990, 1995, respectively.

31. Moment of flash of explosion
At that moment people led lives as usual. Nobody knew what happened.
(editor)

Ten times bigger than ordinary lightning and thunder. It was a gigantic lightning
as if thousands of flashes came out from a camera.
(anonymous*, male, 16 years old, soldier, bombed in Hiroshima, vol.3, p.18)

The clouds from the A-Bombthat were first white changed incolor to yellow, orange, andthen violet gradually rose up to
the sky and formed an umbrella
shaped mushroom.
(anonymous*, male,age unknown, soldier,bombed in Hiroshima,vol.1, p.1)

*In this booklet, the authors names were notdisclosed,
but in the cases where the editor obtained
permission from the author or
their families, I attributed their names. All
information ofeach author is dated as of August 6th 1945.

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2. Disaster of the A-Bomb
The A-Bomb exploded at a height of 600 meters from the earth with a terrific detonationand formed a fire-ball. Exactly as designed by Oppenheimer, one of the main developers ofthe A-Bomb, to activate most effectively the energy of radioactivity of the A-Bomb. Then it
spread out heat rays, radioactivity in an enormous storm. All of this struck the people.
(editor)

Crashed roof-tiles were burned and pressed together by heat rays and looked
like a row of baked rice cakes. The iron gate by the building was curved like abar of candy. I was scared of the heat rays. Therefore, I just continued walking
barefooted over the heated tiles.
(female, 24 years of age, housekeeper, bombed in Hiroshima, vol.3 p.74)

A lot of burned bodies were lying everywhere. Some people around me werewalking with fragments of clothes and their skin was burned black and hanging
down like black sea weed. They appeared to be no longer human beings!
Even today the image of people entering into the river for water does not leave
my memory. But the water was so intensely hot that they directly died in theriver one by one. Their burnt skin became bloated by the water and soon after
they fell down into the river.
(female, 20 years of age, factory worker, bombed in Hiroshima, vol.3, p.25)

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3. Could not do anything but stand by
For most people, all that they could do was to save themselves.
They could not do anything to help others around them.
This fact has remained in the bottom of the survivor’s memories for a long time, and still
remains today as a deep wound. (editor)“Dear soldier, please help, please!”
Suddenly I heard the weak voice from a little boy falling down beside me. I
heard a curious sound following this.
What was taking place?
Look!
The boy was bleeding from his abdomen.
Helpless! I left the place. There was absolutely nothing that I could do for him.
(anonymous, male, 18 years of age, soldier, bombed in Nagasaki,vol.2, p.25)“Noodle, I want to eat noodles!”A naked boy, that looked like an elementary
school child, repeated and appealed clearly.
During the war noodles were one food that
ordinary people could not obtain.
It was a pity that so little a boy cried thename of the food at the end of his short life.
The next morning, I found him lifeless at thesame place in exactly the same pose as theday before.
(anonymous, male, age unknown, soldier,bombed in Hiroshima, vol.1, p.33)

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4. Vain attempts to rescue A-Bomb victims

There existed people, who they themselves were suffering from radioactivity, engaging in
the rescue work under the hardest of circumstances. Without medicine, without bandages,
without hope, they still tried to rescue
the wounded people. (editor)

People suffered terribly due to serious wounds to their bodies. For somepeople their intestines were coming out from the abdomen. For others theirbones were visible from wounds 10 to 20 centimeters in width.
These were my first patients I encountered as a student nurse! That wassurely a cruel experience for me. So cruel that words cannot describe thesituation!
(KITAO Mitsuyo, female, 17 years of age, nurse, bombed in Nagasaki,vol.3. p.11)

The saddest memory I could not forget was this.
A man or a woman, I could not tell, waiting for his/her turn for treatment, fell
down suddenly. This was the end of the victims life. If this person could have
waited for a couple of patients, I supposed the chance of treatment would
have been possible. Such kinds of scenes were repeated numerous times.
(anonymous, female, 23 years of age, chief nurse, bombed in Hiroshima,
vol.3, p.24)

95. My unbelievable experience
People had no help from God, nor from Buddha. Meanwhile some helped others.

It was akind of miracle, wasn’t it? (editor)

Schoolhouses fell down and I waslaying under the wreckage.
Suddenly I noticed that somebody
was calling me.
“My brother, my brother.”
I looked up spontaneously andfound the face of my young sister,
Katsuko, smiling at me.
“Oh, yes, my dear Katsu!” I calledback to her.
At the same time, she disappeared,
and from the same direction the lightof outside was piercing into thedarkness.
At that moment I was pressed by theweight of the debris and could not
move, but later I was able to extract
myself and now I could stand andgo. I do not know how I was able tocome outside the hole. Finally, I
succeeded to stand on the roof ofthe house.
It was a miracle!
I cannot describe this story without using the word “miracle”.
My sister passed away on that day after just 5 years life. She loved the statueof Buddha and was a very kind warmhearted little girl.
Can you believe the story of my experience created by my young sister?
(anonymous, male, 16 years of age, soldier, bombed in Hiroshima, vol.3, p.18)

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6. Black rain

About 20 minutes later after the explosion of the A-Bomb, black rain fell over the destroyedcity. At first atomic clouds were made by the explosion of the A-Bomb. It formed amushroom cloud that consisted of the dust from the earth and heat rays and radioactivityof the bomb. Then black rain including an enormous amount of radioactivity began to falland lasted two hours＊. (editor)＊Hitoshi Takayama(edited)(1969) Hiroshima in Memorium, p.11
＊Hiroshima City Office (2019)The Outline of the Action Programs for the A-Bomb victims,

p.1

Over the city in ruins, Hiroshima, black rain including radioactivity fell. It was
really a black rain. It was a cold rain in spite of the fact that it was in midsummer.
(anonymous, male, age unknown, soldier, bombed in Hiroshima, vol.1 p.1)

7. Do not let them have water
Most people wanted to drink water but at that time they said “if we give them water, theysurely will die” (editor)

A mother having a baby on her back said to me, “Dear soldier, please give mesome water” Spontaneously I decided to help her up and give some water. But
somebody in the distance cried back to me, “No, do not give her water, do you
want her to die?”
I was astonished by his loud voice and left the place apologizing to her. But at
the same time, I imagined that they would shortly die of dehydration.
Whenever I think of her and her baby, I always suffer from this sad memory.”(KITAO Shigeo, 20 years of age, soldier, bombed in Hiroshima, vol.3, p.44)

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8. A scene in Hiroshima the day after the bombing~an American prisoner being beaten to death in public~
Most of the victims and suffering people were Japanese, but also some from othercountries, an American prisoner, for example. (editor)

When I came to the edge of the Aioi-bashi bridge, near the hypocenter, I met a
crowd and in the middle of the people an American prisoner stood still with hishands bound. He was beaten with bars and stones by people surrounding him.
People were crying, “you are my father’s enemy!” “you are my mother’senemy!” ”you killed my brothers!”.
They abused him violently.
In the morning his eyes were half open, but then in the afternoon when I
passed by his eyes were totally closed”(anonymous, male, age unknown, an office worker, bombed in Hiroshima,
vol.1. p.4)

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9. Fire-balls
Late at night, people had seen hundreds of fire-balls around them.
It was perhaps that phosphorus, a kind of chemical element, from a pile of dead bodies
sparkled and they looked like fire balls floating in the darkness. Yes, those were fire-balls
colored by blue, violet and orange light. (editor)

Have you ever seen a fire-ball? It floats like a balloon with a tail. Many fireballs were flying with awful sounds from the mountains towards the sea. It was
not one or two, but so many fire-balls were flying, and all of them went in thesame direction! I became scared.
(anonymous, male, 24 years of age, soldier, bombed in Hiroshima, vol.3, p.81)

10. Just keep burning the dead bodies
The high temperatures made the dead bodies rot and these smells made people nauseous.
Bodies were continuously burned by the rescue army. (editor)

To the nearest elementary school, trucks conveyed the dead bodies. They
were cremated in the fire. I heard voices crying for help. Some of them were
not yet dead, maybe half dead, so I thought.
(anonymous, female, 22 years of age, housewife, bombed in Hiroshima.
vol.3, p.70)

1311. Heartwarming memories in the disasterI was seriously wounded by flying glass and burned by the heat rays. And I
was lying with ragged clothes, almost naked on the ground.
Somebody who passed by put a kimono with the design of a spiders’ web on
me. Probably she or he was sympathized with me, a young girl! I am truly
grateful to that person for their kindness and warmheartedness.
(anonymous, female, 16 years of age, student, bombed in Nagasaki.
vol.3, p.48)

I found a Tigerlily flower inside a
can in the burnt field. It was surely
laid for the tremendous number ofvictims. I was filled with sadnessand sorrow,(KITAO Shigeo, male, 20 years ofage, soldier, bombed in Hiroshima.
vol.3, p.44)

1412. History for the people who did not die directly but survived
with serious injuries
From the radiation and heat rays many people suffered from sickness and sustainedinternal and external wounds. Most of them suffered not only from diseases but also fromwide range of discrimination resulting from the lack of knowledge about radiation andrelated A-bomb injuries. (editor)

The tragedy caused by the A-Bomb was not temporary. Sadness continued toexist as long as survivors stayed alive. 2 years later, 5 years later, 10 yearslater, 15 years later, all kinds of hardship and pain persist with these people,“Hibakusha”. My eldest son was three years of age when he was exposed to
the radiation. 15 years after the war, at the age of 18, he was diagnosed withleukemia, a kind of blood cancer. For about 2 years he battled in vain against
the serious illness and passed away as a 20-year-old young man.
(OMOTE Fusa-ichi, male, 30 years of age, worker at shipbuilding factory,
bombed in Nagasaki, vol.2, p.18)

My second son was a baby of 9 months during the attack and he died at age
30. From the beginning of his life, he suffered from a serious condition on thesurface of his skin. Swellings on the arms and around the neck were removed
by surgery time after time.
He was married and had two children. When he was 25 of age, he was sent tothe hospital. After being diagnosed with leukemia, he repeatedly went to andfrom the hospital. According to the surgeon’s report, he passed away 5 years
later. Every time his wife used to say to me, “Don’t mention the word
“Hibakusha!”“Our daughter will be hindered in her marriage by the word of Hibakusha!”“Never tell the stories! Never call back memories! I hate the day of August 6th!”(anonymous, female, 25 years of age, housewife, bombed in Hiroshima,vol.3, p.55)

1513. Wishes and desires by the Hibakusha, the survivors ofthe A-Bomb

We should not forget the fear and danger of nuclear weapons. We should
keep telling the tragic stories in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to future generations,but at the same time we should tell what we, Japanese, have done in China
and the South-eastern countries during the war time. We were victims andsufferers in the war, but at the same time we were also invading andvictimizing the people of other countries. The fact that the attack on the US
navy at Pearl Harbor was also a criminal act that Japan committed.
(OZAKI Toshiyuki, male, age unknown, soldier, bombed in Hiroshima,vol.1, p.5)

Under the threat and fear of A-Bombs nobody could live nor die as a humanbeing.
Nuclear weapons are aimed to totally destroy everything.
In every country and every place, we should not have Hiroshima and Nagasakiagain!”(KOBAYASHI Seijiro, male, 25 years of age, soldier, bombed in Hiroshima.
vol.2, p.29)

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Epilog
For transmitting the voices of Hibakusha to the younger generations
IRITANI Masanao, editor

The A-Bomb survivors’ association in Nara, which was called “the Wakakusa-no-kai”, closed theirwork in 2006. It was the first to close their activity among the same kinds of organizations in Japan.
The Wakakusa-no-kai had published three volumes of books. But most of them are lost today. “NaraPrefectural Library and Information Center” is the only library which has all three volumes. Eventhat Library has one original version of vol.1 and other volumes, namely vol. 2 and vol. 3 are copiesof the original.
These books were written by the survivors in Nara by calling back their hard memories and wishingpeace in the world. They strongly wished that as many people as possible could have a chance toread them. But due to the loss of many books, it has become more and more difficult to read them. I
am afraid that the days of no Hibakusha will come in the near future.
What can we do against the fear of nuclear weapons? There is one thing we can say that we should
do! Yes, it is that we do not forget the real messages by the survivors! It is vitally important tokeep them. Since Hibakushas voices are the departing points for all movements created for aworld without nuclear weapons.
For transmitting the voices of Hibakusha to the younger generations, what we can do?
Not only from Hiroshima and Nagasaki but also from Nara we have to do what we can.
This booklet which shows several voices of Hibakusha, their sincere words from the bottom of theirheart could lead you to open the door for action.

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