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Provisional release of A-bomb testimonies "Thoughts About the Atomic Bombing", submitted in line with the 2015 Survey of Atomic Bomb Victims
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The Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims has been receiving and organizing A-bomb testimonies submitted in line with the 2015 Survey of Atomic Bomb Victims, conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
These testimonies have been temporarily bound as an A-bomb testimony collection, and have been provisionally released for public viewing at the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Peace Memorial Halls from July 28, 2017.
The aim of the Survey of Atomic Bomb Victims is to understand the current state of the survivors' lifestyle, health and other aspects, and is conducted once every ten years by the Ministry, who consign the implementation of the survey to prefectural governments in Japan as well as Hiroshima and Nagasaki city governments.
In 2015, November 1 was set as the reference date for the survey, and it was sent to 56,229 survivors in Japan and overseas.
The sampling rate for the survey in Japan was 30& and the collection rate was 73.2&.
For the overseas survey, all survivors were included and the collection rate was 81.0&.
In addition to the survey, there was a section called "Thoughts About the Atomic Bombing", where the respondents could write freely about their thoughts looking back over the past 70 years, including what they want to communicate to future generations through their atomic bomb experience.
The 11,375 response sheets that were submitted are stored and released to the public in the Peace Memorial Halls in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In 2017, a total of 61 volumes (including 4 volumes in foreign languages and 1 index volume) of the collection of A-bomb testimonies were temporarily bound.
As the survivors get older, it is likely that there will be fewer and fewer opportunities to collect A-bomb testimonies on such a large scale in the future.
The collection of A-bomb testimonies accompanying the Survey of Atomic Bomb Victims was also conducted in 1995 and 2005, and the 81,205 and 11,778 responses collected respectively have been made into a database and are open to the public in the Library of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Hall, and at the Nagasaki Peace Memorial Hall.
For the A-bomb testimonies submitted in 2015, our staffs read through each individual testimony and registered in the database the survivor's job and/or organization at the time of the bombing, category and location of radiation exposure by the bombing, as well as the names of hibakusha and places and facilities that appear in the testimonies, to ensure that searches can be conducted in the future using various different keywords.
When all information has been registered in the database the volumes will be bound once again, and officially made public in the respective Peace Memorial Halls in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The A-bomb testimonies include the writer's thoughts about the tragedy of the bombing and the family and friends who lost their lives, as well as their wish for the abolition of nuclear weapons and a peaceful world.
Many of those who wrote testimonies had to force themselves to recall painful memories that they would rather forget.
We hope that as many people as possible read the A-bomb testimonies, and learn about the horror of war, the awful tragedy of nuclear weapons and the importance of peace, so that they can pass this on.
Through the A-bomb testimonies, we hope that you come into contact with the emotions and the words of the hibakusha.
Please be aware that the temporarily bound testimonies cannot be borrowed or copied.
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Total of 61 volumes of A-bomb testimonies, temporarily bound
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| (Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims) |
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