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Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims special exhibition:
"Memoirs of the Atomic Bombing: The Earliest Accounts of the Hiroshima A-bomb Part 2"
Period: January 1 (Sun.) - December 29 (Fri.), 2017
Place: Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims B1F
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In 1950, five years after the bombing, Hiroshima City invited its residents to send stories of their A-bomb experience in order to share them with others and thereby help create a peaceful, nuke-free world.
A total of 165 stories were collected.
Of those, 18 stories were chosen to be compiled into a publication titled "Memoirs of the Atomic Bombing", copies of which were supposed to be distributed all over the country and the world in order to convey the horrors of atomic bombings.
However, due to various reasons such as the intensifying Cold War with the outbreak of the Korean War, a Peace Memorial Ceremony on August 6 that year was cancelled at the last minute by order of the GHQ (General Headquarters of the Allied Powers), which had occupied Japan.
Under such circumstances, a total of 1,500 copies of "Memoirs of the Atomic Bombing" were not distributed, and had remained in a warehouse for a long time since then.
These memoirs were all written within the five years after the bombing by survivors who still had fresh memories of the event.
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Genbaku taiken-ki (Memoirs of the Atomic Bombing) / the Peace Association of Hiroshima, 1950
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Manuscripts of personal accounts of the atomic bombing that Hiroshima City solicited from the general public / Collection of Hiroshima Municipal Archives
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Through the records of A-bomb survivors, you will be better able to recognize the horrors of war and atomic bombings and the hope for lasting peace.
We introduce two of those memoirs here.
"My Memoirs on the Atomic Bombing" (excerpt)
by Maeda Masahiro, Sotoku Junior High School
.....Then, amid that disastrous situation －how lucky I had been!－ I happened to meet my elder brother, who had escaped back from his mobilization work.
Because my head was swollen due to burns, he did not seem to recognize me at first.
When I called to him, he responded, "Are you Masahiro?"
I was extremely happy then.
He carried me on his back, and escaped, but I felt pain in my head, probably because of the burns.....
"A-Bomb Memoirs" (excerpt)
by Kitayama Futaba
.....On the morning of August 13, the third day since he returned to us, however, my husband breathed his last while vomiting blood, leaving me, his wife, in a hopeless condition, and his beloved children, even though he seemed to have incurred only slight injuries.
I feel deep regret, imagining how he felt having to die without having me attend to his deathbed after the 16 years we had shared, leaving behind many things left to do, even though he loved his work as if he had been born to work.
The memory of my son's voice that I heard when he sat down close to my pillow, calling, "Mom," and the tremendous sorrow that I felt then, still cause tears to stream from my eyes.
I prayed imploringly to the spirit of my husband, thinking, "Poor children. I must not die. I cannot leave my children behind as orphans."
Although the doctor declared the hopelessness of my condition on many occasions, I miraculously was granted a narrow escape from death.....
Exhibition Contents: 17 memoirs, 20 related materials, A program on the three-screen theater (3 memoirs, about 20 minutes)
We lend out Japanese-language DVDs of the film (English subtitles).
If you would like to use this service, please contact us by e-mail: info@hiro-tsuitokinenkan.go.jp
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| (Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims) |
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