Children Of The A-Bomb: Testament Of The Boys And Girls Of Hiroshima

By Arata Osada

“Children of the A-Bomb” is a collection of 67 testimonies of Hiroshima survivors culled from a total of more than 2,000, detailing the experiences of these innocent victims on 6th August 1945, as painfully remembered six years later, on what, in the Japanese way of counting, was the seventh anniversary of the event.

The book is divided into four sections, according to the grade of the writers in 1951: from grammar to junior, senior and high school, including three undergraduate college students. The length of the testimonies varies from one to ten pages, the longer ones of course being concentrated in the latter half of the book. And though much of the material focuses on the immediate aftermath of the bombing, some of the writers also cover the days and sometimes weeks that followed, insofar as they were affected by the bomb, or perpetuated the victims’ misery with their litany of typhoons, starvation, and radiation sickness and death.—Jean-Francois Virey

• Language: English
• Publisher: Verdun Press
• Release date: Nov 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781786257048

Arata Osada

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Text originally published in 1959 under the same title.

© Pickle Partners Publishing 2015, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

CHILDREN OF THE A-BOMB, TESTAMENT OF THE BOYS AND GIRLS OF HIROSHIMA

(English Version)

Compiled by

DR. ARATA OSADA

Translated by

JEAN DAN

and

RUTH SIEBEN-MORGEN

Illustrated by

MR. & MRS. MINORU KUROKI

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

I—GRAMMAR SCHOOL 5

1—Tomoyuki SATOH 5

2—Sachiko HABU 6

3—Sanae KANOH 6

4—Hiroaki ICHIKAWA 8

5—Ikuko WAKASA 9

6—Kikuko YAMASHIRO 12

7—Tokiko WADA 13

8—Yaeko SASAKI 14

9—Noriko TAKEMURA 16

10—Toshiko NAGANO 17

11—Satomi KANEKUNI 19

12—Yukio SEKIMOTO 20

13—Kiyoko TSUMIGA 21

14—Ruriko ARAOKA 22

15—Junko ARATANI 23

16—Keiko OTAKA 24

17—Kiyoharu FURUIKE 25

18—Hiroko HARADA 27

19—Masao BABA 28

20—Toshio NAKAMORI 29

21—Sumiya KOJIMA 29

22—Keiko SASAKI 30

23—Isao KAWASAKI 31

24—Yoshimi MUKUDA 32

25—Minoru HlROTA 33

26—Yukiharu SUZUKI 34

27—Toshie TANABE 35

28—Yukiko FUJIMOTO 37

29—Kimiko TAKAI 38

30—Asako KATAYAMA 40

31—Chikae MATSUMOTO 42

32—Machiko FUJITA 44

33—Yoshiaki WADA 46

34—Tadao FUJITA 47

35—Taeko MATSUMOTO 48

36—Daiji NAKAMURA 50

37—Nobuyuki NAKAJIMA 51

38—Susumu MlTSUDA 51

39—Katsuhide TAMAMOTO 52

40—Toshiko NOBUNAGA 53

41—Shigeko HlRATA 55

42—Shigehiro NAITO 57

II—JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 59

43—Masako OHTA 59

44—Tokuo NAKAJIMA 60

45—Toshihiko KONDO 61

46—Yuriko KOHNO 63

47—Shizuo SUMI 65

48—Setsuko YAMAMOTO 67

49—Yukiko YOSHIDA 71

50—Wakako WASHINO 73

51—Yasushi HARAKI 74

52—Shunnen ARISHIGE 75

53—Takako OKIMOTO 78

54—Sumiko WATANABE 79

55—Masataka ASAEDA 80

56—Toshihiko TANABE 82

58—Kiyoko TANAKA 83

59—Kazuko FURUMAE 84

60—Chizue SAKAI 87

61—Shigeru TASAKA 91

62—Yoshihiro KIMURA 93

63—Masayuki HASHIMOTO 96

64—Hiroko NAKAGAWA 98

65—Mitsunori SASAKI 100

66—Yuriko YAMAMURA 103

67—Toyozo KUBOTA 109

57—Kazuo MORI 111

III—SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL 113

68—Mitsugu HANABUSA 113

69—Yohji KAWADA 115

70—Hisato ITOH 118

71—Shintaro FUKUHARA 120

72—Masayuki HAYASHIDE 122

73—Susumu KlMURA 123

74—Iwao NAKAMURA 126

75—Yasuhiro ISHIBASHI 129

76—Etsuko FUJIOKA 132

77—Eiko MATSUNAGA 134

78—Hiromi SAKAGUCHI 136

79—Yasuko ISE 138

80—Akiko OHGA 142

81—Noriko IWATA 143

82—Hisayo YAGUCHI 146

83—Yasuko MORITAKI 152

84—Akira SHINJOH 156

85—Mineo YAMAMOTO 158

IV—HIGH SCHOOL (SENIORS) AND COLLEGE 161

86—Naoko MASUOKA 161

87—Setsuko SAKAMOTO 163

88—Toshiko IKEDA 165

89—Yukihisa TOKUMITSU 170

90—Mieko HARA 172

91—Kenji TAKEUCHI 174

92—Yuriko SAKURAI 178

93—Megumi SERA 181

94—Yohko KUWABARA 185

95—Yoshiko UCHIMURA 187

96—Atsuko TSUJIOKA 188

97—Kumiko TAMESADA 192

98—Meisaku OHKAWA 193

99—Yoshiaki SASAI 197

100—Tohru HARA 200

101—Sumie KURAMOTO 202

102—Osamu KATAOKA 213

103—Mitsukuni AKIYAMA 220

104—Hiroshi YOSHIOKA 223

105—Tetsuo MIYATA 225

APPENDIX I—COMPILER’S FOOTNOTES 234

APPENDIX II—COMPLIER’S LETTER TO THE WRITERS 240

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 244

I—GRAMMAR SCHOOL

1—Tomoyuki SATOH

4th grade boy. 4 years old in 1945.

On that sixth of August I wasn’t going to school yet. At the time, I was playing in front of the public bath near home. Then Sei-chan{1} said, Please go to the garden and pick some flowers. So I was on my way to get them. All of a sudden there was a big flash and I was scared and tried to go back to the house. And all of a sudden a lot of needles got in my eyes. I couldn’t tell where anything was. When I tried to go toward the house I bumped into the front door. When I opened my eyes everything was darkish. Then Grandma rushed out with Keika-chan on her back. I followed Grandma. We went toward our bomb shelter.

My younger big sister was already inside the shelter so the four of us huddled together. Then my older big sister came running in and we huddled together again. That older big sister was old enough so that she had already gone to work at a bakery; our mother had already died from illness.

Father, who had been working with the Volunteer Labor Group, came back and was looking to find where we were. When she heard him, my big sister went out and took Father’s hand and led him to the shelter. Father was burned all over above his hips. When Sister and the other people saw it they were all scared. A stranger spread some oil on his body for him.

In my heart I thought, Thank you.

After that we went away to Fuchu in the hills. In a broken temple we put up a mosquito net and we lay down there. We stayed here for a long time. After a while other people began to go back to their homes so we went home too. When we got back we found that the glass was all broken, the chests were all toppled over, the family altar was tipped over, the shoji{2} were torn, the roof tiles were broken and the plaster had fallen off the walls. We all helped to clear it away and laid Father there. After about sixty days, in the middle of the night, Father called to Grandma and said he wanted to eat a sweet potato. Grandma said, All right, and cooked the sweet potato.

Father, the potato is ready, she said and looked at him, but he didn’t answer. I touched his body and it was cold, and he was already dead. Dear Father, dear Mother, good-bye.

* * * * *

2—Sachiko HABU

5th grade girl. 5 years old in 1945.

At that time I was only five so I don’t remember all the things that happened very well. However, Grandfather has told me various things so I will write those together with the things I remember myself. Since that time six years have already passed and now I m a big girl. I’m in fifth grade and I’m eleven years old. Since my house was at Togiya close to the place where the bomb fell, my mother was turned into white bones before the family altar.

Mother is now living in the temple at Nakajima. On the sixth of every month Grandfather and I go to visit Mother. But no matter how much I try I can’t remember how Mother looked. All I can see is the Memorial Panel standing quietly there. Every time I look at it tears come to my eyes. I think Mother can see me. Mother must be so pleased to see how big I’ve grown. Grandfather said that Mother is happy to see me. Every time I go I take Mother some pretty flowers and some incense. Then we leave Mother, and Grandpa and I go home.

On the sixth of August this year it will be the seventh anniversary{3} of Mother’s death. At home Grandfather is telling everyone that he will have a splendid service for her. It’s already six years since Mother died. When I think that for all those years I haven’t been able to talk to Mother, I feel so sad that I can hardly bear it. When I see the mothers of my classmates I suddenly feel so lonely that I want to cry. However I think that I am really happy, because I have a very kind and gentle grandfather, grandmother, uncle and aunt. Also, every day when I go to school my teachers kindly teach me my lessons, I play with my friends, and going to school is the best fun.

Since Grandfather was burned at the time of the A-bomb he had a recurrence of a former illness and he has a great deal of trouble now. Grandfather is sixty-seven now. Every day I pray that Grandfather and Grandmother will live a long time.

* * * * *

3—Sanae KANOH

5th grade girl. 4 years old in 1945.

When I was still about five or six it was during the war. Every time when I went to the store to buy fireworks the air raid siren used to blow. So I always used to hide in the closet. It always seemed to happen that way. My father was an air raid warden and no matter how busy he was he put on a black uniform and went out. Every time my father went off to the air raid I felt terribly lonely. However, I thought this was better than if he went to war. We were just about to eat breakfast—we were just about to put our chopsticks into our mouths—when the siren blew and maybe it was just stopping blowing or maybe it wasn’t, when that terrible atom bomb fell.

Just as we saw a bright flash there was a loud bang and I almost fainted. It was such a loud noise that it was really frightening. That time my father didn’t go out to the raid. When the bomb fell, cushions and things came falling from the second floor. I caught them and tried to get outside but I couldn’t get out. When Father went out some broken glass fell and stuck in his back; Father picked this glass out by himself and helped us get out of the house. Grandmother in the end collided with a post and died. She was really a kind good Grandma. Mother, while she was trying to rescue a child who lived next door, touched poison{4} and died rather a long time later. When we tried to cross the trolley tracks they were so hot that I jumped back. When we came to the river there was a man who was really suffering; he was black all over and he kept saying, Give me water, give me water! I felt so sorry for him I could hardly bear it. People were in the river drinking the river water. An air raid warden was saying, You mustn’t drink the water. He was saying it but people didn’t pay any attention to him and lots of people kept going into the water and dying.

Many little children were crying, "I’m hungry! That’s because they hadn’t had their breakfast before the bomb fell. I was hungry too. But I was a big girl so I didn’t cry. They gave out rice balls and everyone got two. After that we slept one night there at the edge of the river.

The next day we went back to the place where my house was. Only two motorcycles were left standing there all by themselves. No matter how hard my father tried to start one, it wouldn’t go. Then he tried the other one and it started. So we all got on it. Since we were renting a house at a place called Rakurakuen we decided to go there. Along the way we kept stopping and starting and finally reached Rakurakuen.

Although I said Mother died after quite a long time, it was really about the beginning of September. After we came to Rakurakuen Mother worked too hard and had to go to bed. Since Mother was in great pain day after day, we called the doctor. The doctor said, The baby is going to be born pretty soon. At the end of August a baby was born. But only the baby’s head was born and then the baby and Mother died together. I was terribly sad.

On top of all this my little sister’s thumb was almost cut right off. Fortunately however it got better. But even now in the winter she suffers very much. My little brother got a sore on his head and if you just touch it pus comes out. I am so sorry for my little brother and sister that I can hardly bear it. I was the only one who didn’t get hurt.

After that I was lonely because Mother wasn’t there. But I soon made some new friends. After that it was decided that my little sister would be adopted by our uncle who lives in Kaita. It was hard for me to let my little sister go. After a while it was decided that I would go to my uncle’s too and also that Father would go.

* * * * *

4—Hiroaki ICHIKAWA

5th grade girl. 5 years old in 1945.

Already six years have passed since the atom bomb fell on Hiroshima. I, who was only six at the time, am now already in the fifth grade of grammar school.

Mother is always saying, As long as we live we’ll never forget what a terrifying experience that was, will we!

Soon it will be another anniversary of that 6th of August. If at that time my father and mother had died, even trying to imagine what in the world I’d be doing now makes me miserable. Yet I have many friends who lost both father and mother at that time.

That morning the minute I went outside I was buried under the house. I struggled as hard as I could to get out; I was scared to death, crying and calling Mommy! Mommy!

Even now I can’t forget how happy I was when I heard her say, Mother is coming to get you now, so don’t cry. At first it was so dark you could only see people’s faces dimly, but then a little later it got terribly hot and after that it got light again.

When I asked, Why did it get so dark that time? Mother told me, I’m sure it was because all the houses in Hiroshima fell down at once.

Since my whole family was indoors there was no one who was burned. Only I, since I was buried under the house, I hurt my finger. When my mother saw my finger she said, Poor boy—it’s lucky it wasn’t your face.

That year we lived for a while in a lean-to and then we went away to the country in Shiga where Father was born. Every year on the sixth of August I kept remembering that day. In summer when the flowering sycamore bloomed in the garden of that house in the country, Mother said, Do you remember that those red flowers were blooming the time we were living in the lean-to? And she also used to tell me, Somebody was saying that no plant could grow for about twenty years in the place where an atom bomb has fallen; but that is wrong, isn’t it? In the open space beside the lean-to we grew squashes, and flowers bloomed, too.

That day after we escaped and came to Hijiyama Bridge, there were lots of naked people who were so badly burned that the skin of their whole body was hanging from them like rags. And people who were all covered with blood were being put on a truck and taken away. Inside the government building lots of badly burned people were screaming with pain. Father and Mother have often said, That was like being in hell.

After five years my family have been able to come back to Hiroshima. Everyone was amazed to find that this Hiroshima which we see is entirely changed from that time and has become a beautiful city.

I pray that this Hiroshima where I was born will become more and more splendid as a City of Peace. And I pray that peace will last forever.

* * * * *

5—Ikuko WAKASA

5th grade girl. 5 years old in 1945.

I really hate to think about war and I hate to remember the day when the atom bomb fell. Even when I read books I skip the parts about war. And I shiver at the newsreels in the movies when the scenes of the war in Korea appear. Since I was assigned this for homework, and even though I don’t want to do it, I am making myself remember that awful time.

That morning of the sixth of August my brother’s friend who was in second grade then, came calling him to go to school in the temple. At that time I was five and my little sister was two. My little sister and I were playing house in the garden.

Father, although he always left for work at eight o clock, happened on that day to say, I’m not going until eight-thirty today.

He was facing the north windows and practicing brush-writing. Mother, in front of the south windows, was clearing up after breakfast and from the kitchen I could hear the noise of dishes being washed.

Just about then I could hear the sound of an aeroplane flying very high, and thinking it was a Japanese plane I shouted, Oh, there’s an aeroplane!

Just as I looked at the sky there was a flash of white light and the green in the plants looked in that light like the color of dry leaves.

I cried, Daddy! and just as I jumped into the house there was a tremendous noise and at the same time a bookcase and chest of drawers fell over and broken glass came flying past grazing my face. I dashed back into the garden scared to death.

Mother called, Ikuko, I’m over here.

I went blindly in the direction of Mother’s voice and I dived into the shelter. After a little while a lot of blood came out of my ears and it didn’t stop for a long time. Even when we put cotton and gauze in, the blood came pouring out between my fingers holding the cotton and gauze in place. My father and mother were frightened and they bandaged my ears for me. Father had his little finger cut with glass it was almost off. And below his eye there was a big cut from glass. When I looked at Mother she was all bloody below the hips. It must have been from the glass that came flying from the north windows. A big piece of glass was still sticking in Mother’s back. The cut was about six inches long and two inches deep and the blood was pouring out. The edges of the cut were sort of swollen out like the lips of a savage. As Mother cried out with the pain, Father pulled out the glass and poured a whole bottle of iodine on the place to sterilize it. When my older brother dived under the table he hit his head and he got a big bump on it. My little sister who had been outside, even though she only had on a pair of pants, wasn’t hurt because she had crawled under the porch.

After they finished bandaging me, a pain stabbed me so I lay down. When I woke up I was lying in a funny little shed. When I tried to lift my head it was stuck to the mattress by the blood that had seeped out and I couldn’t lift it.

Father said, We don t want this to get any worse, so let’s go to the hospital. So he carried me on his back to a military hospital nearby. The hospital was full of people who were groaning and people who were naked. I was scared to death. Finally I said to Father, "I’m too scared; let’s go home. Since there were so many people that we didn’t know when our turn would come——and besides that, there were so many people who were hurt worse than I was—Father said All right, let’s go back, and we did.

We had a good view from the fields and we could see that it wasn’t only the part where we lived but the whole city that was burning. Black smoke was billowing up and we could hear the sound of big things exploding. Since a north wind was blowing and the fire was gradually coming closer and closer to the place where I was standing, I didn’t know what to do and I was scared to death. About noon the wind changed to the south and our house was saved from being burned.

Mother’s younger brother was a high school student but since he was seventeen he had gone to be a soldier. He was a big strong man and he belonged to the Second Army. He was stationed at the Nobori-cho School. Since he didn’t come home on the night of the sixth, Father and Mother and all of us went searching for him until late at night in those dreadful streets. The fires were burning. There was a strange smell all over. Blue-green balls of fire were drifting around. I had a terrible lonely feeling that everybody else in the world was dead and only we were still alive. Ever since that time I haven’t liked to go outside. A soldier friend of my Uncle Wakasa said that my Uncle Wakasa had finished his night duty and was sleeping at a place at the school that was next to the rice storehouse.

Father and Mother went right away to the school. Next to the rice storehouse among the ashes there were lots of bones scattered around. Since they didn’t know which were my uncle’s they picked up a lot of them and put them in a funeral urn. Also among the ashes they found his school-cap insignia and his aluminum lunch box. Even now we are making ourselves think that my uncle was killed instantly by the blast and we are not letting ourselves think that he was burned or pinned under a house and burned while he was still alive.

A man who was so badly burned that you couldn’t tell whether he was a young man or an old man, was lying in front of Grandpa’s house which is right next to ours. Poor thing, we laid him on the floor in our hall. Then we put a blanket down for him and gave him a pillow; while we were looking at him he swelled up to about three times his size and his whole body turned the color of dirt and got soft. Flies came all over him and he was moaning in a faint voice and an awful smell was coming from him.

He kept saying, Water! Water!

Father and Mother and Grandpa, although they were wounded, picked up broken glass because the house was badly damaged and since it was wartime they were taking important things to the little shack in the country and they were so busy they couldn’t take care of that sick man. I went and looked at him every now and then and gave him water but when I had to pass the place where he was I closed my eyes and held my breath and ran past. Soldiers came and took him to the hospital; we gave him the blanket and pillow.

The house was squeezed sideways three feet, the floor was fallen in, the bookcase and chest of drawers had fallen on top of each other, and the celling and roof had fallen on top of all that, and you could see the blue sky.

I thought, We can never live in this house again.

There were ten eggs in a basket on the table in the north room. Strangely enough they were plastered around the farther, south side of the sliding doors of that room. Mother said, What sort of a wind could have carried those eggs there? The blast must have come first from the north and then turned around and come from the south to have soiled the south side of the doors that way.

Father said that ten of the tiles from the roof were piled up in one place in a spiral. Since the foundation stones of the house had moved we imagine that the whole house must have been lifted into the air at some time. From about then on Mother began to be sort of sick. The doctor said, "It’s probably because she breathed poison while she was walking around looking for her brother.

A half year ago a ten-year-old girl suddenly developed radiation sickness. All her hair fell out and she became entirely bald and the doctor at the Japan Red Cross Hospital frantically did everything he could for her but she vomited blood and died after twenty days. I shudder when I think that even though it is already six years after the end of the war, still people are dying in a way that reminds us of that day. I can’t think that those people who died are different people from us. What would I do if such a thing happened in my house? When I only hear about the suffering of people who have that radiation sickness, it makes me so frightened that I wish I could think of some way to forget about it.

The grandma of some of our relatives was made lame. Every time I see her I remember the sixth of August and I feel miserable. Sometimes when I ride on the streetcar I see people with their ear burned so that it’s just a little bump of flesh, not even an inch, stuck on their head. The father of the Sarada family also lost his ear.

Even though the atom bomb was so terrible and hateful, they’re saying in the news broadcasts on the radio that a bomb ten times more dreadful than the Hiroshima bomb has been made and they are discussing whether or not to use it in Korea.

This is a dreadful thing.

I think that everybody who was in Hiroshima on the sixth of August hates war. Our grammar school still hasn’t been fixed where it was damaged during the war. The reason my family became poor is because all the houses that we were renting out fell down or were burned. This sixth of August is the seventh anniversary of my uncle’s death. When that day comes around, everybody will be reminded of that terrible time; this makes me feel very bad.

* * * * *

6—Kikuko YAMASHIRO

5th grade girl. 5 years old in 1945.

On that morning my brother and I were playing on the second floor. There was a big flash and at the same time suddenly the house fell over. Everybody got very excited. My big sister got out first and helped all the rest of us. She helped my brother out first and then she helped me. One after the other we were rescued. We ran away quickly and everybody was streaming away in all directions. Pretty soon we began to see people who were hurt. Since there were too many people we went into the sea to escape. When I tried to get up out of the water I put my foot on the stone wall but I fell back into the water. Then someone helped me and I got up on the shore. Then we found some soldiers sitting on the rocks and eating their lunch. When we passed in front of them they gave us their lunch. I was very happy and I sat right down and ate it. I got thirsty but there wasn’t any water so I just did without it.

We kept running in the same direction. It began to rain. At that time Mother was with us in a cart. We made a little house of tin roofing and slept there.

The next morning my brother woke me up and said, Mother has died.

I was surprised and I went to the place where Mother was and called, Mother!

But I couldn’t hear Mother’s voice. I was sad and two or three times I called Mother but no matter how much I called she didn’t answer. I fell across her chest and cried and cried. After that the funeral started. I hated to go away from her side but I had to. As soon as the funeral was over we went to the hospital. For a long time we stayed there. And then one morning when we got up, my brother had died. After that, one after another they all died and only my two brothers and I were left. After that I was sent away and we were all separated and I don’t know where they all went. I was in Kure. Then I went back to Hiroshima and it was New Years. My brother Shigeyuki took me to Miyajima. That was the first time I went on a street-car to Miyajima and I came back to Hiroshima the next day. I lived there in Shintenchi for a long time and I went to school there. I’ve been going to Nobori-cho Grammar School from the first grade to the fifth grade. Lately my brother Shigeyuki hasn’t been to see me. Pretty soon I’m sure he’ll work hard and buy me a whole lot of the things I like.

* * * * *

7—Tokiko WADA

5th grade girl. 5 years old in 1945.

That was when I was five years old and was just about to eat breakfast. In the direction of the station there is smoke and fire and the smell of the smoke comes clearly to us. Grandpa is confused and says excitedly, The fire is coming closer to this place!

I and Grandpa and Grandma, the three of us, ran away. As we were running along we came to a soldier lying by the road who was burned; his face looked like a red devil and he was groaning. Since we were hungry we picked up a lunch in a box that we found on the bridge and ate it. Then after we went a bit farther there was a doctor who was putting medicine on people’s wounds so Grandpa got some white medicine put on his cuts. Then we heard the sound of an airplane again and I shuddered.

We arrived at the house of some people we knew in Yaguchi. My mama had also escaped to there. We were worrying that Mama might have been buried under the house but Mama had gone out to get water when the flash and the big noise came and so she wasn’t buried under the house and that was good. Our house is so small that we can’t all sleep there. That’s why Mama lives in a different house and helps there.

At Yaguchi they let us bathe and rest but we didn’t want to bother them too much so we kept on going. Then we came to another house. The man who lived in that house was a good friend of Grandpa so they let us stay there. After we stayed there two or three days we went back to Hiroshima by train. The train was full of sick people and it made me feel awfully sorry to look at them.

Even after we got back to Hiroshima we could hardly tell where our house was. When we looked at the ashes where the house had been there were only broken roof tiles and just junk. Several days later we finally finished a little house of roofing tin. We asked our various relatives to lend us some land and we lived there.

My family belonged to a kind of union of eating-shops so that we had to work there. So this union built a house and we lived there but since it was so small we asked in the neighborhood to find out if there was some place we could borrow. There was a little place that someone lent us and we lived there.

Grandpa and Grandma were doing their best to think of some way of earning some money. Grandpa thought that a noodle-soup shop would be good so he decided to start one. Pretty soon Grandpa got sick because he breathed poison and he went to the hospital. One evening they came and said he died. After that we had the funeral and everything and we were very busy. Since Grandpa had died, Mother and Grandma didn’t know what to do for a living. But for a long time they kept on running the noodle-soup shop. Even now they are still doing it. But lately everything is expensive and taxes are high and my family is having a hard time to get along.

How would it be if everybody would think about how this country could be a good Japan in which nobody would have such trouble? In this world there is even such a thing as people taking potassium cyanide and dying because they can’t support their families.

I think the reason for this is that no matter how hard you work, you have to pay a lot of taxes. In order for me to go to school, Mother says she has a hard time paying for my school lunch and PTA dues. In spite of all that they still come for taxes.

* * * * *

8—Yaeko SASAKI

5th grade girl. 5 years old in 1945.

This is about the fifth of August 1945, the day before the atom bomb fell. My little brother suddenly became sick and the doctor came to see him and sent him to the hospital. Mother wrapped up a blanket and a quilt and put them on Father’s bicycle and went to the hospital right away. It was so sudden that she didn’t have time to get any food ready{5} .

Mother said to Father, Please bring us lunch tomorrow and bring us something to eat every day, won’t you.

Saying this, she left home. I didn’t even dream that these were the last words I would ever hear Mother say.

On the morning of the sixth we’d finished eating and Father had the things ready to take. When I said, Yaeko is going too, Father said, "Since I’m in a hurry today, you’d better stay home. And if the siren blows and the radio warns you, you take the padded hood{6} from the shelf and put it on and go into the shelter. Then when the all-clear sounds, you can go out and play."

He said this and left the house. Since I was in a hurry to go out and play I could hardly wait for the all-clear and the radio. After a long time the all-clear sounded and I ran out of the house in a hurry. Then I went to my friend’s house and we were playing hide and seek when suddenly I thought a thing like a bright red ball of fire came falling down, and I came crawling out from under the desk. Next thing I knew all the houses in the neighborhood were blazing and on top of that big drops of rain were falling. I was scared and when I went home neither Father nor Mother was there so I was standing by the side of the road crying. Next thing I knew a man who was so badly burned that the skin of his body and arms and legs was hanging like rags, was screaming,

Give me water, give me water!

The farm lady who takes away the night soil came and took me to the country nearby. That evening I could only think about my Mother and I cried all night. At breakfast next morning I asked the farm lady.

Haven’t Daddy and Mommy come back yet?

When I asked her that she said, Maybe they’ll have come back to your house by now, so let’s go see.

So I quickly put on my shoes and she took my hand and we went back to the house. The house was tilted to one side. I went into it and called in a loud voice, Daddy! Mommy! Where are you?

Nobody answered me. I called again and again. Just at that time on the road below the house a man who looked like Daddy was walking and carrying a little boy. He looked so much like Daddy that I shouted with all the voice I could, Daddy, here I am!

The farm lady who was standing next to me looked too and she said, That isn’t Daddy, dear, that’s somebody we don t know. I was awfully disappointed.

One person after another who looked very familiar kept passing so I kept calling, but all of the people who came were not my Daddy or Mommy.

Days and days like that passed one after another. Every night before I went to sleep I would think about that time when Father went to the hospital—the time I said, Yaeko is going too. If Father hadn’t said, Today I want you to stay home and take care of the house, all four of us in