WRITTEN MONUMENT(English)

Chiyoko Okazaki (71)

The place of my A-bomb exposure:
Kako-machi. The inside of my relative’s house at the distance of 1.0 km from
the hypocenter.
Acute symptoms of those days:
Bleeding from the back, neck, thighs and legs, arms and hands.
Fingers turned purple.
Vomiting for about one month from August 8.
Diarrhea for one year from August 20.
Loss of hair from September 28 till December. Almost complete loss.
Fever for one month from early in September.
The dead in my family:
My cousin’s child was killed by the A-bomb in Kako-machi.

My background
I was born as the second daughter of Kazuhachi and Sayo Okazaki in Yoshijima-cho, Hiroshima. I had two brothers and three sisters. I graduated from Nakajima Elementary School and continued to study at the Higher Elementary School, Kokutaiji School and graduated from it.

Father had no regular occupation because of his poor health and died of cardiac asthma at age 54. Mother, too, had heart trouble and died of heart failure at the age of 52. My sister died of heat stroke, but her daughter is well.

My oldest brother died of heart failure like our parents at age 19 in 1930. He was a student. My second older brother, also a student, suffered from typhoid in 1935 and died at age 19. My younger sister died of stomach ulcer at age 17 in 1931.
I earned money working at home; altering men’s suit and sewing kimono using the skill I had acquired when I was about 21 years old.

I got married to a 31-year-old man, Masao Takeuchi in October, 1941 when I was 25. Once I got pregnant but miscarried. Since then I did not get pregnant again. After two years of my married life, I realized that I was a nuisance to my husband because of my poor health, so I voluntarily left him in Tenjin-cho and returned to my parents’ home in Yoshijima-cho.

The clouds that came down to the ground
August 6 was my late father’s 17th anniversary, so I went to his grave with my cousin’s son, 10, whom I had thought of adopting as my son. It was just when I entered the front door of the house of my relative that I was thrown into darkness and fell. The house was located on the west side bank of the Sumiyoshi Bridge in Kako-machi. I did not know how long I had been lying unconscious, but when I came to, I found myself under the wall and pillar. I was covered with blood all over when I finally crawled my way out, breaking the bamboo sticks in the walls. I was bleeding from my back, neck, legs and arms. Looking around, I saw clouds down to the ground. I felt as if I were pressed into the clouds and could not do anything about my own body. While I was chanting a sutra not knowing what to do, the clouds gradually went away. Then muddy rain violently fell. I looked around for my child but could not find him. I’m afraid he had died in the explosion.

It was a sea of fire and smoke around me. I managed to go down to underneath the Sumiyoshi Bridge and tried to quench my thirst, but the river water was too hot to scoop. Then I crawled up again to the bank and saw charred figures groaning everywhere. Other than those injured, nobody was seen around there. I didn’t know what to do, so I just kept running in the fire with bare foot. Getting to the Kanon Bridge, I found a statue of Buddha, which gave me a feeling of relief. I was almost naked and bleeding from many parts of my body. Coming to the drainage under the statue, I saw a B-29 drop three firebombs and fly away to the south. One of them dropped into the drainage and exploded, burning most of the mugwort on both sides of the drain. Some days later, I walked around for mugwort picking as I heard the mugwort was effective to stop bleeding. I drank its juice as tea, and used the stuff left after squeezing as ointment for my wounds, so I kept looking for it. And I continued to use the mugwort to arrest bleeding for one month.

On the night of August 6, I slept on the bank of the Kanon Bridge. From the following day till September, thirteen survivors, a stranger to one another, lived together in the warehouse of Municipal Commercial School in Kanon-machi. Every day dead bodies were brought in to the playground for cremation. Later in October 1945, we built a shack on the Minamikanon Ground and lived there for about three years.

I was given various kinds of aid food, but my stomach could not accept anything. I kept vomiting for about a month since the 8th of August. I kept drinking the juice of mugwort. Looking back now, I was saved thanks to the mugwort. I also decocted some other herbs such as dokudamiso or mikonso and drank it as medicine. Though I went to see Dr. Ozawa in Eba-machi, which was the first and the last, he gave me no treatment and just shook his head. It was the middle of August.

Peddling, Side job and Housekeeping
I lived in a shack on the Minamikanon Ground since October, 1945. As I mentioned before, I lost almost all of my clothes in the A-bombing. However, my important papers and an image of Buddha, Amitabha remained luckily safe, because I had kept them always with me in froshiki, or a wrapping cloth. The news that Takeda Draper’s at the foot of the Koi Bridge survived the bombing and opened the shop prompted me to go buy something to wear. It was August 17 and I would never forget the excitement of that moment.

I couldn’t afford to go on without job, so I started peddling in 1948 and continued it for 6 years till 1954. I could tide over the poverty for some time by peddling fish from Shimane Prefecture, but my poor health compelled me to stop. Then I began sewing for money again.

I could not, however, earn enough money by the sewing at home. So, I started to work outside again as a housekeeper this time, belonging to Yasui Housekeepers’ Association in Ujina, where I stayed from 1963 till 73. I developed sciatica and could not work as I wished.

My only niece, my sister Kazue’s daughter living in Nomijima Island ever since her marriage, was said to have lived in Yoshijima-cho at the time of the A-bombing, but I did not know it because we had had lost contact.

The Buddhist sermons I look forward to hear
The money I had was only reducing and my health condition was getting worse because of my sciatica. It became difficult for me to live alone. I went to the A-bomb Survivors Relief Department in the City Office for advice. There an official in charge told me about this Home, so here I am. I entered the Home on September 1, 1977. After coming here, not knowingly, my health condition got better. Now I can manage, at least, to take care of myself. I have joined some of the club activities such as flower arrangement, tea ceremony and Japanese dancing, which are what I live for. Also, I feel very happy when I listen to the sermons by the Buddhist priest from Betsuin Temple, three times a month.

Now I am an old woman without family, yet my heart is full of joy being blessed with Buddha’s mercy and his guardian power.

Shizuko Ueda (74)

The place of my A-bomb exposure:
Kako-machi, Inside of my elder sister's house, 1.2 km from the hypocenter
Acute symptoms of those days:
Ｎo injury
Diarrhea for ten days from August 9
The dead in my family:
My niece A-bombed at Kako-machi (living with me)
My uncle A-bombed at Kanon-machi

My background
I was born as the third daughter to my parents at Toyohira-cho, Yamagata-gun. Father, Taro Tanaka, and Mother, Sae had one son and six daughters. I graduated from Asaka National Elementary School in Toyohira-cho.

My father died of cerebral hemorrhage at the age of sixty-two. My mother died of old age at the age of eighty-seven. I hear the eldest sister died shortly after she was born. The fourth sister died of heart disease at the age of sixty-eight. The fifth died of pleurisy when she was nineteen. My brother also died of sudden heart disease at the age of fifty-five. Out of the seven, only three are still alive; the second sister, Asa, who is also a resident at this nursing home, and the sixth sister, who lives in Toyohira-cho, and me.

As is often the case with a girl in those days, my parents pushed me to marry a distant cousin, Haruo Toge, who was twenty years old, about whom I knew nothing. During the six years of married life, I had two boys. Our married life had many complicated problems, so I decided to get divorced leaving the children with the Toge’s as my parents-in-law were still young and healthy. I returned to my own parents' home. As for the two children, the eldest son died at the age of twenty-one. The second son is well.

To make a living, I worked at a rental kimono shop in Kako-machi, being introduced by my uncle, Shukichi Sugi, who owned a rental kimono shop in Takasho-machi.

Nothing but a Living-hell
My elder sister, Asa and her daughter, Mihoko and I were living in a rented house in Kako-machi.

On the morning of August 6, my sister left home for work, Chugoku Paint Company, in Yoshijima-cho. Mihoko and I were exposed to the A-bombing inside the house. After I saw a flash, I fainted. I didn't know how long I remained unconscious. When I came to, I found that my two-storied house was completely destroyed, and I was caught under the debris of the building. Fortunately I had no injury; I could crawl out from the wreckage.

I desperately fled to the Sumiyoshi River and spent that day on a raft. I stayed on the Meiji Bridge during the night. What I cannot forget even today is about my niece who was also trapped under the collapsed house, shouting, "Help me, Auntie. Help me!" Though I heard her voice, I couldn't do anything but run away leaving her behind. I really felt sorry for her. On August 7th, my sister, who survived, and I went to the ruins of our burnt house, where we found the body of Mihoko. We carried her on a tin sheet to the bank of the Meiji Bridge. She was cremated there together with countless other bodies, by policemen and soldiers. The scene was a living hell on earth, nothing else. I can't forget it even now, nor will I all my life. Later my sister and I took refuge to the Hera Elementary School in Hatsukaichi-cho and stayed there until August 15th, the day the war ended.

In those days there was no decent food, so we would often eat barley, soybean soup, noodles and so on. I had diarrhea for ten days from August 9, which made me weak. I didn't receive any medical treatment, for there was neither medicine nor hospitals. Thank god, it stopped naturally.

Becoming a special, certified patient
After hearing the news that Japan surrendered on August 15, my sister and I went back together to our parents' home in Toyohira, Yamagata-gun, and stayed there until October. My second son, Teruhiro, who had been in the Navy, came back safely at the end of August after he was discharged from military service. In October, we rented a room in Midori-machi. Shortly, my son got married and three of us started a new life.

In February 1946, we could luckily move into a municipal house in Moto-machi by drawing lots. Three grandchildren were born one after another, so there was not enough space for me to relax. I was anxious about my frail physical condition, too. Around the time someone introduced me to Tomoichi Ueda (age: 75), who lived in Nagatsuka, Gion-cho, and we got married in 1960. I lived there for six years until my husband died in 1966; he died of cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 81. After that, I lived with an acquaintance in Saka-machi, doing household chores for her.

After I was A-bombed, my health deteriorated. I underwent an operation on my gall bladder in May 1952, and another operation on my large intestine in 1955 at Hiroshima Municipal Hospital. Later when I had a medical check at Funairi Hospital, I was diagnosed as anemic. On October 19, 1959, I was designated as a special, certified patient.

Before and after entering the nursing home
After my second husband died, I wanted to live with my son's family again because I had been frail and suffering from anemia after the two major operations. I asked my son to let me live together, but his answer was not favorable probably because he still had resentment about my having deserted him when he was a child. As I said earlier, it was a difficult choice but I couldn't explain why I did that. So I reluctantly moved into my relative's house in Chiyoda-cho, Yamagata-gun. But my life there was not comfortable.

At that time, an official at Chiyoda Town Office told me about this nursing home. I was glad and decided to enter this home. I became a resident at this home on June 1, 1975.

Heizo Kawai (85)

The place of my A-bomb exposure
Kanon-machi, inside the house (1.3km from the hypocenter)
Acute symptom of those days
Injury with bamboo sticks in my left eye
The loss in my family
None

My background
I was born in Katahara-cho, Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture as the first son to my parents, Kiyoshi and Hisa Kawai. I had one sister, much older than me in my memory. My parents lived on farming. I was a frail child and had serious illnesses twice, at the age of five and seven. Later my mother told me that it was meningitis. I could not go to school because of that, even elementary school.

Since my father died when I was four, I was taken to my married sister and raised until thirteen. Then, the sister also died. When I was going to return to my mother, I learned that she had been remarried. So, I went to Osaka, kind of a runaway. The police chief in Osaka I turned to for help introduced a barbershop for me to work as a live-in worker. I stayed there till twenty.

Since then I changed jobs many times. When I was 27, I got married to Mie Hozumi, 20, and opened my own barbershop. Finally I was settled down. Luckily my business thrived and we had two sons, Heiichi and Heiji. However, my wife’s cousin opened a barbershop right next to ours, which naturally led us to rivalry. Being emotionally unpleasant, we moved to Hiroshima when our eldest son was three, and I worked for many different barbers as an employee.

When 35, I opened my own barbershop at Nishikanon-machi and kept it going for fifteen years with no particular problems. The Pacific War increasingly intensified and our eldest son went to Okinawa as a soldier in 1945. The second son entered Manchuria Foundation College, leaving us alone with our still operating barbershop. Everything was in short supply in those days, food in particular, so we had to keep ourselves busy to get something to eat, either rice for vegetable-mixed porridge or edible grass for dumplings.

Hellish picture
August 6, 1945, it was clear from early in the morning. At 8:15 with an enormous flash and roaring sound, our house collapsed. My wife, Mie and I were buried under the rubble. A piece of bamboo in our house stuck in my left eye. Despite the severe pain, I managed to crawl out in desperation.

I rescued a pregnant woman and her child who happened to have come for haircuts. Almost all the houses in the neighborhood were also collapsed and I pulled out more than ten people out of the debris. An old man looking familiar to me was clinging to a pillar and crying for help. I went for him and I was about to escape holding him in my arms. It was when that I stepped on a nail that pierced through my foot to the instep. This tormented me for a long time. Since no medicine was available in those days, I dressed the wound only with Mercurochrome.

Caring for my painful eye and foot, I fled with my wife, holding her hand, toward the riverbed of the Fukushima River for shelter. On the way I saw a devastating picture just like a hell; those who were burned by the heat ray had their skins drooping from shoulder, a mother who couldn’t believe it was her child when a charred figure neared to cling to her crying, ‘Mom, it’s me.’

Near the Tenma-cho stop, two streetcars were sitting in which I saw five or six people who were already dead. In an air raid shelter there was somebody who was burned all over and crying for water. But I did not give him water because I knew people were saying that the burned people would die if they drank water. When I returned to see him the following morning, I found he was not breathing any more. I regretted that I hadn’t given him water. Even a sip, I wished I had given him at that time. I blamed myself for a long time.

Around noon of the 6th the area of my house was completely burned down. I could take out nothing, at all, out of my house. That evening on, I slept in the army air raid shelter near the Tenma-cho streetcar railway. Starting from the 8th, together with some soldiers I dug holes around there and buried more than thirty bodies that had been on the street. The stench was so unbearable, I was reminded of a saying, ‘the dead give off a thrusting stench.’ There were indeed many bodies floating in the river, not just humans but also cows and horses. Black rain came, because of which many people suffered from skin diseases and caught lice. You could hardly look at them straight.

My left eyesight was lost
We spent about one year in the air raid shelter after the A-bombing. Food was really hard to come by. A small amount of brown rice was rationed which we put in a bottle and poked with a stick to refine. Rice refining was a problem, indeed. Nothing to eat was the hardest part for us and we ate the roots of trees and grass. Around that time we were given onigiri or rice ball as relief food that came from the country, but they were all rotten already. I can never forget the miserable feeling of the time when we had to throw them away into the Fukushima River. Since we did not have running water for quite a while, we were using pumped water. Probably because of that my wife, Mie contracted dysentery and became very weak. Our sympathetic shelter-mates of five or so were kind enough to walk to Ujina to buy medicine. I felt deeply and very thankful.

Later my wife’s lumbago got worse. She has tried many doctors and treatments, but never been cured. I was, too, under the treatment of eye doctor for long, but eventually I lost my left eyesight.

In September 1946, we built a shack in Nishikanon-machi, the site of our former barbershop. At length we could leave the shelter life behind and managed to resume our business.

Our eldest son, Heiichi came back from Okinawa in December 1945, although he was injured on his leg and the second son, Heiji in Manchuria also came back to us at the end of 1946. Although the life was not easy, we felt blessed with the whole family reunited alive. We lived together again. We worked hard anyway under any circumstances, thanks to which our sons grew to be independent and have nice families.

In 1967, my wife and I talked and decided to sell our property, the house and land where we had lived nearly 40 years. We came to live in a rented house in Funairi-minami. As we were increasingly anxious about our old age and future, we had discussion with our sons, but they had reasons of each own for being unable to take us. We therefore went to the City Office to ask about the A-bomb nursing home.

My wife and I entered the Home
We became residents of the Home on January 16, 1974. We are given a room for a couple and we have been free from worry ever since. In case of illness, there is the Funairi Hospital in the vicinity, so we feel at ease. We are grateful that everything is well taken care of and each day we are living in gratitude. I’d like to live long with my wife, the life we never have twice.

Toshio Sugihara (83)

The place of my A-bomb exposure:
In a pharmacy 1 km from home, 1.5 km from the hypocenter
Acute symptoms in those days:
Nothing particularly
The dead in my family:
Totally five of my wife’s relatives; her two nieces, their two children and her
nephew, were A-bombed in Hakusima-kuken-cho, Hiroshima

My background
I was born near Tsuruhane Shrine in Osuga-cho, Hiroshima as the third son of Katsuzo Sugihara and Katsuko. I have two brothers and two sisters. My father was a teacher at an agricultural school and owned a few pieces of land in the city, so we were fairly well off. I entered Kojin Elementary School but moved to Tokyo when I was in the sixth grade. I was enrolled in Ushigome Elementary School in Edogawa. I came to live in Tokyo because my mother’s brother was running a trade business there. My oldest sister was married, also living in Ushigome Nakasato-cho, so I went to my new school from her house. After leaving elementary school, I entered Seijo Gakuen Middle School but I returned to Hiroshima when I was in the forth year because of my father’s sudden death. He was 64 years old then.

After his death, we sold our house in Osuga-cho and moved to another in Hakushima-kuken-cho that was also ours. I was nineteen. We were seven of us living together, my mother, my oldest brother, his wife and their three children and I. Then I started to work at a general store on Hon-dori, Kure, run by my father’s brother. There I worked for three years but I didn’t get along well with my uncle and came back to Hiroshima.

I got a job at the Transport Department of the Army in Ujina, Hiroshima at the age of 22 and had worked there for eighteen years until I turned 40. I got married to Hisa Tokuda (30) when I was 32 and started a new life in Hakushima-kuken-cho. We were not blessed with children. I quit the job when I was 40.

Not even a piece of bone was found
On August 6, my wife had a stomachache and was in bed. I went to buy medicine to a pharmacy about 1 km away. It was when the pharmacist was getting my medicine ready that I heard a roaring sound. I felt as if a huge bomb was dropped just a few houses away. Being a wooden structure, the pharmacy crashed. I ran outside by myself. Fortunately, I was all right. Looking around, I saw a “mushroom cloud” growing in the sky just above the present A-bomb Dome. I became so worried about my wife and our house that I hurried home. On my way home I saw ten or more people fallen down, unable to move. I also saw some of the houses near mine had caught fire.

When I reached home, I found our two-story house leaning toward north. My wife, who had lain in the six-matted room, was shocked with the A-bombing and absentmindedly kept standing. The idea of evacuation immediately came to my mind, so I, taking my wife, left home with futon (bedding) and a mosquito net on my back, and headed for the bank of the Ota River 500 meters away from our home. The riverbank was full of evacuees. We stayed up all night, then the morning came. Countless people brought themselves into the river to cool the burned bodies, then died. It was truly a misery that those bodies were floating upstream at high tide and downstream at low tide.

While my own relatives were all right, the situation of my wife’s relatives was horrible. The house where she grew up was in Yokogawa then. Her parents, brothers and sisters had already passed away and her nieces and nephew were living there. August 6 was the day when they were going to hold a memorial service for their late parents at Shingyo-ji Temple near our house. Her two nieces in their thirties, their two children and her nephew, eighteen, were waiting in the temple for the service to begin. Then the A-bomb was dropped. The temple collapsed and a fire broke out. I’m afraid that they were trapped under the debris and burned to death. Not a piece of their bones was found. Although my wife was also to attend the service, she had returned home as she remembered something. Thus she was at home when the bomb was dropped. She survived, but we shed tears for the five relatives who died. The fire spread and our house was also burnt down within the day.

Taking care of my wife for 16 years
On the morning of August 7, we left the riverbank and visited an acquaintance farmer in Hesaka-cho where our household effects had been evacuated. The farmer’s family and his property were not affected by the bombing at all. We rented one of the rooms and lived there until October in the same year. While we were there, we built a shack where our house used to stand, in Hakushima-kuken-cho. It was finished in the end of October and we “returned” to our new home from the farmer’s.

As soon as we returned, we had to face the shortage of food. From the next day I had to go out to buy something to eat. My wife and I would ask farmers for any kind of food, going to the north to Miyoshi, to the south to Nomi Island, to the east to Mukaijima, Onomichi, but they wouldn’t sell much to us. Then we, together with my close friend, went as far as to Kagawa Prefecture, where my friend’s sister lived, having been married to a farmer. Thus, we would return all the way home with tens of kilos of rice on our backs. We made a trip quite frequently, back and forth, to Kagawa for some period of time. We suffered from the food shortage a great deal. Later on, a vacant lot of about ten acres was cleared next to us, so we rented it and grew wheat, sweet potatoes, potatoes, etc. Those vegetables helped improving our food supply.

In December 1946, my wife finally became bedridden due to rheumatism that she had long been suffering from. Our three-year-old shack was already in bad shape, so we demolished it and built a “real”, four-roomed house. But eventually I had to sell off the house with land because we were impoverished by my wife’s illness. She had been in bed for 16 years and I was in debt for medical expenses such as visiting doctor fees, medicine and injections. Despite the care, she died at the age of 46 in October, 1963. I had devoted my life to taking care of her for those 16 years. After her death, I moved to an apartment, “Hakushima Apartment” in Higashi-hakushima-cho. I was finally released from the sick wife and got a job at Nakajima Ironworks in Honkawa-cho. I worked there until June 1968.

Getting Information in the paper and Entered the Home
After quitting the job at the ironworks, I worked as a money collector for a newspaper shop nearby. As I was over 70, I felt it inconvenient to live by myself. I saw an article about Hiroshima A-bomb Nursing Home in the newspaper in 1970. I gladly entered the home. I’m satisfied with my decision to move in such a nice home. I’m grateful to the staff members for their kindness and for a life without any anxiety.

Hatsuko Inoshita (79)

The place of my A-bomb exposure
Funairi-hon-machi. Inside of my house, 1.5 km from the hypocenter
Acute symptom in those days
Fracture of the left arm
Inconvenienced for two years since August 6, 1945
Headache from August 6 to 20
The dead in my family
None

My background
I was the only child to Kikuhei Inoshita and Tatsu who were farmers in Toyohira-cho, Yamagata-gun. My parents owned about 1.5-acre farmland. After graduating from Meirin Higher Elementary School, I started farming with my parents. At the age of 20, I got married to Jiro Shimokawa from Yoshisaka-mura, Yamagata-gun, but we lived in Misasa-cho, Hiroshima because my husband was working for Japan National Railways. Ten years later, we got divorced for some reasons and I came back to my parents’ home. Four months later, I was remarried to Itsuji Tanaka from Sinichi, Yae-cho, Yamagata-gun who was brought into my family registration. He was forty years old. When married, we settled in Funairi-saiwai-cho, Hiroshima. In those days, my husband was working at a military-supply factory in Yoshijima-cho and I was a housewife. In 1941, I suffered from tuberculosis and went to Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital regularly to receive treatment. About the time I got sick, my mother came to live with us for helping us out.

The situation of the time of the A-bombing
On August 6, I was at home with Mother. At the instant of the explosion I saw a flash. Coincidentally the ceiling and the roof fell down and I was trapped under the pillar and my left elbow broke. I was clearing up the breakfast table, I remember. I noticed that the fire had already broken out around the front door. My next-door woman saw me under the pillar and pulled me out shouting, “Get out quickly, or you’ll be burned.” With her help, I barely crawled out using my uninjured right hand. Then, what suddenly came to my mind was my mother, and I searched around for her, but couldn’t find.

That day my husband had gone to the meeting of the heads of the neighborhood association instead of going to work. On his way home after the meeting, he saw a flash. When he came to the corner near my house, an electric pole fell on him. Being trapped under the pole, he was seriously burned his waist down. When I saw the skins of his upper legs hanging down, I was so shocked I covered my eyes with my hands. He went into our broken house and managed to find some clothes to put on. He decided to remain in our neighborhood. I, with my neighbors, headed for Eba-machi having forgotten the neighborhood agreement that we should evacuate to Kusatsu-machi in case of emergency.

When we arrived in Eba-machi, oily black rain began to fall. We needed to escape the rain and tried to get into the air-raid shelter, but it was filled with soldiers leaving no room for us. We had no other way but to leave, and turned back to Funairi-cho. On the way I ran into my mother I had been so worried about. The flesh of the lower part of her ankle exposed, with the skin peeled toward the toes. I took her home where I joined my husband who was with other neighbors. Then, about thirty of us started to head for Koi-machi. All the bridges on the way had fallen down, so we crossed the river in a boat and contrived to reach Koi-machi. That night we all slept on the nearby melon field together.

My life after being A-bombed
The following day, August 7, we had a discussion around 7 o’clock in the morning and decided that each of us should go visit each own relative. My husband, Mother and myself decided to go to Yae-cho, Yamagata-gun. We walked to Mitaki-cho, then took a Kabe line train to Imuro and again walked to Imuro Elementary School. The school had been used as the quarters for soldiers, but we were allowed to stay there two nights. On the third morning we came across our acquaintance from Yae-cho who happened to pass nearby. Since my husband and my mother could hardly walk due to the injuries incurred in the bombing, we asked the person to get back to Yae-cho and hire a horse carriage for my husband and mother. Thus, we could get to my husband’s brother’s house in Yae-cho and stayed there.

As we could not stay there long, we needed to find a place to move in. We rented two rooms at the rear part of a big house which was owned by an elderly couple in Tokaichi, Yae-cho. The housing problem was solved now. The next problem was food, but the sister-in-law was very kind and brought us rice and barley while we were living there, three months. One month later Mother died at the age of 65. 　Then we were requested to leave by the house owner and moved to live in a back room on the second floor of the nearby inn. However, again, after a year we were told to move out. Then we rented a two-storied next door house where an old woman was living alone. We lived there for more than thirty years.

Thanks to good medical care, my husband recovered and worked for Yae Health Center for eight years. After that he switched to the job in Yae Post Office where he worked the rest of his life.

Three years after I began to live in that house, I started farming, renting a 1,000 square meter paddy field near our house and continued farming until 1975. After my husband died, I continued the farming by myself until my physical condition allowed no more. Then, I came to live on welfare. When my rented house was put up for sale, I was compelled to leave.

About the time when I entered the nursing home
Now that I needed to find a place to live in, I consulted my relatives and the people in Yae Town Office. The officials advised me to enter Hiroshima A-bomb Nursing Home and I decided to follow their advice. I entered the Home on April 26. 1978. Since then I have been enjoying the life here with gratitude. For some years after the A-bombing, every time I heard the roar of airplane, I would run and hide myself behind something. Even now the noise of roaring airplane makes me feel uneasy. One of my relatives, who has keloids all over the body, suffers from a recurring pain even now, and has to be hospitalized each time. I am afraid there’ll be no ending as long as he lives. I believe that wars should never occur again.

Momoko Okamoto (72)

The place I was exposed to:
Funairi-saiwai-cho , 1.5km from the hypocenter
Acute symptoms in those days:
Nothing
The dead among my family:
None

My background:
I was born in Kurihara-cho, Onomichi as the first daughter to my parents, Urahei Ueda and Tayo. They were farmers and had nine children. I had six elder brothers and a younger brother and sister. All the elder brothers died of illnesses in their 20’s and the younger brother also died as an infant. My younger sister lived till 42 years old.

I dropped out from Kurihara Elementary School when I was in the second grade. My father died when I was six due to illness. I worked as a live-in maid in Kurihara-cho for three years, during which period my mother was farming by herself. I quit the job and changed to work at Sanada Hat Manufacturing in Okayama. I worked there for two years, then moved to Sennan-gun, Osaka where I worked at a spinning mill for four years. Then I came back to Onomichi. For compelling reasons I started to work again as a hostess at an inn located in front of Onomichi Station.

When I was 24 I got married to Hatsuichi Okamoto, 25. In those days he was working as a musician in the movietheater and I, in a coffee shop. After the marriage we lived in Koyo-cho, Fukuyama together with my husband’s mother and a younger brother. The brother was a company employee in the City. Four years later my husband moved to Hiroshima to work as an apprentice of tin processing, because his sister’s husband was running a tin processing business in Funairi-hon-machi, Hiroshima. Some time later I was called to come to Hiroshima, where I found my husband lying in bed with pneumonia. A while later, my husband got well and went back to work.

In those days we were living in a rented house in Funairi-hon-machi. I worked for Kotobukiya. In 1939 my husband was drafted and sent as a soldier somewhere toward Singapore. I moved to Funairi-saiwai-cho and worked for Mitsubishi-affiliated Nakajima Lumber Mill.

Those who died under the potato leaves
On the morning of August 6, it was when I just got outside to the street to go for work, the Lumber Mill, with my boxed lunch in my hand, that I heard an enormous bang. I lowered myself on my belly. So did the neighbor’s wife I was talking with in the street at that moment. After a while I got myself up and found no injuries on me. But the woman, her lying position or something must have been wrong, was miserable. When she got up, the skin was drooping from her left arm.

As there had been an agreement in the neighborhood association to evacuate to Eba-yama Hill in case of emergency, I did so without delay. On arriving, I looked for something to eat in vain. I was so hungry that I went to the Yuishinji Temple in Funairi-kawaguchi-cho where I found nothing to eat, either. Then I went to the nearby potato field. Meaning to dig up potatoes, I lifted up the leaves first. There I saw a dead body. Having a closer look, I found more bodies between the ridges in the potato field or underneath the runners. I guess those victims took shelter underneath the potato leaves to cool themselves even a little. When I went back to the temple, I found a woman in labor and the people nearby were just looking doing nothing. So, I volunteered to take charge of assisting her delivery, making those onlookers help me.

I was exhausted and needed a rest very badly. So I brought myself to the A-bomb Dome whose structure had remained. The Dome, however, was full of burned people. With no other choice I went to my boss’s house in Oshiba-cho, the overseer at the Lumber Mill I was working for. I stayed there for about a week, then left for my house in Funairi-saiwai-cho as I was worried about my house.

Grass on the bank as a pillow
On my way home from Oshiba-cho, I was walking on the Aioi Bridge. I ran into a person who had owed me some money, and he returned the money to me. I reached Funairi-saiwai-cho but all the houses including mine were helplessly destroyed and I could do nothing. I went to visit an acquaintance living in Nukui, Asa-gun. It was a farming family, so I helped them with farming while I stayed there, for about three months. I had no children, so I was always alone. As for food, I did not have any serious difficulties.

I returned to Funairi-saiwai-cho. I got cigarettes from the Occupation Army with the money I had, and peddled them. About the same period of time I sold homemade rice cakes and sushi at the black market in Koi. I went as far as to Suzuhari, Asa-gun or Minochi, Saeki-gun and negotiated with farmers to sell me rice, the material to make rice cakes. I used to sleep on the grass at the bank in those days. Later when a bar, though a shuck, appeared in Funairi-saiwai-cho, I worked there.

In late 1945 my husband returned home, being repatriated, so we rented the upstairs of a cigarette shop in Funairi-hon-machi. My husband got a job at the Lumber Mill in the neighborhood. We both worked but my husband fell ill in May, l979 and was hospitalized. Despite my tender care, my husband passed away in November that year.

Being left alone, I had nobody to depend upon, nor any place to live in. Thanks to a district welfare commissioner, I could enter this nursing home. I’ve found the Home a wonderful place. Only, I have to be aware of the relationship between the residents.

Terumi Toda (81)

The place of my A-bomb exposure:
Nishi-hakushima-cho. Inside my rented room. 1.7km from the hypocenter.
Acute symptoms in those days:
Fever, loss of hair, purple spots all over the body.

My background
I was the first daughter to Takeo and Maki Furuyama, born on August 11, 1899 in Nukushina-cho, Aki-gun. I had four elder brothers and one younger sister.

My father was a principal at an elementary school. My childhood was not special, but a happy one. After graduating from Hiroshima Jogakuin, a girl’s school, I stayed at home helping with the housework. In 1922, when I was 22, I got married to Kosaku Toda who worked for a cotton wool company in Tenjin, China. We had two sons.

My husband died of acute pneumonia in 1928. I came back to Japan in 1928 taking my two children, 6 and 3 along with me. I studied dressmaking at a school in Osaka for three years. Then, I founded the Futaba Dressmaking School in Hiroshima. Three years later, however, for various reasons I switched to working for the Post and Telecommunication Bureau.

My older son died in the war in Northern China in 1941. Though he was enshrined as an honored, national war dead, my heart was broken to have lost my loving son I had raised with all my care.

The situation at the A-bombing
In 1945, the war increasingly intensified. In those days, I was commuting from Showa-machi to the Post and Telecommunication Bureau. It became unsafe even commuting to work, so I rented a room upstairs of Mr. Fukuda's house, which was closer to my office. I had all my family evacuated to my parents' house in Nukushina-mura.

At the time of the A-bombing on August 6, I was in my room. "A flash!" "Boon!" With a tremendous roaring sound of blast, my room upstairs began shaking heavily. The moment I ran out to the veranda, the house collapsed and I was trapped under the broken house. I lost consciousness. When I came to, it was pitch-dark around me. While struggling hard, I saw a hole made in the ceiling. I could hardly breathe because of the dusty smoke, but I managed to jump out. At the same moment I heard the roaring sound of the house collapsing.

While I was running away being hampered by countless pieces of scattered broken glass, I came across a person who was crying out, "Help!" I took the person along with me to Chojuen for shelter. After taking some rest there, I headed for the water reservoir. I carried the wounded stranger on and off my back, sometimes making her walk. In the late afternoon, finally, I could take her to the first aid station at Hesaka Elementary School where her wounds were treated. That night I stayed overnight at a farmer’s house. The following morning I went to my office and did my job as a clerical worker.

The situation after the A-bombing
About one week after the A-bombing, purple spots began to appear all over my body and my hair came off. I ran a high fever. I was hospitalized in the Post and Telecommunication Hospital. The hospital was overwhelmed with the injured and A-bomb disease patients. Because we heard that moxibustion was good to increase white corpuscles, we tried it to one another among the patients in the room.

My health condition got better in 40 days or so, and left the hospital in about 50 days. I worked for a while, after being released from the hospital, at the Post and Telecommunication Hospital. Thereafter, I also worked at various places, but my poor physical condition, because of the A-bomb aftereffects, didn’t allow me to continue long.

I was hospitalized at the Hiroshima Municipal Hospital for anemia in 1947. I was designated as a special patient of an A-bomb caused disease, granulocytopenia on December 24, 1947. After leaving the hospital, I still had to go see the doctor continuously, once a week as an outpatient. Around March in 1973, I began to have a heart attack occasionally.

Hope for abolition of nuclear weapons with all my heart
As my older son was killed in the war, I went to live with my second son's family. In his small house six members including the grandchildren lived together. There were also some other reasons, and I entered this nursing home on October 25, 1973, being recommended by a City official.

Looking back over the past years, I lost my parents, brothers and my older son; so many family members ever since the outbreak of the Pacific War. Only three are now alive: my older brother, Iwao (in Nukushina at my parents' house), my younger sister, Midori Nakagawa (in Akashi city) and myself. I felt lonely and worried about my poor health, and I spent many sleepless nights. But, ever since I entered this nursing home, I have been taken care of very well. I joined various club activities such as haiku or a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, artificial flowers, calligraphy and so on. I am very happy with my life here.

My second son, his wife and grandchildren often come and see me on holidays. They are nice and kind to me. Only, the mere thought of the A-bombing, even now, makes me feel pain physically and mentally. In the end, I’d like the people throughout the world to work for abolishing the detestable nuclear weapons at all cost.