A-Bomb Experience of Soh Horie
Do you remember what happened when you were five years old?
This book is a collection of essays I wrote when I was in the fifth grade of elementary school. In 2000, Mr. Ishikawa, then the principal of the school, found the essays in an old locker. He used them for peace education. I was invited to the school, and my essay was read aloud by a student in front of all the pupils of the school. Later, a publisher printed them in a book. What I am going to tell you is written in this book.
When I was five years old, I was exposed to the A-bomb 2.5 kilometers from the hypocenter. My sister, who was 15 years old, and I were walking on an errand in the neighborhood. My sister was suffering from beriberi, and absent from student mobilization. We were walking along a hillside road, when all of a sudden a strong light flashed, and next came an overwhelming blast wind. We got almost blown away. Promptly my sister covered me under her body and lay face down on the road. She must have received training/drills for emergency. We lay flat for a while, we were safe and then we went into an air-raid shelter nearby. After some time, we went home and found that our house was swayed, though it was a large house with thick timber unlike the present day houses. All the windows and sliding doors had been blown off by the blast, and tatami-mats were lifted up. If the bomb had been dropped a few minutes later, and if we had been out of the hillside road, we might have been killed by the flash light and the blast. Then I would not be able to talk to you here.
After a while, many badly burned people with hands hanging down came to our house seeking shelter. Soon the tattered house was filled with seriously injured people. My mother made bandages tearing children’s summer cotton kimonos.
I remember two people out of the large number of people there. One was a junior high school student. He was burned all over his face, and his nostrils were clogged by peeled skin. He was breathing painfully through his mouth. My mother removed the skin out of his nostrils with tweezers. It looked painful. He must have worn a cap. His hair remained only in the part covered by the cap.
The other was a young girl. She was burned and the patterns of her dress were printed on her arms. You have had an experience of burns, haven’t you? Even small burns hurt very much. I wonder how badly those two people suffered from the burns.
As our house was filled with evacuating people, I was playing in the field by the house. Then suddenly rain began to fall with the wind. It was, as we learned later, the black rain with radioactive particles. I hurried home. Among the laundry hung out to dry there was my father’s underwear. It was stained black. My mother washed it many times but the stain did not go off. It was black dust that contained radiation. My mother and I had a talk and decided to donate the underwear to Peace Memorial Museum.
It is now a rare tangible sample that shows the mark of black rain.
There was a shrine of Tenrikyou, one sect of Shintoism, in our neighborhood. As the houses near the shrine were on fire, the object of worship in the shrine was carried to my house. Although a preacher prayed for wounded hibakusha, he was unable to save anybody.
In the evening, the second sister, who had come back from an evacuation site, and I were taken to the villa of our aunt. The sky in the direction of Hiroshima City was bright red, even after the sunset. Countless houses must have been on fire.
Dead bodies near our house were cremated in the playground of Koi Elementary School, in which I enrolled myself later. But what I remember is only the revolting smell I had to endure all day long. Every year on the evening of August 6, a memorial ceremony for those cremated there is held in the playground, and I attend it every year. Imagine what the smell was like if lots of decaying corpses were burned with not enough fuel in the playground on a hot summer day. The playground was only 100 meters away from our house.
My father, who was a navy officer, was exposed to the A-bomb in the office near the hypocenter. He died six days later. A few days later two soldiers carried a white urn/box to our house. I remember that my mother broke down after the two soldiers saluted and left. At that time I did not know what had happened to my father.
In those days everybody in Japan was poor. Especially, after the death of our father, we had no income and had to sell whatever we could sell to get food. I ate anything edible, including weed dumplings and vine of sweet potatoes. A pumpkin was a precious food. School served lunch and it was the happiest time for children. Once two boys had a big fight over the number of meat pieces in their curry, I remember.
Two classmates, a boy and a girl, who had been exposed to the A-bomb closest to the hypocenter, were taken to ABCC several times by American soldiers on a jeep. ABCC examined Japanese people like guinea pigs but did not give any treatment.
What I remember about my direct A-bomb experience is this much, but my family continued to suffer from the aftereffect. My mother developed breast cancer at the age of 60. It was found so early that she lost her right breast only, but she lost her lymph glands too and she had difficulty using her right arm for the rest of her life.
My older sister, whose disease, beriberi saved her life due to her absence from student mobilization, felt guilty because only she survived the A-bombing. She took part in the 10 Feet Movement, a movement to raise fund to buy back an American color movie film that recorded Hiroshima after the a-bombing, each person donating money for 10 feet of the film. She had disorder in the large intestine in her 50’s. She passed away at the age of 55 after struggling with colon cancer that spread all over her body. In those days morphine was not dosed to cancer patients as often as today. My mother, having lost her daughter, lamented very much and said, “It’s a pity Keiko had to die despite her dedication to the world.”
My mother had a hard time after the A-bomb killed my father, but in later life she was happy surrounded by 9 grandchildren. She passed away at the age of 83, 9 months after she collapsed as a result of cerebral stroke in the course of Shikoku Pilgrimage.
The following year, my elder brother had retired from the first job and was actively working as president of a food company. He had a full medical checkup in January, but suddenly liver cancer was detected in September and he passed away in December at the age of 63. My brother walked around Hiroshima looking for my father on August 6. He must have had the greatest impact of radiation in my family. He must have been sorry as a lot of things remained to be done.
As for me, swollen thyroid gland was detected when I received physical check-up at my workplace at the age of 55. I saw the best doctor in Hiroshima specializing in thyroid. I received treatment for lump in the thyroid, and I have been taking prescribed medication of thyroid hormone since then. I am worried about children in Fukushima. Radiation effects may appear 50 years later. At the end of last year, I had an acute stomach pain, and was admitted to Red Cross Hospital. I was diagnosed as lymphatic malignancy. The pain was relieved by patch medicine that contained morphine, but I repeated going in and out of the hospital for half a year until July. Now I am getting back to my regular life.
People get cancer without being exposed to radiation, but the data provided by RERF in 1988 showed that hibakusha are 10 times more likely to get cancer than others. I would like you to remember that in Japan there are still many people suffering from aftereffects of the A-bomb. I have two adorable grandchildren. I am worried that something bad may happen to their health or health of their descendants. Since Chernobyl accident, effects of radiation to descendants became matter of concern. In Chernobyl occurrence frequency of congenital disease is 2.3 times higher than normal.
Six years ago, I was dispatched by WFC to the U.S. as a member of PAX. We had a lot of chances to give presentations about peace. A hibakusha from Nagasaki appealed by showing his wounded body, but I didn’t do that. I’ll tell you why. It is indeed important to tell horrors of A-bomb and sad history of war to next generation. 53 million people including foreign dignitaries have visited Peace Memorial Museum since its opening in 1955, and so many people must have understood how terrible war is. However, wars and conflicts have not disappeared from the world. Wars are going on. So, I emphasized the fact that wars destroy environment and waste precious resources with concrete examples. I said that we can’t stop wars unless we change economic and industrial systems. War is the greatest environmental destruction activity and uses our valuable resources wastefully. (Data to prove that is easy to obtain.)
I have had the same belief since 6 years ago. Or rather, I have a stronger conviction.
A journalist in Netherland, Karel van Wolferen described the U.S. in his book ‘The Character Assassination of Ozawa Ichiro’ as follows:It seems the U.S. government starts warfare one after another in many parts of the world impulsively without deliberation. Clearly, The U.S. is creating new cold war. The U.S. needs an enemy to keep up their military-industrial complex that supports the economy of the nation. Without an enemy, as much as a trillion-dollar defense budget in 2011 cannot be justified. This opinion complements my arguments in the U.S.
I don’t think A-bomb will be used again in any war, but nuclear power plants will cause trouble to people. Nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants are two sides of a coin. Please read this book. I have already read the Japanese version.
From now on, as long as my body works, I want to do what I like best, that is, taking care of cherry trees. I also want to be engaged in volunteer activities to give dreams to children.
Thank you for listening.
This book is a collection of essays I wrote when I was in the fifth grade of elementary school. In 2000, Mr. Ishikawa, then the principal of the school, found the essays in an old locker. He used them for peace education. I was invited to the school, and my essay was read aloud by a student in front of all the pupils of the school. Later, a publisher printed them in a book. What I am going to tell you is written in this book.
When I was five years old, I was exposed to the A-bomb 2.5 kilometers from the hypocenter. My sister, who was 15 years old, and I were walking on an errand in the neighborhood. My sister was suffering from beriberi, and absent from student mobilization. We were walking along a hillside road, when all of a sudden a strong light flashed, and next came an overwhelming blast wind. We got almost blown away. Promptly my sister covered me under her body and lay face down on the road. She must have received training/drills for emergency. We lay flat for a while, we were safe and then we went into an air-raid shelter nearby. After some time, we went home and found that our house was swayed, though it was a large house with thick timber unlike the present day houses. All the windows and sliding doors had been blown off by the blast, and tatami-mats were lifted up. If the bomb had been dropped a few minutes later, and if we had been out of the hillside road, we might have been killed by the flash light and the blast. Then I would not be able to talk to you here.
After a while, many badly burned people with hands hanging down came to our house seeking shelter. Soon the tattered house was filled with seriously injured people. My mother made bandages tearing children’s summer cotton kimonos.
I remember two people out of the large number of people there. One was a junior high school student. He was burned all over his face, and his nostrils were clogged by peeled skin. He was breathing painfully through his mouth. My mother removed the skin out of his nostrils with tweezers. It looked painful. He must have worn a cap. His hair remained only in the part covered by the cap.
The other was a young girl. She was burned and the patterns of her dress were printed on her arms. You have had an experience of burns, haven’t you? Even small burns hurt very much. I wonder how badly those two people suffered from the burns.
As our house was filled with evacuating people, I was playing in the field by the house. Then suddenly rain began to fall with the wind. It was, as we learned later, the black rain with radioactive particles. I hurried home. Among the laundry hung out to dry there was my father’s underwear. It was stained black. My mother washed it many times but the stain did not go off. It was black dust that contained radiation. My mother and I had a talk and decided to donate the underwear to Peace Memorial Museum.
It is now a rare tangible sample that shows the mark of black rain.
There was a shrine of Tenrikyou, one sect of Shintoism, in our neighborhood. As the houses near the shrine were on fire, the object of worship in the shrine was carried to my house. Although a preacher prayed for wounded hibakusha, he was unable to save anybody.
In the evening, the second sister, who had come back from an evacuation site, and I were taken to the villa of our aunt. The sky in the direction of Hiroshima City was bright red, even after the sunset. Countless houses must have been on fire.
Dead bodies near our house were cremated in the playground of Koi Elementary School, in which I enrolled myself later. But what I remember is only the revolting smell I had to endure all day long. Every year on the evening of August 6, a memorial ceremony for those cremated there is held in the playground, and I attend it every year. Imagine what the smell was like if lots of decaying corpses were burned with not enough fuel in the playground on a hot summer day. The playground was only 100 meters away from our house.
My father, who was a navy officer, was exposed to the A-bomb in the office near the hypocenter. He died six days later. A few days later two soldiers carried a white urn/box to our house. I remember that my mother broke down after the two soldiers saluted and left. At that time I did not know what had happened to my father.
In those days everybody in Japan was poor. Especially, after the death of our father, we had no income and had to sell whatever we could sell to get food. I ate anything edible, including weed dumplings and vine of sweet potatoes. A pumpkin was a precious food. School served lunch and it was the happiest time for children. Once two boys had a big fight over the number of meat pieces in their curry, I remember.
Two classmates, a boy and a girl, who had been exposed to the A-bomb closest to the hypocenter, were taken to ABCC several times by American soldiers on a jeep. ABCC examined Japanese people like guinea pigs but did not give any treatment.
What I remember about my direct A-bomb experience is this much, but my family continued to suffer from the aftereffect. My mother developed breast cancer at the age of 60. It was found so early that she lost her right breast only, but she lost her lymph glands too and she had difficulty using her right arm for the rest of her life.
My older sister, whose disease, beriberi saved her life due to her absence from student mobilization, felt guilty because only she survived the A-bombing. She took part in the 10 Feet Movement, a movement to raise fund to buy back an American color movie film that recorded Hiroshima after the a-bombing, each person donating money for 10 feet of the film. She had disorder in the large intestine in her 50’s. She passed away at the age of 55 after struggling with colon cancer that spread all over her body. In those days morphine was not dosed to cancer patients as often as today. My mother, having lost her daughter, lamented very much and said, “It’s a pity Keiko had to die despite her dedication to the world.”
My mother had a hard time after the A-bomb killed my father, but in later life she was happy surrounded by 9 grandchildren. She passed away at the age of 83, 9 months after she collapsed as a result of cerebral stroke in the course of Shikoku Pilgrimage.
The following year, my elder brother had retired from the first job and was actively working as president of a food company. He had a full medical checkup in January, but suddenly liver cancer was detected in September and he passed away in December at the age of 63. My brother walked around Hiroshima looking for my father on August 6. He must have had the greatest impact of radiation in my family. He must have been sorry as a lot of things remained to be done.
As for me, swollen thyroid gland was detected when I received physical check-up at my workplace at the age of 55. I saw the best doctor in Hiroshima specializing in thyroid. I received treatment for lump in the thyroid, and I have been taking prescribed medication of thyroid hormone since then. I am worried about children in Fukushima. Radiation effects may appear 50 years later. At the end of last year, I had an acute stomach pain, and was admitted to Red Cross Hospital. I was diagnosed as lymphatic malignancy. The pain was relieved by patch medicine that contained morphine, but I repeated going in and out of the hospital for half a year until July. Now I am getting back to my regular life.
People get cancer without being exposed to radiation, but the data provided by RERF in 1988 showed that hibakusha are 10 times more likely to get cancer than others. I would like you to remember that in Japan there are still many people suffering from aftereffects of the A-bomb. I have two adorable grandchildren. I am worried that something bad may happen to their health or health of their descendants. Since Chernobyl accident, effects of radiation to descendants became matter of concern. In Chernobyl occurrence frequency of congenital disease is 2.3 times higher than normal.
Six years ago, I was dispatched by WFC to the U.S. as a member of PAX. We had a lot of chances to give presentations about peace. A hibakusha from Nagasaki appealed by showing his wounded body, but I didn’t do that. I’ll tell you why. It is indeed important to tell horrors of A-bomb and sad history of war to next generation. 53 million people including foreign dignitaries have visited Peace Memorial Museum since its opening in 1955, and so many people must have understood how terrible war is. However, wars and conflicts have not disappeared from the world. Wars are going on. So, I emphasized the fact that wars destroy environment and waste precious resources with concrete examples. I said that we can’t stop wars unless we change economic and industrial systems. War is the greatest environmental destruction activity and uses our valuable resources wastefully. (Data to prove that is easy to obtain.)
I have had the same belief since 6 years ago. Or rather, I have a stronger conviction.
A journalist in Netherland, Karel van Wolferen described the U.S. in his book ‘The Character Assassination of Ozawa Ichiro’ as follows:It seems the U.S. government starts warfare one after another in many parts of the world impulsively without deliberation. Clearly, The U.S. is creating new cold war. The U.S. needs an enemy to keep up their military-industrial complex that supports the economy of the nation. Without an enemy, as much as a trillion-dollar defense budget in 2011 cannot be justified. This opinion complements my arguments in the U.S.
I don’t think A-bomb will be used again in any war, but nuclear power plants will cause trouble to people. Nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants are two sides of a coin. Please read this book. I have already read the Japanese version.
From now on, as long as my body works, I want to do what I like best, that is, taking care of cherry trees. I also want to be engaged in volunteer activities to give dreams to children.
Thank you for listening.
