Reiko Yamada was 11 years old and living in Hiroshima when the United States dropped the first A-bomb on the western Japanese city, killing about 140,000 people. Three days later, another attack on Nagasaki left an additional 74,000 dead. For six decades, this survivor traveled the world to share her experience, which many preferred to keep quiet: “When I visited the homes of the “hibakusha”, some would whisper to me: “You are a hibakusha, aren't you? I don’t talk about it to my children.”
On October 11, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Nihon Hidankyo association, which brings together survivors of the A bomb, campaigning for the rights of “hibakusha” and a world without nuclear weapons.
“Sad and frustrating”
But this ultimate recognition comes too late for many early activists who spoke out about their trauma and physical injuries, hoping to prevent others from suffering like them. Terumi Tanaka, the 92-year-old co-president of Nihon Hidankyo, recently said it was “sad and frustrating” that “so many people” who stood by him were not there to share the honor.
Isolation
After World War II, many young people left for big cities in search of work and better education, including “hibakusha”, many of whom chose to live in relative isolation, trying to blend in the population.
“Many had difficulties,” often preferring not to have children because of concerns about the effects of radiation, says Michiko Murata, 73, of the Toyukai association.
“Never tolerate nuclear bombs”, can be read near the grave
Toyukai members built a mass grave in Tokyo in 2005, where about 60 people are buried. But, with age, it became too difficult to organize ceremonies there every year; next year's will actually be the last. “Never tolerate nuclear bombs,” reads a stone near the grave.
Many “hibakusha” did not have family to give them a proper funeral, remembers Michiko Murata. “They lived alone; so, after they died, they wanted to be with others, in a place where they could talk about Hiroshima and Nagasaki without fear of being discriminated against.”
“No trace of their names”
At the cost of silence, Reiko Yamada did not suffer this stigmatization. “My family never talked about it,” she testifies. On the August morning the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, she was sitting under the shade of a tree in her school playground when she saw a B-29 bomber glinting in the sky. She then remembers a blinding light. Gusts of hot sand that threw her to the ground. Darkening skies and a black rain of radioactive material. From a sudden feeling of cold. “I didn’t know what was happening,” she says.
Reiko Yamada later learned that around 2,300 bodies had been burned on the grounds of her school, far enough from the epicenter that it had not been completely destroyed. “There was no record of their names. They became missing persons.”
