I knew a Hiroshima Survivor

[Modem Butterfly]

My grandmother's best friend was a lady who had survived Hiroshima. When I was adopted, she volunteered to be my godmother, even though my parents are atheists. She was always trying to get us to go to church with her.

Masako and her husband used to get together with my grandparents and my folks and played cards just about every Friday night. My brother and I were supposed to be asleep, but we would often hide in the hallway and listen to their coversation.

One night, for some reason, Masako talked about Hiroshima. She talked about how she was at school that day. She talked about trying to get home after the blast, about the things she saw. She talked about how things got worse the closer she got to home, about how people were blind, and often horribly burned or missing skin off large portions of their bodies altogether. She talked about seeing a naked girl who seemed to have the pattern from her clothes burned into the flesh on her back. She said everywhere people were crying and moaning and begging for water. She said that the water was black and foul but that they would drink it anyway. She said that when she was in the hospital, a lady in a near-by bed seemed to "menstruate through her skin". The skin on her belly was weeping blood. The bleeding got worse. The lady didn't survive.

Masako survived. She left Japan, like many survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, because they were considered tainted by others in Japan. She married a Mexican-American man and they had four healthy children. Masako died of cancer. Her husband said she was just "eat up" with cancer, in her lungs, breasts, uterus, skin, stomach and brain. The doctor said that it was probably related to the fact that she smoked for the first few years she was in America.

I've never forgotten the things Masako said that night. I dream about them sometimes. My partner was presenting a paper on Hiroshima for an academic conference, and I was originally attracted to him in part because of this. I wonder sometimes if I would have been strong enough to continue Masako's journey from ruined schoolhouse to burned out home.

Edited for grammar.

[JanMichael]

1. Interesting story. The doctor part threw me for a loop though.

"Masako died of cancer. Her husband said she was just "eat up" with cancer, in her lungs, breasts, uterus, skin, stomach and brain. The doctor said that it was probably related to the fact that she smoked for the first few years she was in America."

Or perhaps the radiation from an a-bomb? What am I missing here?

[Modem Butterfly]

2. Yeah, it was certainly the bomb. The doctor was a revisionist idiot

I remember how pissed her kids were about the doctor's diagnosis. She smoked for about four or five years, until she met her husband who was asthmatic.

[Massacure]

5. Did the doctor know she was an A-Bomb survivor?

[Modem Butterfly]

7. She didn't make any effort to hide it from family and friends

Also, her husband was convinced her cancer was related to Hiroshima and spoke about it very often. I am sure the doctor knew.

[Emendator]

10. If people would just stop and think

about the real human consequences of how people suffer, they wouldn't be so eager for war. They think it's a video game, turn off the TV, and then go do something else. Unfortunately the victims don't have the option of doing something else. The world has never had as many bloodthirsty leaders ruling simultaneously as it did during the WW2 era. Sickening.

[oneighty]

3. Sigh

I met a very young girl in 1952 Sasebo, Japan. She too was a survivor. Her name was Atomi.

So sad.

180

[anarchy1999]

4. Thank you for sharing this with all of us here.

I'm in awe to be in presence of so many special people.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. There was a woman who worked in the EM club in Atsugi.

Her name was Michiko and her face was terribly scarred from the Hiroshima bomb. The GI's, in their compassion, called her "Ground Zero".

Even as an 18 year old marine, I was appalled at the results of militarism, and the lengths adolescents would go to prove their "manhood".

That was in 1962.

[Modem Butterfly]

8. Yikes.

[manic expression]

9. So terrible....

I can't even express....

[bpilgrim]

11. thank you for sharing your personal story

it is what makes DU a truly great place for sharing the human experience.

there was certainly no military reason to drop those awful terrorist weapons on them and there obviously can never be a moral reason to do so.

it truly frightens me to hear talk of our current nuclear policy and reminds me how important it is to get the full story of hiroshima and nagasaki out.

NEVER FORGET

again, thank you :toast:

peace

[ninkasi]

12. My Dad was stationed in Nagasaki

shortly after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was on a ship, headed to Japan, when the bombs fell, and thought he was being sent into combat. Instead, he ended up in the Army of Occupation.

He developed a life-long respect and affection for the people of Japan, thought we should not have dropped the bombs, and spoke of the devastation of the city. He formed a friendship with one family, especially, and often wondered what happened to them after he left. He saw the results of the bombs, and was really convinced that we could have dropped them someplace else, to show their power, but where nobody would be injured.

Where that would have been, I don't know, unless he meant some deserted Island, making a public announcement first. War destroys both sides, and the innocent civilians suffer most of all.

[Modem Butterfly]

14. The Emperor wanted peace, the military didn't.

The Emperor wanted to surrender before Hiroshima, but the military were in charge. The military believed the Emperor should be beyond the day-to-day running of the war. Any talk of surrender was harshly shut down.

[ninkasi]

15. Yes, later, my dad said pretty much the same thing...

I know zilch about the military, but he mentioned that he was with the Quartermaster's Corp? and that sometimes men, especially officers, would come in, open a gigantic can of something like canned fruit cocktail, and not care if there rest was discarded.

My dad's own father died when he was 16...he was one of 5 boys, growing up during the Depression in rural Arkansas. Life was hard, and granny and Dad and my uncles came to Houston, in search of jobs. He considered this a sinful waste, and asked one of the drivers who could use the food.

Apparently, he developed a very close relationship with the driver's family, who literally had nothing. He took him opened cans that were good, anything he could scrounge. As I said, he developed both respect and affection with the Japanese people, and spoke of their stoicism while they suffered.

A few days before he died, he was remembering the name of one of the members of the household, and one of his regrets in life was that he was never able to return, just to visit Japan.

[vogonjiltz]

18. The Emperor should have spoke up more.

The Military was in charge, but there was no way they could have ignored the Emperors wishes. That is why so many of the General Staff committed suicide. They didn't want to surrender, even after Nagasaki. The inly honorable thing for them to do was to kill themselves if they couldn't follow the Emperor's wishes.

[Modem Butterfly]

20. They tried to prevent the Emperor from surrendering

The Emperor made a recording informing the people of Japan that they were surrendering. The military destroyed what they thought was the only recording, but fortunately a second copy was smuggled out.

[shireen]

13. Nuking Iran

This is so sad. Meanwhile we've got VP Heartless planning nuclear strikes against Iran. It's absolutely outrageous. These neocon PNAC sick bastards are inhuman. What is wrong with them?

Meanwhile, we're seeing the sanitized versions of Hiroshima on tv. The spectacular explosion,the rubble. But not the people Masako described. Why isn't anyone talking about that?!

[kestrel91316]

16. When I was in Jr High (early 70s) our social studies class

watched a film about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the aftermath. I remember the film clips of women with kimono print burned onto their skin, and the people with their eyes ruptured and skin melting off their faces. It horrified me and I have never forgotten.

Are they bothering to show this film anymore, or is it considered inappropriate for "the children"? If we do not learn from history we are condemned to repeat it, and how can we learn from history if we do not even know that history?

Betcha most folks can discuss in detail who won the last Survivor, but almost nobody can find Japan on a globe and talk intelligently about what the A bomb did.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. The films are still shown at the museum in Hiroshima, and

they were on TV a lot during the 1980s, perhaps because the MSM still had some semblance of guts as Reagan started his military buildup.

If interested, you should read the old, but still worthwhile book titled simply Hiroshima by John Hersey. It is based on a series of New Yorker articles that Hersey wrote in the early 1950s and follows the stories of five survivors.

[Bucky]

17. Recommending for "greatest" page

This is the perfect example of the cost of war. Altho I'm in the camp here that thinks the bombing was not a war crime and probably justified given the situation and knowledge that Truman had, I'm also the first to point out that the bombing was a horrible act that didn't actually end the war--Russia's entry is what scared the militarists into surrendering before they were split-occupied like Germany and Austria. I'd short hand my position as "justified, but in hindsight not necessary."

Thank you for sharing this, Modem Butterfly. This is finally what the debate is about. How can we be human in a sometimes inhumane world.

(PS, and what an excellent handle you go by!)

[Art_from_Ark]

22. While Japan surrendered on August 15, the Soviet invasion continued

well into October, when Stalin's military captured the last of the Japanese islands north of Hokkaido.

[NJCher]

19. my fear is that it will happen here

Thanks for sharing the Masako story, Modem. I agree this is one of the things that makes DU great.

I truly fear this is what could happen here if we don't get these criminals out of our government. We present a serious problem to the rest of the world in terms of pollution, starting war and our interference in the governments of other countries.

We need to get them out now and we need to change our foreign policy so that we are moving the world forward, not backwards.


Cher

[Modem Butterfly]

24. I don't worry so much about a nuclear strike on America

I worry about America launching a nuclear strike against someone else. Iran? Syria? I don't know. But I am concerned.

[Cleita]

25. So am I.

I'm sure the Bushistas are planning it. This is why it's so imperative that we start fighting back now, first to fix our election system so we can change the face of Congress in 2006 and then impeach an try them for war crimes. I hope 2006 isn't too late.

[karlrschneider]

23. I was in Japan dozens of time during the 70s and 80s and happened to

be in Hiroshima the first couple of weeks in August 1975, stayed in a hotel just a few blocks from the Peace Park (ground zero area) and spent the day there on the 30th anniversary. I was a little nervous about being there but did not encounter one single bit of hostility...talked with many survivors who told similar stories. That night I got very, very drunk.