1. Kazuo Kase was a student at Minami Elementary School. Relieved that the air raid sirens had been called off, he went to the schoolyard. He was 12 years old.
2. He fought for his life for a few weeks and wasn't able to walk again until the following year. Still, he often felt so bad he couldn't move. When it was time to get a job, people were prejudice.
3. In 1945, oh, around February. Tokyo was a dangerous place to be, so the factory was moved to Hiroshima, where they thought it was safe.
4. I don't know exactly where, but the factory was moved to a place just outside of Hiroshima and thinking it was okay, I decided to go too.
5. At the time, Hiroshima was known as a castle town. Very quiet, with many rivers. It was different from Tokyo and seemed like a nice place. At least I thought so, as a child.
6. I was in the sixth grade and transferred into Nakajima Elementary School in the city center. Then we finally moved in around June, I think, where I started school at Minami.
7. We didn't have many classes at school by then. We spent most of the time digging the schoolyard to grow potatoes and other vegetables. It was the fifth and sixth graders. The others stayed at home.
8. [August Sixth]
9. The air raid sirens started before 8 a.m. and were called off in about 10 minutes. I went into the schoolyard to work on the field and my sister went to tidy up evacuated buildings behind the Dome.
10. I got to school just after 8. It was very hot that day so I went into the field wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, whereas on a normal day I would have been wearing long sleeves and long pants.
11. The school building was to the left. I was chatting with 4 or 5 friends. Then at 8:15, I guess, there was a sudden flash of light.
12. To tell you what that was like, well it was as if I was sucked into a light bulb for a moment. I was dumbfounded. When it cleared, I saw my friends running into the school so I followed them.
13. I ran a few steps along the hallway and suddenly the building collapsed and I was underneath. It felt like several minutes, but I don't think it was that long. It still seems long.
14. I was trapped inside an eerie smell. My right leg was held down by a beam or something. I couldn't move.
15. A few minutes went by and I saw in front of me a glass frame. A wooden frame that had been holding glass.
16. I could see outside. There were 3 or 4 soldiers from the Akatsuki Corps. They found me and pulled me out. It took a long time, because my leg was caught. Somehow, they were able to pry me out though.
17. So I got out and got home, luckily in a few minutes or maybe longer. Of course, my house was crushed and I could see fire closing in 100 meters away.
18. The army clothing depot was near my house. I was told to run there. When I got there, I saw people with their skin falling from their bodies, on this side and then the other.
19. My hands were like this, and from here on, like this. My head on this side was all like this, all around here, burned. And then my legs. Let me show you. My legs were the worst. I was in that shape.
20. The building, of course it was crushed and there was a garden. No, it was a regular yard by then. A ground full of people laying. There were dead people, and the living were moaning.
21. The thing I remember most was this man. He was burnt in front, like me. He must have been splattered with glass, because the pieces of glass were glittering from his body. I can see it, still.
22. There was one water tap. I saw someone that went there to drink water die. Outside the clothing depot there was a lotus patch. People died trying to drink water from it. Their heads were under water.
23. There was an army doctor in the building, I think. He just spread some oil or something on me and told me to ""just lie down there somewhere.""
24. As soon as I lay down, I could no longer move. I was told not to drink water, but my throat was so dry, I figured a bit would do no harm, so I drank. A few minutes later, I was spitting black blood.
25. Then afterwards, I found out that it was a blood infection. Anyway, my mother and younger brother arrived at the rescue center and we met up. Luckily, my mother wasn't crushed by the house.
26. [brother's injuries]
27. He wasn't bleeding all that much. He'd had a blow to his head. The doctor sent him away, saying that it didn't qualify as an injury. That decision later proved to be fatal.
28. My father was at his factory in the outskirts, so he was fine. He came and found us. My sister, well she had gone out on an evacuation project and couldn't be found.
29. From that day on, my father went into the city center looking for my sister for one week, but never found her. He never spoke about that. He took it to his grave. But that's how it was then.
30. But in the state I was in, lying on the floor not able to move, I wasn't very aware. I don't remember much of what went on around me.
31. My father's business partner was the second son of a doctor in Kaigoshi, Kurashi Island, named Nishiki. The family had been doctors for generations.
32. I was taken to that doctor on around the 10th, by stretcher. On the way there, I saw dead bodies lying here and there along the road. The stench of burning the bodies was incredible.
33. We took a boat from Ujina. Many navy ships had been sunk in the air raids and their bows were protruding out of the water. What I remember most clearly is floating dead bodies covering the surface.
34. As I said, I had blood poisoning. My father knew a doctor at Tsuchiya Hospital - it still exists today - Dr. Tsuchiya and he diagnosed the blood poisoning immediately. He also had serum in his bag.
35. He gave me an injection of that and I became stable enough to travel to Kurahashi. There I received the closest thing to proper medication and bandages. Until then my wounds had been exposed.
36. Then, I'm not sure when, anyway around then. I've lost my sense of time so I can't be sure, but I got tetanus. Luckily though, there was one shot left with serum for tetanus.
37. Apparently you need two, but there was only one and they gave it to me. I have absolutely no idea how long it took to recover, but I had a fever of over 40 celcius.
38. When I finally became conscious, my mother said it was into October. I looked at my face with my mother's hand mirror and I was just skin and bones with no hair. Of course I couldn't stand up.
39. From then on, I focussed on being able to walk again. I was just like a baby. I had to start by taking that first step. After some practice, I was able to walk by the time the New Year began.
40. Then in around February 1946, I had come into a lull, and figured I couldn't lye around forever. My mother and elder brother were in Arashiyama, in Kyoto.
41. So I went to be with them in Kyoto at first. Then my father rented a house in a place called Awaji, in Osaka, where I stayed until after University and for awhile after starting work.
42. [health, afterwards]
43. After the bomb, I first had aplastic anemia. I had dizzy spells and couldn't stand still. That and keloids. The keloids from burning throbbed in an odd way so I couldn't stand straight.
44. I had these problems so I couldn't take part in any gymnastics competitions through junior high school. I was always an observer.
45. After entering high school, the aplastic anemia --- I already mentioned this briefly --- I wasn't expected to live long, so I figured, ""why not go for the most strenuous?"" So, I started track and field.
46. At first my muscles cramped and I couldn't move after a short run. I passed out a few times. I stayed at it for 3 years and became healthy! By university, I was just as healthy as the next person.
47. [family's health]
48. My parents weren't injured, but they suffered after effects. Especially my father. He was exposed to the 2nd stage of radiation, searching for my sister. His health was always poor after that.
49. My mother was in a similar state. My father couldn't get full-time work because of his health, so there were financial problems.
50. But my mother, while complaining about one thing or another, died at 62. Cause of death was heart failure, but there were a number of reasons.
51. My father lived to be 77, but from the time he was 70, or maybe 65, he was mostly bedridden.
52. My younger brother was fine until he was finishing high school. After entering university, little by little, he didn't seem quite right. I didn't think it was because of the atomic bomb though.
53. I thought he was acting strange, but didn't pay much attention to it. Then as the days went by, when he was close to 30, his symptoms were very similar to schizophrenia.
54. Time passed and we discovered that this was because of the blow on his head that day. It was a cerebral contusion that killed him at 52. The family started with 5, now there was just me.
55. [prejudice]
56. Three companies dropped me after my medical, even though I had passed the interview.
57. In academic affairs, I was rejected by three schools in a row that I thought would be no problem getting into. I found out that it was because of the A-bomb. I might suddenly get sick.
58. When I got older, talk of marriage often came up. But in the end, it was, ""Imagine that you had a daughter and a person who had been exposed to radiation wanted to marry her. What would you do?""
59. This was the late '50s you see, so the atomic bomb was still fresh in everyone's memories. It was no wonder that I was turned down each time.
60. There were arranged proposals and proposals through love. But with investigations and all, the A-bomb was a reason for the subject to be dropped.
61. [message]
62. So well, obviously I don't want to see anyone at war ever again, and the use of a nuclear bomb is out of the question.
63. However, with the world the way it is today, the people of today... I don't know if all of Japan is that way, but as far as I know, people are too easily influenced by propaganda.
64. So my wish is for young people, after watching videos like this, to look things up and use their own heads to think and find their own solutions.
65. No matter what these activities may entail, it is important that they study the global situation from many aspects and act on their own, not because someone told them to.
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