1. Susumu Kamurogi barely lived after being trapped under the school. He was 11. He lost 6 of his family of 8 then got news that his father also died in the war. Suffering alone, he thought of suicide.
2. Every night when the alerts sounded, my aunt and family came to stay with us and we ran to Mitaki. On the 6th … oh, they came the night of the 5th too … and in the morning we went home.
3. An alert sounded at 7:00 but then was called off. At around 7:30 my aunt said, ""I guess it's safe to go,"" and went home. We headed off for school. So, we were all separated.
4. At school, it wasn't time for class yet, so all the kids were playing and messing around. Then we heard the blasting noise of a B29.
5. In those days, you could tell what kind of a plane was flying overhead by the noise it made, so we knew. ""Hey, it's a B29."" ""There's going to be another alert,"" we'd say, and wait for instructions.
6. So we realized there was going to be an alert and got quiet. Then there was this sudden FLASH of light. Shocked, I took 2 or 3 steps away from my desk. Then the school blew away with a BANG.
7. I fell unconscious for a while. I didn't know what happened, for I don't know how long, until I heard voices from everywhere: ""Teacher, help,"" ""Mama help me,"" ""Papa help!""
8. I tried to move, but I couldn't. I was trapped under the school building. Just like this. And all this wood was piled on top of me.
9. There was a kid in my class, Harada. He kept coming closer to me, so I said; ""Harada, get away!"" ""Don't get near me, I'm in pain, I can't move."" And he said: ""Yeah, yeah,"" but he kept coming.
10. So I'm thinking, ""how can I get out of here?"" and started shoving things away from on top of me. I could get the smaller things off, but I couldn't do anything about the bigger stuff.
11. Then I started to feel the load getting much lighter, and I remembered that Harada was around so I said, ""Harada,"" but he wasn't there. I called him again, feeling around for him with my foot.
12. Well just around here, the floor was popped up and I thought, ""He must have gotten out this way,"" so I went down and saw an air hole. I could see light streaming in from there.
13. I tried this and that and wriggled my way out. When I got out, I saw blood pouring. It was my head. I put my hand to it and… as you can see, I still have the scar. I could get my hand in, this far.
14. Those days, we wore headbands. Ones with words like ""Devotion,"" or ""Victory."" Whatever we liked. So we wore those headbands when we cleaned.
15. And I remembered that my headband was hooked to my waist, so I took that and tied it around my head to stop the bleeding. Then I looked. The school had crumbled and there was fire everywhere.
16. Toward my house, oh maybe a five minute walk away, the road was gone and bang bang, fires were spreading everywhere.
17. There was a needle factory next to the school and that building had collapsed too and it was on fire. So I was out on the street, but I couldn't get away without going through the fire.
18. Soldiers made us all line up and shouted at us to hurry but we were too scared to go through the fire. So the soldiers pushed us from behind and we went flying. Anyway, we ran.
19. And even still. Well we weren't wearing sneakers like kids do today. We had straw sandals usually but I was barefoot from being in the classroom. I ran barefoot. There were four or five of us.
20. So then I ran and ran and got to the temple near Yokogawa. Then my grandmother was coming toward me looking like a ghost. Her hair was a mess and she was bleeding all over.
21. I scream, ""Grandma!"" and run to her saying, ""Where is everyone?"" She holds her hands up and says, ""They're gone."" So I say let's go home and find them. She says, ""Too late, the house burned down.""
22. I had been looking for them up until then, but there was nothing more I could do, so I just ran here. ""Let's go home,"" I said, ""Let's go home once,"" but she said no. There was too much fire.
23. Well then I guess it can't be helped, I said and went to the bridge. But the bridge had burnt down and couldn't be crossed so Grandma and I sat by the bridge and talked about what we would do.
24. When I looked I could see people were a mess. Faces gauged, hair burnt up like it was permed, using ropes to carry kids… the kids weren't any better off. They were all messed up too.
25. Skin sliding off of burns. I kept thinking, ""How horrible!"" Grandma and I just kept talking about what we could do. Where we could go. Everyone was gone. I wondered what happened to Mother.
26. Then my aunt comes saying ""Sister"" so I was surprised. It was that aunt that was at our house until the alert was called off.
27. [after reuniting with aunt]
28. I asked, ""Are you the Tomiyoshi auntie?"" She said yes and I asked her if the child on her back was Yasuko and it was. I said, ""Untie the rope, I'll carry her on my back."" Auntie was suffering.
29. And the burnt people. I guess when it was bad they got thirsty. They kept begging for water, but of course no one stops to give them any.
30. The rivers of Hiroshima you know were always beautiful and clear. But the day of the A-bomb it was like after a typhoon… all dirty and full of floating things. That day it was much worse.
31. The houses that had collapsed started falling into the rivers. People crawled over into the rivers, guzzling water until they died. One after another.
32. So meanwhile the sky started to get pitch black. And these raindrops you wouldn't believe. Big black raindrops start falling from the sky. It was painful for the burnt people.
33. And the healthy ones, well they ran around hiding under broken houses, but me, I've got my aunt and I can't just run away. I got covered in that rain.
34. So while that was going on there was stuff coming down the river and I saw a door panel, so I pulled it over. Then I found a smaller one and some branches and set four on the bank, like this.
35. Then I set the panel on that and said, ""Auntie, get in. Grandma get in."" Then I went with the child, so the four of us were under that, arms around each other, out of the rain.
36. So you see, the people who weren't able to get out of the rain at that time got covered in it and died away. I don't know how long it rained, but we waited.
37. After a while, the water level got up to knee-level and others were crossing so we crossed too, holding hands, 'cause you never know when you're going to be washed away in deep water.
38. We lined up like ants and crossed the river. We figured we were all right because the river was only up to our own knees so we all held hands, the child, Auntie, Grandma and I, and crossed.
39. Auntie, Grandma, we all held hands and walked slowly to Furuichi, to escape. By the time we got there, it must have been 11:00 at night. We went into the nearest elementary school.
40. They told us the classrooms were full. We asked for an opening and they found a space. When I put the child I was carrying on my back down, she was just a lump. She had kept crying all the while.
41. My aunt too, was so exhausted and we all just crashed on the floor and didn't move for a while. Later, we decided to lie down properly and get some sleep.
42. Just as I was about to fall asleep, the child started moaning. We called to her, ""Yasuko, Yasuko,"" and tried to caress her, but she screamed and went into convulsions and then passed away.
43. I said, ""Auntie, Yasuko's dead,"" and she said, ""Oh is that right. I guess there's nothing we can do then."" So then some other people in the room told us to take her to the room for dead people.
44. [Auntie's death]
45. Well then Auntie started to scream and go wild with pain and suffering. Grandma and I tried to calm her, but again, there was nothing we could do. There's no doctor or anything. So she died too.
46. We took her to that room. When Yasuko died, there were about 30 bodies there. This time, it was almost dawn and there were 50 or 60 bodies piled up and still being added.
47. The smell was really bad, too. Being mid-summer, it was hot and there was pus and festering… and the flies didn't waste any time swarming the place.
48. This is horrible, I thought and asked what was going to be done. Someone said they're going to burn all the bodies at once in a heap, in the schoolyard. Grandma asked why but there was no choice.
49. There was no time to be cremating one at a time. It was cruel but it couldn't be helped. They said to leave it to them. Then there was one classroom with a doctor who could treat our wounds.
50. So I told Grandma, took her and asked for her to be looked at first 'cause she had a head wound and you could see the bone. But not much could be done. Just a drop of iodine. That's it.
51. Then her hands and arms had glass stuck in them that had to be pulled out with pliers. They put a bit of iodine on that too and laid her on a desk to look at her lower back and bottom.
52. Then it was my turn. I had been wearing that headband and it was dry. Completely hardened with blood. They couldn't get it off of my head, so they pulled it and cut my hair and all.
53. The insides gushed out, so they shoved them back in again said, ""He should be all right,"" sewed me up with no anesthetics, using a regular sewing needle, in four places here. Very roughly.
54. I couldn't stand the pain when they sewed me. I went wild. But they held me down and tacked me together and stuck some iodine on. There was something wrong with my lower back, too. They found a nail.
55. After that we decided to go to a nearby shrine since everyone was gone. Before leaving we were having a nap. Then I hear a voice calling, ""Kamurogi, Kamurogi!""
56. ""Hey, someone's calling our name."" ""Here!"" I said, standing up. My uncle from Itsukaichi had come to get us. So we took the train from Koi to Itsukaichi.
57. I opened the door to my uncle's house in Itsukaichi and went to the back. My mother was sitting there with a black face apologizing to my father because she escaped alone.
58. She was supposed to guard the homefront and protect her children while my father was away at war, but she couldn't even save one child. She was crying. She was so sorry.
59. After that, she stopped eating. She lay down and couldn't move. Her face you know, it wasn't all injured like the rest of us. I guess it was the A-bomb disease. She had absorbed radiation.
60. We couldn't stay there and inconvenience Uncle Tomiyoshi came home so we planned to go and stay with a young woman and a grandmother who were relatives I had stayed with before.
61. My mother couldn't get out of bed and now she was vomitting blood and her hair was falling out. Everyone was afraid. Even relatives stopped coming.
62. In the olden days, tuberculosis was an epidemic that made you vomit blood and so on. Being an infectious disease, people did their best to stay away from anyone who had it.
63. So Grandma and I did our best to take care of Mother until I think it was the day of the 14th. She suffered again and then she died. Mother was dead. That left me with Grandma.
64. Then on the 15th, at around 11 o'clock, relatives came from everywhere saying that the Emperor has something to tell us, so we must listen to the radio at noon. I wondered what it could be.
65. But then of course something that horrible had just happened to Hiroshima. We were all sure he was going to profusely apologize. We listened. It was about unconditional surrender as of the 15th.
66. The relatives said, ""Susumu, your mother is dead so we'll have a funeral now, but you stay strong until your father comes home, you hear?"" I felt better. At least my father would come home.
67. Then it was my Grandma. She started feeling bad on the 25th or 26th. She opened her clothing and her skin's all covered in dark purple spots. ""What's that, Grandma?"" I say.
68. The next morning she says, ""Susumu get my sister."" Thinking it strange, I say I'll get her. When I get back, she's talking but I can't understand. It's not a voice. It sounds like she's gargling.
69. So I'm crying ""Grandma! Grandma!"" for about 30 minutes. She's still talking… saying something. She talked for 30 minutes and then fell quiet. This time, Grandma was dead.
70. Now I'm waiting for my father but there's no sign of him. I'm hoping that he comes home soon but then I slowly start to give up. He isn't coming home.
71. I started getting into mischief and my relatives began passing me around. One of the last places I was at was my aunt's - well my Grandma's sister's - in Tanna, out by Ujina.
72. While I was staying there, I think it was November, the police came: ""Is Susumu Kamurogi here?"" ""Is Shichizo Kamurogi your father?"" ""Yes, he is."" ""I'm real sorry but your father died in action.""
73. I felt as though someone had given me a good blow in the head. I ran into the house hollering, grabbed the bedding from the closet and piled it on top of me. I had to cry.
74. ""Oh, now I am in this world all alone. How am I going to live?"" I thought. Then in 1948, when I was in middle school, my uncle returned from Manchuria to Yanagawa, in Fukuoka.
75. [prejudice against hibakusha]
76. One thing led to another and I got a scholarship and got a university education. When it was time to get a job though, I'd pass the test but fail the interview. It happened 3 times in a row.
77. I thought about it. My resume says that I'm from Hiroshima and from the interview they'd know that I was in the bomb and had no family. If they did that today they'd be in big trouble.
78. In those days, your parents would help you out, not to mention 1957, 58 were bad years for getting jobs. Like today. So I thought of my cousin who married and came to Osaka.
79. My cousin had a jewelry shop in Matsubara so I wrote a letter asking if I could work there selling watches and jewelry. I had no skills but I did my best in sales.
80. [my message]
81. I would like the young people of today especially, to learn well about these things and listen to people who have experienced them. Know that if it happens again, it's going to be worse.
82. That's how far advanced science has become. The atomic bomb, too. How many died from Hiroshima? In the 10,000s, 100,000s? That's nothing now. It'll be multiple times that.
83. So please, think about the sacrifice and how bad it could be. The future generation needs to know that peace is a good thing to work towards at all times and speak against war.
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