Setsuko Thurlow. 13 years old at the time.Exposed to the bombing at Futabanosato, roughly 1.8 km from the hypocenter.She was struck by a flash like hundreds or thousands of magnesium strips burning all at once.At that moment, her body rose up into the air and she lost onsciousness.Her older sister and her nephew had died of full-body burns. She saw their corpses being handled like insignificant insects,but she was not able to shed a single tear. She kept blaming herself for that.In Canada, she engages with the nuclear problem through educational sites.The time for abolition of nuclear weapons has come. She tells how she wants everybody all over the world to take action for that purpose.

【Life prior to the Bombing】
In the spring of 1945, after the United States captured the islands of Tinian and Saipan,their aircrafts were able to hop in one hop to reach the cities in Japan.They started attacking Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya…most of the major cities. I understand about 60-70% of the cities had been attacked.But, nothing happened to us- we were beginning to wonder what was going on. We were very fearful.And of course, food was getting scarce; we hardly had decent meals, we yearned for decent meals and the sweets and so on.We had to darken our houses to make sure we don't get targeted by enemy airplanes.Only one room in the house, we were allowed to use, and we put heavy blankets on the windows…Life was not pleasant at all. We had to go to bed with clothes on just to be ready to dash to the shelter when we hear the siren.Although I was a grade 8 student, we hardly had any academic work in the classroom.We were mobilized to help the city and armies and we were taken to the farms, we did the rice planting, helping with the harvest.We were taken to a military factory where they made uniforms for soldiers, we made sure the buttons were at the right place.I think we went to another factory where we polished the guns and bullets and those things.End of that spring, I was chosen for a group of about 30 students to go to Army HQ where we learned how to decode secret messages.Can you imagine?! 13-year-old child dealing with such an important task!And after three weeks of training, we were able to work as full-fledged assistants.So, that very day, August 6th, that was our first day to work as full-fledged assistants at the Headquarters.

【Moment of the Blast】
That very morning, I met the girls in front of Hiroshima Station, and we marched to the Headquarters.We were on the second floor of the wooden building and we were having the morning assembly.Major Yanai said, "Girls, we gave you the training, you're well-trained. Prove your loyalty to the Emperor, do your best!"We said, "Yes sir! We will!" And at that moment, we saw the blueish white flash in the window.I remember the sensation of floating up in the air... but that's the end of my memory.When I regained my consciousness in the total darkness and silence, I found myself pinned under the collapsed building.I tried to move my body, but I couldn't, so I knew I was faced with death.But it's strange. I was very calm facing the death. I was not panic-stricken or anything.Then, I started hearing faint voices of my classmates around me.I couldn't see them in the total darkness, but they were asking, "Mother, Mother, help me," "God, help me."Then, all of a sudden, somebody touched my left shoulder from behind, and he shook my shoulder, and said,"Don't give up! Keep moving, keep pushing! I'm trying to free you!"He said, "You see some light coming from the left side? So, just crawl toward that as soon as possible as soon as I free you."Then, I just crawled away in the total darkness. By the time I came out of the building, it was on fire.For a moment, I looked back and thought of my friends... I must have said some prayer, I couldn't go back to that fire.That meant about 30 girls who were with me in the same room were burnt to death alive.

【At the Eastern Training Ground】
Then, my eyes got adjusted and began to see some moving objects coming closer to us.That was a procession of ghostly figures. I say 'ghostly figure' because they didn't look like human beings.Their hair was standing up. You couldn't identify their faces, they're burned. Their bodies were blackened, swollen, and bleeding.The flesh and skin were hanging from their bones, and they were raising above the level- over the level of the heart.And, they were slowly shuffling from the center part of the city to the outside of the city.Nobody was running, nobody was yelling. Nobody had that kind of physical, psychological strength.Just whispering, "Give me water. Water please, water please," - that's the level of the voice.And then they collapse onto the road or ground, and never to rise again.The worst grotesque situation was many people had affected eyes, eyeballs were hanging out or they're gone or in their hands.And the people on the ground with the burst stomach or their intestines stretching out, that was pretty gross.Anyway, a few of us survived from that building... carefully stepped over the dead bodies and escaped to the hillside.By the time we got to the hillside- at the foot of the hill, there was a military training ground...which was about the size of two football fields which was practically packed with the dead bodies and dying people.And there too, again, I witness the similar situation, just people begging for water.But not having the water, I mean, the soldiers were telling us not to give the water because that would quicken the death.A few of us wanted to do something, but we didn't have the bucket or the cups, so we went to the nearby streamand washed off our blood from our bodies, and we tore our blouses. We soaked them in the cold waterand then we rushed back to the dying people and put it over the mouth and they just sucked the moisture from that wet cloth.Pretty primitive rescue operation, but that's all we could offer.

【Death of Her Sister and Nephew】
Next morning, the soldier said, among the crowds on the hill, "Is there Nakamura Setsuko? Is there Nakamura Setsuko?"I said, "Here I am!" Then I saw my parents.You see, my father was out of town that day, he got up early in the morning and went near Miyajima to enjoy his hobby of fishing.From his boat he saw the rising mushroom cloud. My mother was doing the dishes after breakfast.She, too, was buried under a collapsed building, but she was rescued; she escaped to her brother's place in Fuchu area.But my sister, who visited us the day before, on Sunday with favorite Japanese sweets, o-hagi,she had enough ingredients to make nice o-hagi in the country. She wanted to please us so she brought it on Sunday and enjoyed it.My father was rather upset she came because the situation was dangerous at that time and he ordered her to get back to her place in the country as soon as possible.But she needed to go and see the medical doctor, so that was the major reason she came back to the city the night before.She and her child were walking over Yanagi-bashi, and of course there's nothing to protect them,and they were just... blackened, and burned and blackened, and swollen like this.She and her child were begging for water. But, the soldier told us not to give water because that would quicken the dying process.We wanted to respond to their plea, but by the time we were ready to give the water, their jaw and everything was so hard frozen,it was difficult to open, but I squeaked it open and put the water, and tried to put it in the mouth.But anyway, she lived for four days. In a way, that was... that was good, because they were suffering tremendously.The death relieved them from the agony. The child lived longer- I can't remember exactly how many days.When they died, soldiers came, they dug the hole in the ground, threw the bodies, poured the gasoline, threw the match...that's how they cremated my sister and her 4-year-old child.My parents, I just stood there, stunned without any emotional reaction. Just stunned. Just watched this most grotesque cremation.There was no human dignity or anything. They were treated like insects or animals or something.But, I remember that I couldn't shed tears at all.Well, an American psychologist who came to Hiroshima interviewed many survivors…and wrote a book called the Death in Life - pretty highly reputable book - and he said many things, many theories.One of the things he said was about psychic numbing. In such ultimate conditions, our psyche stops responding.We understand, we have cognitive skills functioning. That means, we can judge what's happening;if the fire is coming from this way, we have to escape that way- we have that intellectual knowledge, ability.But the emotional ability to respond to the horror such as that ceases.Cessation of human emotion: this was one of the theories he talked about in the book,and that really helped me to free my guilt feeling because that memory troubled me for a long time, thinking,"What kind of human being am I? My dear sister was treated like insects or something,but I didn't even do the normal human thing which is to shed tears, but I couldn't even do that."So, his theory freed me and I'm grateful to Doctor Lifton for that reason.

【Makurazaki Typhoon】
In mid-September, and I believe it was September 16th, Makurazaki typhoon came, and it was one of the worst typhoons we had.We were flooded and the downpour, the rain. I must have been outside so I came home just soaking wet.I had to wade through the filthy, dirty water with human feces and everything floating...I was very upset, and as soon as I came home, I just threw myself onto the floor. I started wailing- just crying.Just crying, and for the first time, I said to my parents, "Why did this happen to me?"I complained. I couldn't take it. I guess I was anticipating my parents' kind, supportive words, but instead my father said to me,"You're alive! You have life! You have parents! You have roof over you. What more? Stop complaining."That woke me up, I guess. All of a sudden I realized, "That's right. This is life. I'm alive! I could pinch myself and feel pain!"Anyway, that kind of realization took place. I got awakened to reality.So as I look back, that was a very important moment in my life. I woke up to reality and I have to live my life.I'm fortunate I'm alive.That was the very first time I felt sad and upset and angry and- yes!Everything, all the emotions, came out with a downpour of tears. It was a good thing, it was a healthy thing that happened.I think that must have happened to other survivors at a different time, in different circumstances.But to me, that came rather early- About one month later, in mid-September. That was a very important moment in my life, I think.

【Acute Radiation Syndrome】
In mid-September, we received word from somebody that my school, Hiroshima Jogakuin, is going to open the school. I was so happy.But, those friends started disappearing one by one. Some students started coming to school with a bonnet– bokuzukin, we called it.I wondered why; the war had ended, we don't need to, but they're wearing them.It's because they're bald-headed, they wanted to hide the baldness. Many lost all their hair as a result of exposure to radiation.I lost some too, not completely.The teacher takes the attendance; "Miss So-and-So died two days ago. So-and-so passed away three days ago."So, my friends, who survived, who were rejoicing the survival, started disappearing.And then there was a rumor that if you have purple spots on your body, that was a sure sign you are to die. So, in those days,first thing we did was, before we got dressed, we checked every part of our body to make sure there was no purple spots.It was a very fearful time.My uncle and my aunt who were evacuated to Ushita-machi, that's almost outside of the city, they survived.They didn't have any cuts or anything, we rejoiced their survival.But suddenly, both of them became sick with purple spots all over their body. And within a week, both of them died.My mother and my father looked after them. According to my mother, who cared for them,they needed the diapers because their internal intestines seemed to be rotting and coming out as a thick black liquid.I think a medical professional can explain this too is the effect of radiation on the human body. Many people died this way.

【Bikini Atoll Incident】
I spent 10 years at Hiroshima Jogakuin, and after graduating from university in 1954,
I was offered a scholarship to go to the US and study social work.And it was 1954, that was a special year for the world but especially for the Japanese,because the US experimented- tested, I should say- the biggest hydrogen bomb at the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific.That killed one fisherman, made all the crew members of the Japanese fishing ship sick, covered with ashes of death, we call it.The islanders of Bikini became very sick, and it affected the environment badly.Japanese people felt, "Not only Hiroshima, not only Nagasaki, now Bikini. The United States has to stop testing."So, all of Japan was just bubbling with fury and anger. And that's the time I arrived in the US. There was a press conference.They wanted my opinion about what happened in Bikini, what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I honestly shared my thoughts.And the next day, a newspaper wrote my opinion and I started receiving unsigned hate letters at the school.So the president had to protect me, or the hate-letters had to be delivered to the president, not to me.Anyway, that was an eye-opening experience.It was a frightening experience- I just arrived in the United States! And then, such a hostile reaction I received.I wondered if I should put the zipper on my mouth and pretend I experienced nothing like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, but I just couldn't.I just have to be true to myself, true to the world, and I realize it was my responsibility that I talk about that experience.Not because I want sympathy, but as a warning to the world. That was just the beginning of the nuclear age.The worst could possibly come, and I wanted the world to be wakened up to reality.So, that was my first important milestone in the United States.

【Relationship between Canada and the Bomb】
When I went to Canada, I found the people there were rather indifferent, aloof to this issue.They treated it as though nuclear issue is an issue between Americans and Japanese without realizing this was a universal issue.I had to point out to Canadians, "Look, it was Canadian uranium which was used on the bomb dropped on us,and Canadian scientists were involved in the Manhattan Project as well.The Canadian Prime Minister wrote in his diary, he was glad those were used on Japanese, not on the white race of Europe."And, I pointed these things out, and many of the Canadians were just stunned, they didn't realize these kind of things.

【Anti-nuclear Campaign】
I did some graduate work at the University of Toronto, and I became a social worker, and by then my children were growing up,and so I was quite busy. I was not fully engaging in peace activities, although I responded to all the requests for speeches.Then, in 1974, I came to Hiroshima to attend the World Conference against the Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb.I met many of the survivors at that conference and they were getting old and frail, but they had steely determination;they were really committing themselves for the nuclear disarmament issue. And that really inspired me.The first time, I had a terrible way I was introduced to the American society, and now, in Hiroshima,I was meeting all those people who were determined to do something about this maddening nuclear arms race, and they inspired me.I realized, although I play many roles, as mother, as wife, as a social worker, and so forth,my identity as hibakusha has to be the core of my life. It has to be the central core.And that's when my attitude changed for this nuclear activism.Until then, I guess I was responding to requests, but now, I felt I have to reach out to people to find the opportunity.I have to go to people, instead of waiting for people to come to me. There is a definite attitudinal change.So, this is another milestone in my life, I think, in activism.

【Importance of Passing on the Experience】
I think it's very important for us to tell our experiences,because the world has to know what a horrible nuclear weapon we have developed.We are the only ones who have experienced it - we have to tell the world about it.But, just to talk about the personal experiences alone is not good enough.We have to do some study, and to be able to interpret our experience in the historical context. That, I think, is important.By doing that, I think it will be more effective in communicating with people who have no idea what Hiroshima and Nagasaki meant.We hibakusha are committed to share our experience with the world.And we want to make sure, no other human beings would ever have to repeat what we experienced.It was a terrible, indiscriminate attack on humanity. Immoral, inhumane experience.I think it's important not only for us to be able to just talk about how we escaped, but what meaning we found in our survival.For me, the meaning for that is my sense of mission to speak out to the world about the danger of nuclear weapons.Of course, this is not just the responsibility of survivors.The world has a pretty good idea what kind of world the nuclear age is.We have lived 70 years with the nuclear weapon. We simply have to get rid of them.It's not fair to pass them on to the future generation;we have the moral responsibility for the future generation to pass on a safe, clean, and just world.So, as I said, not only the hibakusha, this is the shared responsibility to produce, create that kind of world to pass it on.