Japan's atomic bomb survivors mark anniversary online

While sitting in front of a computer, Michiko Kodama spoke of a girl with her face half burned who was asking for her help with her eyes.

She was on her father's back heading home after a bomb was dropped over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 by a U.S. military plane.

"The girl collapsed and I think she probably passed away," Kodama said. "But even now, when I speak about her, I almost cry. It's the girl's sad, sad eyes."

Earlier that day at 8:15AM, she was in her classroom where she saw a bright light. Moments later the windows blasted shards of glass which had cut her. Her father came to pick her up at her school.

Now 82, she still hasn't forgotten the sight of Hiroshima she looked from the view of her father's back.

And 75 years later, memory of the discrimination she faced over the years since still weigh heavily.

She recalls an incident at the doctor's office, years after the atomic bomb had fallen. When Kodama gave her health insurance and her atomic bomb survivor's certificate to the receptionist lady, the receptionist whispered loud enough for others to hear - "she's a hibakusha," an atomic bomb victim.

A mother and her young daughter sitting next to Kodama heard what was said. They got up and moved away.

"In my heart, I still feel hurt from the discrimination, that is what sits the heaviest in my heart" she said. "Nuclear weapons that made us suffer for decades still exist. So to me the war isn't over."

The atomic bomb survivor was speaking to a number of young students and participants through an online video call to share her testimony.

Due to the widespread of COVID-19 throughout the country, a number of testimonial events and gatherings have been cancelled.

Mitsuhiro Hayashida, campaign leader of Hibakusha Appeal, organized the online testimony events. He wanted to share the stories of atomic bomb survivors to as many people as possible.

"When young people born and raised in such different places hear the same story in the same space, the question that comes up from a completely different angle and deepens the learning," Hayashida said.

Kodama's testimony was the third online event he helped to organize. On average, about 50 people have joined virtually from across Japan.

Hayashida is originally from Nagasaki. His grandfather was also a hibakusha in Nagasaki.

The U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki three days after Hiroshima, and Japan surrendered six days later, bringing to an end a bloody conflict that the U.S. was drawn into after Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

Kiyoshi Imaoka, a 21-year-old university student in Tokyo, was one of the participants of Kodama's testimony.

"I want to be a person who can carry on their stories even if I wasn't there at that time. I hope there will be more people like that and that more people will listen to their story and apply it to their own actions."

Kodama said there are worries that when the hibakushas are gone, the reality of their experiences will be forgotten, leaving just the number of casualties, no more than another number in history.

"Among the atomic bomb survivors, there is a sense of impending crisis that we don't have much longer to live," Kodama said. "In some form, we need to preserve our stories."

(Representative Image)(Image Credit Pixabay)