“They were delirious, begging for water. Those whose backs were burned lay on their stomachs, and those whose front was burned lay on their back. They could not even move to change their position. Their wounds and burns were covered with countless flies laying eggs there. Those eggs hatched into maggots, and these crawled all over their bodies causing them infernal agony."
-Hiroshi Sawachika, then a 28-year-old army doctor. Her testimony was taken as a part of a collection named The Spirit of Hiroshima.
On my sixteenth birthday, I asked my mother to take me to Hiroshima. I felt I had grown enough to finally understand what had happened to the country I loved so deeply. As the granddaughter of a victim of Hiroshima, I had a feeling of responsibility to learn what had happened on August 6, 1945. The people who died and bled on the streets of Hiroshima, as well as those in hospitals due to the bomb’s radiation, were part of my narrative. Those affected were civilians, victims not only of U.S. aggression but of Japanese imperialism itself. For my sixteenth birthday, I was cocky enough to believe that visiting Hiroshima would allow me to have a greater sense of closure.
When I arrived in Hiroshima, I walked off the bus with my mother towards the Atomic Bomb Dome. A crumbling structure, the dome is the only building left standing near the hypocenter of the bomb’s blast. Every year thousands gather at the iconic dome to commemorate the day that forever changed the world. As I paid my respects to the site, Japanese citizens walked silently. Those around me were visibly attempting to conceal the overwhelming emotions they felt. They stood with arms crossed and glazed pupils. The Japanese viewers tried to absorb the presence of the dome as if it were just a piece of art in a gallery.
Continuing our journey, my mother and I walked over to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Inside I had hoped to see art and photographs representing the tragedy of the atomic bombing. Rather, I was surprised to enter a dimly lit room in which you are greeted with three sculptures of Japanese citizens, their skin melting and their clothes tattered. They walked in a burning city, seeming as though they were in search of something. Whether or not that “something” still existed or was alive, the people looked as though they had been walking for days. I grabbed my mother’s hand and continued to journey into the main floor. Today is not going to be easy, I thought.
Akiko Takakura, a 20-year-old at the time, was near the hypocenter, or "ground zero" of the bomb. “What I felt at that moment was that Hiroshima was entirely covered with only three colors. I remember red, black and brown, but nothing else. Many people on the street were killed almost instantly. The fingertips of those dead bodies caught fire and the fire gradually spread over their entire bodies from their fingers. A light gray liquid dripped down their hands, scorching their fingers.” Those who found shelter after the explosion entered a strange, hideous world where everyone's hair was literally fried and human shadows were etched onto stone.
All around me were Japanese people crying into handkerchiefs. Silently sobbing into her hands, a woman spoke in Japanese, narrating the day in which Hiroshima was destroyed. Robotically, she spoke to the gathered crowd. “On August 6, 1945, the American military dropped the first ever atomic bomb used in combat on the city of Hiroshima… Nothing was left. Hundreds of thousands of people died and Hiroshima will always have a scar that generations will carry forever.” I deepened my grip on my mother’s hand, feeling as if all eyes were on me. The only person who didn’t look visibly Japanese, I could tell that to the museum goers, I represented the aggressive Americans who killed innocent Japanese people as if it were a show. I was their vessel on which to project their anger. It was a responsibility I never asked for. I felt the urge to yell in Japanese that I was one of them, that I felt their pain, and that I was not American. I deserved to mourn the bombing of Hiroshima as much as they did.
So many had, in an instant, lost those dearest to them. Eiko Taoka, then twenty-one years old, was carrying her one-year-old infant son in her arms aboard a streetcar. He didn't survive the day. "I think fragments of glass had pierced his head," she recounts. "His face was a mess because of the blood flowing from his head. But he looked at my face and smiled. His smile has remained glued in my memory."
Displayed in the museum were fingernails that had fallen off of bodies, loose skin, torn clothing, and miscellaneous items. I remember seeing a pair of glasses, a bag, and an ID from a teacher sitting in a glass case. “Mrs. Koharu Hirakawa was a teacher at Hijiyama Elementary School. She was exposed to the bombing while riding on a truck carrying the belongings of her pupils to the evacuation site in the countryside. Her body was never found, but her belongings were handed over to her son about 4 months later.” I imagined a woman, a teacher like my mother, being obliterated by the heat, her body turned to ash and swept into the black air that engulfed Hiroshima. Her son must have wondered where his mother was and whether or not she was safe. He must have run to the river, looking to see if any of the bodies floating in the water was his mother. Months passed without her and with lowered hope, he received some of his mother’s belongings. The days dragged on but still he had received something of his mother that could bring him some ease. In the months and years following the blast, thousands of stories similar to those of Koharu Hirakawa and her son were not unique. I walked to see hundreds more pieces exemplifying the power of the attack, not only in killing civilians but destroying families. There was no way to escape the grip of the bomb’s might.
I walked out of the museum trying to conceal the fact that I had cried through the whole exhibit. I felt as though I needed to remain silent for the rest of the day; my core felt rattled. By the exit stood a table with petitions to end nuclear proliferation. I grabbed a pen out of my mother’s Pokemon pencil case and signed a petition, stuffing it into a nearby box filled with the signatures of other museum visitors. How could anyone support causing pain and suffering like that I saw in the museum? I thought. My mother and I left the building together, trying to make our way downtown. As I felt the cool air of March hit my skin, I grabbed onto my mother, guiding her to a nearby bench. “What are we doing here, Kimika?” she asked. Silently, I rested myself on her lap and allowed tears to flow out of my eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m so pathetic. Let’s go.”
A few days later, I flew back to New York. On my way from Narita to JFK, I had fourteen hours to reflect on what had occurred during my trip to Japan. I was happy that I made Hiroshima an important part of my visit, but I felt anger towards the United States, Japan, and my mother. I felt that the government of the United States, both now and then, was apathetic towards the death and destruction it had caused in the city of Hiroshima. The U.S. continues to refuse Japan an apology for its nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even as Obama visited the same memorial I had. I was angry at my mother for having a child with a Turkish man, making me look like a foreigner to the country I was so connected to. I wanted people in Japan to accept me as one of them without questioning my legitimacy. Why wouldn’t Japan see me as one of them, rather than seeing me as the perpetrator of their wounds? I felt as though Japan was rejecting me, shaming me for taking part in their history because I lacked “purity.” Holding multiple identities, I felt like I always had to speak on a group’s behalf while being simultaneously ostracized from it. In Hiroshima, this feeling had never been more prevalent than it had been anywhere else. I represented the perpetrators and the victims of the atrocities of Hiroshima. In Hiroshima, there was nowhere to hide from my past.