When Mr. Tanimoto, with his basin still in his hand, reached the park, it was very crowded, and to distinguish the living from the dead was not easy, for most of the people lay still, with their eyes open. To Father Kleinsorge, an Occidental, the silence in the grove by the river, where hundreds of gruesomely wounded suffered together, was one of the most dreadful and awesome phenomena of his whole experience. The hurt ones were quiet; no one wept, much less screamed in pain; no one complained; none of the many who died did so noisily; not even the children cried; very few people even spoke. And when Father Kleinsorge gave water to some whose faces had been almost blotted out by flash burns, they took their share and then raised themselves a little and bowed to him, in thanks.
John Hersey
At the time of the Post-War, the marvelous thing in our history happened. Our Emperor broadcasted his own voice through radio directly to us, common people of Japan. Aug. 15th we were told that some news of great importance could he heard & all of us should hear it. So I went to Hiroshima railway station. There set a loud-speaker in the ruins of the station. Many civilians, all of them were in boundage, some being helped by shoulder of their daughters, some sustaining their injured feet by sticks, they listened to the broadcast and when they came to realize the fact that it was the Emperor, they cried with full tears in their eyes,What a wonderful blessing it is that Tenno himself call on us and we can hear his own voice in person. We are thoroughly satisfied in such a great sacrifice.When they came to know the war was ended—that is, Japan was defeated, they, of course, were deeply disappointed, but followed after their Emperor’s commandment in calm spirit, making whole-hearted sacrifice for the everlasting peace of the world—and Japan started her new way.
Wonderful reconstruction of the immediate aftermath of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb, viewed through the memories and experiences of a handful of survivors. I started it several times before I could finish reading because it is very moving. I think what impressed me most about the story was the stoicism of the people, how they accepted the catastrophe without knowing its true cause and helped each other until outside assistance arrived.
There are some parallels with the current pandemic, which for the average person can also seem like an unforeseen event outside their control – and, because this virus has never before infected humans, expert advice can be scarce and contradictory as more evidence is uncovered. Unlike the nuclear bombs, pandemics are a relatively common occurrence in our society, so some basic health measures can still hold true (better hygiene, identifying and isolating infected individuals). There is little excuse for panic and selfishness at a time like this. The contrast between many in Western counties and the Hiroshima survivors cannot be starker.
A surprising number of the people of Hiroshima remained more or less indifferent about the ethics of using the bomb. Possibly they were too terrified by it to want to think about it at all. Not many of them even bothered to find out much about what it was like. Mrs. Nakamura’s conception of it—and awe of it—was typical.
The atom bomb, she would say when asked about it,is the size of a matchbox. The heat of it was six thousand times that of the sun. It exploded in the air. There is some radium in it. I don’t know just how it works, but when the radium is put together, it explodes.As for the use of the bomb, she would say,It was war and we had to expect it.And then she would add,Shikata ga nai, a Japanese expression as common as, and corresponding to, the Russian wordnichevo:It can’t be helped. Oh, well. Too bad.Dr. Fujii said approximately the same thing about the use of the bomb to Father Kleinsorge one evening, in German:Da ist nichts zu machen. There’s nothing to be done about it.
Father Kleinsorge and the other German Jesuit priests, who, as foreigners, could be expected to take a relatively detached view, often discussed the ethics of using the bomb. One of them, Father Siemes, who was out at Nagatsuka at the time of the attack, wrote in a report to the Holy See in Rome,
Some of us consider the bomb in the same category as poison gas and were against its use on a civilian population. Others were of the opinion that in total war, as carried on in Japan, there was no difference between civilians and soldiers, and that the bomb itself was an effective force tending to end the bloodshed, warning Japan to surrender and thus to avoid total destruction. It seems logical that he who supports total war in principle cannot complain of a war against civilians. The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good might result? When will our moralists give us a clear answer to this question?
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