'Don't let Hiroshima age': Hibakusha's will to immortalize A-bomb memories as ashes remain

The Mainichi

2 days ago

HIROSHIMA -- The arch-shaped cenotaph for atomic bomb victims, where the city of Hiroshima holds its annual Aug. 6 peace ceremony, may be one of the most iconic landmarks within Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. However, in an obscure corner of the park also lies the "Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound." Below a low grassy mound is a vault that contains the unclaimed ashes of over 70,000 A-bomb victims. Most of them are unidentified, and remain forgotten.
Toshiko Saiki, a late "hibakusha" survivor who lost 13 relatives to the A-bomb, was the de facto "guardian" of this memorial mound. She visited the mound almost every day for about 40 years, and kept cleaning up its surroundings until she collapsed from a stroke in 1998.
"Don't ever let Hiroshima age." These were the words she voiced constantly, as she fought against the dimming of war memories through steady, solo efforts based at the mound.
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At dawn on a mid-May day, Kazuko Watanabe, 81, was seen watering flowers and raking leaves before the "memorial mound for atomic bomb victims" at the peace park in Hiroshima's Naka Ward. The mound -- whose Japanese name "Genbaku Kuyo-to" translates as "atomic bomb memorial tower" -- was built by the city in 1955. It originated as an effort by citizens to memorialize innumerable corpses which were found near the hypocenter, and the city later took up the project.
Saiki had voluntarily visited the mound for roughly 40 years until she collapsed from a stroke in 1998. Watanabe, who succeeded the mound's cleaning work from Saiki, has been visiting the mound -- a 30-minute bicycle ride away from home -- almost every morning since 2002.
Watanabe herself has a sister-in-law whose ashes may be lying in the vault at the memorial mound. On the day of the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing, her sister-in-law Motoko did not return home after leaving for wartime student labor services. Her bones remain missing. Watanabe says, "The people who rest here haven't found their families, and can't grow any older. They strongly remind us that human beings ought not to meet the end of their life in such an undignified way."
On Aug. 6, 1945, Toshiko Saiki was staying at a relative's home on the outskirts of Hiroshima, and was later exposed to A-bomb radiation as she repeatedly entered the city center to search for her family. She lost 13 relatives in the period of two months. When she finally found her mother, what remained of her was part of her head, with the face burnt off, and a melted part of her eyeglasses stuck on it.
Saiki eventually learned of the memorial mound as she searched for other missing family members, and began to sweep its surroundings and pull weeds. She also found out that her mother-in-law was kept inside the memorial mound, and was able to receive her ashes.
Her cleaning efforts gained trust from city officials, and she was entrusted with the key to the basement vault. Inside, Saiki found a notebook with a list of some of the victims' names and addresses, and frantically phoned and searched for the family members. Thanks to such efforts, more and more people began to visit the mound in search for beloved ones, and families were able to "reunite" decades after the atomic bombing. A woman who received her husband's bones apparently whispered, "With this, I'm finally a widow." For many of the bereaved, time had stopped at the day of the atomic bombing.
Until her final years before her death aged 97 in 2017, Saiki had a habit of saying the following words:
"Hiroshima has no age."
She continued, "Whether it be 50 years, or 100 years on, as long as weapons capable of killing humans exist in this world, we shall not let Hiroshima grow any older."
Almost 10 years after her death, Saiki's words continue to resonate with a wide generation of people.
Motoo Nakagawa, 66, who has held fieldwork workshops in the peace park since 1994, and was good friends with Saiki, says he often spotted her at the bank of the Motoyasu River, which runs near the Atomic Bomb Dome. It is said that 80 years ago, immediately after the U.S. military dropped the A-bomb, many people seeking water had taken their last breath here. Buttons from school uniforms are said to remain at the river bottom even after several decades have passed, and Saiki collected them as precious keepsakes of the forgotten victims.
Nakagawa remembers Saiki saying, "Whether it be the ashes lying in the memorial mound, or the bottoms of rivers flowing in the city -- All of Hiroshima is frozen in time." He explains, "When Saiki said, 'We must not let Hiroshima age,' she meant that we must not forget the memory of that day 80 years ago."
Tomoko Nakajima, 68, former principal of an elementary school in the city of Matsubara, Osaka Prefecture, was also moved by Saiki's strong message. Inspired by her encounter with Saiki in 1980, when she supervised a school trip to Hiroshima as a rookie teacher, she created the song "Hiroshima has no age." All 15 public elementary schools in the city visit Hiroshima for an annual academic trip, and hold a commemoration ceremony where students sing the piece before the memorial mound. The song concludes with the lyrics, "I live on, telling the story of Hiroshima," which is sung twice. Nakajima says, "The first phrase refers to Saiki's legacy, but when the students sing the phrase a second time, I want them to voice it as their own determination."
Saiki held numerous talks, testifying her experiences as an atomic bomb survivor, in front of children who visited the memorial mound. The following is the message she wished to pass on to the next generation:
"All of us who are alive have a responsibility. It's important for each of us to play our own part, and do what we can do."