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Globe and Mail
2 days ago
- Politics
- Globe and Mail
Nagasaki atomic bombing marks 80th anniversary as survivors push for worldwide nuclear ban
The southern Japanese city of Nagasaki on Saturday marked 80 years since the U.S. atomic attack that killed tens of thousands and left survivors who hope their harrowing memories can help make their hometown the last place on Earth to be hit by a nuclear bomb. The United States launched the Nagasaki attack on Aug. 9, 1945, killing 70,000 by the end of that year, three days after the bombing of Hiroshima that killed 140,000. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945, ending World War II and the nearly half-century of aggression by the country across Asia. About 2,600 people, including representatives from more than 90 countries, attended a memorial event at Nagasaki Peace Park on Saturday, where Mayor Shiro Suzuki and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba spoke, among other guests. At 11:02 a.m., the exact time when the plutonium bomb exploded above Nagasaki, participants observed a moment of silence as a bell rang. 'Even after the war ended, the atomic bomb brought invisible terror,' 93-year-old survivor Hiroshi Nishioka said in his speech at the memorial, noting that many who had survived without severe wounds started bleeding from gums and losing hair and died. 'Never use nuclear weapons again, or we're finished,' he said. As Japan marks 80th anniversary of Hiroshima atomic bombing, survivors warn against nuclear threats Dozens of doves, a symbol of peace, were released after a speech by Suzuki, whose parents are survivors of the attack. He said that the city's memories of the bombing are 'a common heritage and should be passed down for generations' in and outside Japan. 'The existential crisis of humanity has become imminent to each and every one of us living on Earth,' Suzuki said. 'In order to make Nagasaki the last atomic bombing site now and forever, we will go hand-in-hand with global citizens and devote our utmost efforts toward the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realization of everlasting world peace.' Survivors and their families gathered Saturday in rainy weather at Peace Park and nearby Hypocenter Park, located below the bomb's exact detonation spot, hours before the official ceremony. 'I simply seek a world without war,' said Koichi Kawano, an 85-year-old survivor who laid flowers at the hypocenter monument decorated with colorful origami paper cranes and other offerings. Some others prayed at churches in Nagasaki, home to Catholic converts who went deep underground during centuries of violent persecution in Japan's feudal era. The twin bells at Urakami Cathedral, which was destroyed in the bombing, also rang together again after one of the bells that had gone missing following the attack was restored by volunteers. Despite their pain from wounds, discrimination and illnesses from radiation, survivors have publicly committed to a shared goal of abolishing nuclear weapons. But they worry about the world moving in the opposite direction. Aging survivors and their supporters in Nagasaki now put their hopes of achieving nuclear weapons abolition in the hands of younger people, telling them the attack isn't distant history, but an issue that remains relevant to their future. 'There are only two things I long for: the abolition of nuclear weapons and prohibition of war,' said Fumi Takeshita, an 83-year-old survivor. 'I seek a world where nuclear weapons are never used and everyone can live in peace.' In the hope of passing down the lessons of history to current and future generations, Takeshita visits schools to share her experience with children. 2024: Nobel Peace Prize goes to Japanese group of atomic bomb survivors 'When you grow up and remember what you learned today, please think what each of you can do to prevent war,' Takeshita told students during a school visit earlier this week. Teruko Yokoyama, an 83-year-old member of a Nagasaki organization supporting survivors, said that she thinks of the growing absence of those she had worked with, and that fuels her desire to document the lives of others who are still alive. The number of survivors has fallen to 99,130, about a quarter of the original number, with their average age exceeding 86. Survivors worry about fading memories, as the youngest of the survivors were too young to clearly recall the attack. 'We must keep records of the atomic bombing damages of the survivors and their lifetime story,' said Yokoyama, whose two sisters died after suffering illnesses linked to radiation. Her organization has started to digitize the narratives of survivors for viewing on YouTube and other social media platforms with the help of a new generation. 'There are younger people who are beginning to take action,' Yokoyama told The Associated Press on Friday. 'So I think we don't have to get depressed yet.' Nagasaki hosted a 'peace forum' on Friday where survivors shared their stories with more than 300 young people from around the country. Seiichiro Mise, a 90-year-old survivor, said that he's handing seeds of 'flowers of peace' to the younger generation in hopes of seeing them bloom. Survivors are frustrated by a growing nuclear threat and support among international leaders for developing or possessing nuclear weapons for deterrence. They criticize the Japanese government's refusal to sign or even participate in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as an observer because Japan, as an American ally, says it needs U.S. nuclear possession as deterrence. In Ishiba's speech, the prime minister reiterated Japan's pursuit of a nuclear-free world, pledging to promote dialogue and cooperation between countries with nuclear weapons and nonnuclear states at the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons review conference scheduled for April and May, 2026, in New York. Ishiba didn't mention the nuclear weapons ban treaty. 'Countries must move from words to action by strengthening the global disarmament regime,' with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or NPT, at the center, complemented by the momentum created by the nuclear weapons ban treaty, said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, in his message read by Under-Secretary-General Izumi Nakamitsu in Nagasaki. Nagasaki invited representatives from all countries to attend the ceremony on Saturday. The government in China notably notified the city that it wouldn't be present without providing a reason. The ceremony last year stirred controversy because of the absence of the U.S. ambassador and other Western envoys in response to the Japanese city's refusal to invite officials from Israel.
RNZ News
3 days ago
- General
- RNZ News
Tsutomu Yamaguchi: The man who survived both atomic bombs
By James Oaten , ABC News A nuclear bomb explodes over Nagasaki. Photo: Creative Commons There are not many people who have survived a nuclear attack. There is only one person who officially survived two. On this day, 80 years ago, young engineer Tsutomu Yamaguchi was telling his boss about the horrors he had seen in the Japanese city of Hiroshima when the room went blindingly white. "I thought the mushroom cloud had followed me from Hiroshima," he told UK Newspaper, The Independent . Yamaguchi was an engineer with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries when the United States dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yamaguchi, then 29, was in Hiroshima for a business trip when the bomb known as 'Little Boy' was deployed, killing tens of thousands in a flash, and leaving scores with burns so severe their skin draped off their bodies. The young engineer was around three kilometres from ground zero and suffered temporary blindness and deafness in one eardrum. After staying in a bomb shelter the first night with other survivors, he quickly made his way back to his hometown of Nagasaki. Then on 9 August, 1945, he went to work and told his colleagues about the horrors he saw. "When they realised that I had returned from Hiroshima, everyone gathered around me and said, 'I'm glad you're alive,' and 'great that you have survived,'" he recounted to Japanese broadcaster NHK. But his boss did not believe him. "He replied, 'You're badly injured, aren't you? Your head must be damaged too. I can't believe what you're saying. How could a single bomb destroy such a vast area like Hiroshima?'" Just at that moment, the United States dropped its second atomic bomb, known as 'Fat Man', killing some 40,000 people instantly. "I immediately recognised it as an atomic bomb," he told NHK. "I hid under a desk right away." The city of Nagasaki will pause today to remember the atomic blast that inflicted so much horror on the unsuspecting city. Within months, 74,000 people were dead after radiation sickness took hold. The bombing of Nagasaki is often overshadowed by the deadlier and earlier attack on Hiroshima, which killed some 140,000 people by year's end. Part of the tragedy of Nagasaki is it was not the original intended target. Two B-29 bombers were sent to destroy the industrial city of Kokura, which was a major hub for ammunition manufacturing. But the city was hidden under cloud cover, so the pilots diverted to their secondary target: Nagasaki. Tsutomu Yamaguchi in 2008. Photo: JIJI PRESS / AFP About 165 people are thought to have survived both atomic blasts, known as nijyuu hibakusha. But Yamaguchi is the only person to be officially recognised by the local governments of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For decades, he kept his unique story under wraps and worked a blue-collar job. Many atomic bomb survivors, known as hibakusha, feel compelled to speak out, hoping their experiences will spur the world to abandon nuclear weapons. But the family of Yamaguchi feared he looked too healthy, which would undermine the message of survivors. "My entire family opposed it," his daughter Toshiko Yamasaki explained at a peace conference in 2011. "If my father, who had survived two atomic bombings, engaged in peace activities, people might think, 'even after being exposed to radiation twice, he's still healthy, so the atomic bomb isn't scary.'" The destruction in Hiroshima after the nuclear explosion, on 6 August 1945. Photo: Supplied But Yamaguchi did suffer a lifetime of health problems, as is often the case for hibakusha due to radiation exposure. "My father had cataracts, was deaf in one ear, suffered from leukopenia, lost his hair for 15 years after the war, and had after-effects from burns," Toshiko explained. His family endured sickness, too. His wife and son died of cancer. It was only in his final decade that Yamaguchi started to speak more openly, hoping his ordeal would help in the fight against nuclear weapons. "I have walked and crawled through the bottom of hell," he told the ABC in 2009. "I should be dead. But it was my fate to keep on living." Irish journalist David McNeill was one of the last journalists to interview him before his death. "What struck me was how modest he was," he explained. "Like many hibakusha, he really didn't want to discuss his extraordinary life. He had to be pressed into it because he thought he was better off than many of the people who surrounded him, who were getting sick and dying from cancer." Yamaguchi died in 2010, aged 93. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were one of the final and most devastating acts of World War II. After the first nuclear attack, Japan would still not surrender, instead deciding to send a fact-finding team to the city after communications went dark. The second attack on Nagasaki was part of the American strategy to make Japan believe it had unlimited supplies of such bombs. Many historians argue the Soviet Union declaring war on Japan was more influential in securing Japan's surrender, as it suddenly exposed its entire unprotected north. Making a single uranium bomb that exploded over Hiroshima was incredibly challenging and chewed up much of the budget and resourcing of the multi-year Manhattan Project. Japan knew how challenging it would be. But the United States had also developed a plutonium bomb - far easier and cheaper than a uranium bomb. This is what detonated over Nagasaki. And the commander of the Manhattan Project boasted the United States could then create two or three atomic bombs a month to assist in the planned land invasion of Japan, scheduled for November 1945. "They had the capacity to make two or three bombs a month by that point," Professor Mordecai Sheftall from Shizuoka explains. "Because the plutonium production facilities in Hanford, Washington State, were going at full tilt." Japan finally surrendered on 15 August, but only after the emperor intervened and broke a deadlock in his war council. The army still wanted to fight on. There are few hibakusha left old enough to remember the blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the survivors are still determined to keep telling their stories. After all, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. "As a double atomic bomb survivor, I experienced the bomb twice," Yamaguchi told The Independent in 2010. "I sincerely hope that there will not be a third." - ABC News
Al Jazeera
5 days ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Hiroshima marks 80 years since atomic bombing
Thousands of people have gathered in Hiroshima to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the world's first wartime use of a nuclear bomb – as survivors, officials and representatives from 120 countries and territories marked the milestone with renewed calls for disarmament. The western Japanese city was flattened on August 6, 1945, when the United States dropped a uranium bomb, codenamed Little Boy. Roughly 78,000 people were killed instantly. Tens of thousands more would die by the end of the year due to burns and radiation exposure. The attack on Hiroshima, followed three days later by a plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki, led to Japan's surrender on August 15 and the end of the second world war. Hiroshima had been chosen as a target partly because its surrounding mountains were believed by US planners to amplify the bomb's force. At Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park on Wednesday, where the bomb detonated almost directly overhead eight decades ago, delegates from a record number of international countries and regions attended the annual memorial. Reporting from the park, Al Jazeera's Fadi Salameh said the ceremony unfolded in a similar sequence to those of previous years. 'The ceremony procedure is almost the same throughout the years I've been covering it,' Salameh said. 'It starts at eight o'clock with the children and people offering flowers and then water to represent helping the victims who survived the atomic bombing at that time. 'Then at exactly 8:15… a moment of silence. After that, the mayor of Hiroshima reads out the declaration of peace in which they call for the abolition of nuclear weapons around the world,' he added. Schoolchildren from across Japan participated in the 'Promise of Peace' – reading statements of hope and remembrance. This year's ceremony also included a message from the representative of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, urging global peace. Hiroshima's mayor, Kazumi Matsui, warned of the dangers of rising global militarism, criticising world leaders who argue that nuclear weapons are necessary for national security. 'Among the world's political leaders, there is a growing belief that possessing nuclear weapons is unavoidable in order to protect their own countries,' he said, noting that the United States and Russia still hold 90 percent of the world's nuclear warheads. 'This situation not only nullifies the lessons the international community has learned from the tragic history of the past, but also seriously undermines the frameworks that have been built for peace-building,' he said. 'To all the leaders around the world: please visit Hiroshima and witness for yourselves the reality of the atomic bombing.' Many attendees echoed that call. 'It feels more and more like history is repeating itself,' 71-year-old Yoshikazu Horie told the Reuters news agency. 'Terrible things are happening in Europe … Even in Japan, in Asia, it's going the same way – it's very scary. I've got grandchildren and I want peace so they can live their lives happily.' Survivors of the bombings – known as hibakusha – once faced discrimination over unfounded fears of disease and genetic effects. Their numbers have fallen below 100,000 for the first time this year. Japan maintains a stated commitment to nuclear disarmament, but remains outside the UN treaty banning nuclear weapons.
BBC News
7 days ago
- General
- BBC News
The BBC visits the Korean survivors of the Hiroshima bomb
At 08:15 on August 6, 1945, as a nuclear bomb was falling like a stone through the skies over Hiroshima, Lee Jung-soon was on her way to elementary now-88-year-old waves her hands as if trying to push the memory away."My father was about to leave for work, but he suddenly came running back and told us to evacuate immediately," she recalls. "They say the streets were filled with the dead – but I was so shocked all I remember is crying. I just cried and cried."Victims' bodies "melted away so only their eyes were visible", Ms Lee says, as a blast equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT enveloped a city of 420,000 people. What remained in the aftermath were corpses too mangled to be identified."The atomic bomb… it's such a terrifying weapon."It's been 80 years since the United States detonated 'Little Boy', humanity's first-ever atomic bomb, over the centre of Hiroshima, instantly killing some 70,000 people. Tens of thousands more would die in the coming months from radiation sickness, burns and devastation wrought by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – which brought a decisive end to both World War Two and Japanese imperial rule across large swaths of Asia – has been well-documented over the past eight well-known is the fact that about 20% of the immediate victims were had been a Japanese colony for 35 years when the bomb was dropped. An estimated 140,000 Koreans were living in Hiroshima at the time - many having moved there due to forced labour mobilisation, or to survive under colonial who survived the atom bomb, along with their descendants, continue to live in the long shadow of that day – wrestling with disfigurement, pain, and a decades-long fight for justice that remains unresolved. "No-one takes responsibility," says Shim Jin-tae, an 83-year-old survivor. "Not the country that dropped the bomb. Not the country that failed to protect us. America never apologised. Japan pretends not to know. Korea is no better. They just pass the blame - and we're left alone."Mr Shim now lives in Hapcheon, South Korea: a small county which, having become the home of dozens of survivors like he and Ms Lee, has been dubbed "Korea's Hiroshima".For Ms Lee, the shock of that day has not faded - it etched itself into her body as illness. She now lives with skin cancer, Parkinson's disease, and angina, a condition stemming from poor blood flow to the heart, which typically manifests as chest what weighs more heavily is that the pain didn't stop with her. Her son Ho-chang, who supports her, was diagnosed with kidney failure and is undergoing dialysis while awaiting a transplant."I believe it's due to radiation exposure, but who can prove it?" Ho-chang Lee says. "It's hard to verify scientifically - you'd need genetic testing, which is exhausting and Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) told the BBC that it had gathered genetic data between 2020 and 2024 and would continue further studies until 2029. It would "consider expanding the definition of victims" to second- and- third-generation survivors only "if the results are statistically significant", it said. The Korean toll Of the 140,000 Koreans in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing, many were from by mountains with little farmland, it was a difficult place to live. Crops were seized by the Japanese occupiers, droughts ravaged the land, and thousands of people left the rural country for Japan during the war. Some were forcibly conscripted; others were lured by the promise that "you could eat three meals a day and send your kids to school."But in Japan, Koreans were second-class citizens – often given the hardest, dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. Mr Shim says his father worked in a munitions factory as a forced labourer, while his mother hammered nails into wooden ammunition the aftermath of the bomb, this distribution of labour translated into dangerous and often fatal work for Koreans in Hiroshima. "Korean workers had to clean up the dead," Mr Shim, who is the director of the Hapcheon branch of the Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Association, tells BBC Korean. "At first they used stretchers, but there were too many bodies. Eventually, they used dustpans to gather corpses and burned them in schoolyards.""It was mostly Koreans who did this. Most of the post-war clean-up and munitions work was done by us."According to a study by the Gyeonggi Welfare Foundation, some survivors were forced to clear rubble and recover bodies. While Japanese evacuees fled to relatives, Koreans without local ties remained in the city, exposed to the radioactive fallout – and with limited access to medical care.A combination of these conditions - poor treatment, hazardous work and structural discrimination - all contributed to a disproportionately high death toll among to the Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Association, the Korean fatality rate was 57.1%, compared to the overall rate of about 33.7%.About 70,000 Koreans were exposed to the bomb. By year's end, some 40,000 had died. Outcasts at home After the bombings, which led to Japan's surrender and Korea's subsequent liberation, about 23,000 Korean survivors returned home. But they were not welcomed. Branded as disfigured or cursed, they faced prejudice even in their homeland."Hapcheon already had a leper colony," Mr Shim explains. "And because of that image, people thought the bomb survivors had skin diseases too."Such stigma made survivors stay silent about their plight, he adds, suggesting that "survival came before pride".Ms Lee says she saw this "with her own eyes"."People who were badly burned or extremely poor were treated terribly," she recalls. "In our village, some people had their backs and faces so badly scarred that only their eyes were visible. They were rejected from marriage and shunned."With stigma came poverty, and hardship. Then came illnesses with no clear cause: skin diseases, heart conditions, kidney failure, cancer. The symptoms were everywhere - but no-one could explain time, the focus shifted to the second and third generations. Han Jeong-sun, a second-generation survivor, suffers from avascular necrosis in her hips, and can't walk without dragging herself. Her first son was born with cerebral palsy."My son has never walked a single step in his life," she says. "And my in-laws treated me horribly. They said, 'You gave birth to a crippled child and you're crippled too—are you here to ruin our family?'"That time was absolute hell."For decades, not even the Korean government took active interest in its own victims, as a war with the North and economic struggles were treated as higher wasn't until 2019 - more than 70 years after the bombing - that MOHW released its first fact-finding report. That survey was mostly based on response to BBC inquiries, the ministry explained that prior to 2019, "There was no legal basis for funding or official investigations".But two separate studies had found that second-generation victims were more vulnerable to illness. One, from 2005, showed that second-generation victims were far more likely than the general population to suffer depression, heart disease and anaemia, while another from 2013 found their disability registration rate was nearly double the national this backdrop, Ms Han is incredulous that authorities keep asking for proof to recognise her and her son as victims of Hiroshima."My illness is the proof. My son's disability is the proof. This pain passes down generations, and it's visible," she says. "But they won't recognise it. So what are we supposed to do - just die without ever being acknowledged?" Peace without apology It was only last month, on July 12, that Hiroshima officials visited Hapcheon for the first time to lay flowers at a memorial. While former PM Hatoyama Yukio and other private figures had come before, this was the first official visit by current Japanese officials."Now in 2025 Japan talks about peace. But peace without apology is meaningless," says Junko Ichiba, a long-time Japanese peace activist who has spent most of her life advocating for Korean Hiroshima points out, the visiting officials gave no mention or apology for how Japan treated Korean people before and during World War Two. Although multiple former Japanese leaders have offered their apologies and remorse, many South Koreans regard these sentiments as insincere or insufficient without formal Ichiba notes that Japanese textbooks still omit the history of Korea's colonial past - as well as its atomic bomb victims – saying that "this invisibility only deepens the injustice".This adds to what many view as a broader lack of accountability for Japan's colonial Jeong-gu, director of the Red Cross's support division, said, "These issues... must be addressed while survivors are still alive. For the second and third generations, we must gather evidence and testimonies before it's too late."For survivors like Mr Shim it's not just about being compensated – it's about being acknowledged."Memory matters more than compensation," he says. "Our bodies remember what we went through… If we forget, it'll happen again. And someday, there'll be no one left to tell the story."
SBS Australia
02-08-2025
- General
- SBS Australia
Tess escaped the world's first atomic bomb. Here's what she wants the world to know
Sitting in her Melbourne lounge room, Tetsuko 'Tess' McKenzie flips through faded photographs with her family. But one image has never left her mind — the blinding flash of 6 August 1945 when she witnessed the world's first nuclear bomb strike the Japanese city of Hiroshima. "I was standing on a railway platform when suddenly a strong white light flashed into my eyes," the 96-year-old told SBS News. "And I turned to my friend and asked her, 'What is that?'" "The next thing we heard was a tremendous noise, and then, in a gap between the hills, we saw white smoke rising. Gradually, it formed into a mushroom shape." Tetsuko 'Tess' McKenzie (left) looking at old photos with her granddaughter Eri Ibuki. Source: SBS / Scott Cardwell McKenzie was a teenager when she witnessed the devastating moment the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It was nearly eight decades ago but memories of the event are forever etched into her mind. The 16-year-old was on the way to the city to watch a movie with a friend. By an extraordinary twist of fate, they missed their train — a narrow escape that to this day she gives thanks for. "Oh yes, if we had caught that scheduled train, we would have been right in Hiroshima when the bomb fell," she said. Nicknamed 'Little Boy', the atomic bomb caused widespread destruction and was a major factor in Japan's surrender which ended World War Two. "We had no idea what it was. Then at around midday, the radio stations announced that a bomb fell on Hiroshima," McKenzie recalled. A slightly larger plutonium bomb exploded over Nagasaki three days later, causing more destruction. The explosion marked the first use of atomic weapons in warfare and had a profound impact on the course of history. Credit: Getty An estimated 214,000 lives were lost in the two bombings by the end of 1945, with a majority of deaths occurring in Hiroshima, while thousands more died later from radiation poisoning. "After we saw the cloud, we took another train towards the city but eventually that was stopped and the authorities put us off. We had to walk a long way home, and it took many hours," McKenzie said. Her family in their hometown of Kure, east of Hiroshima, believed she had perished in the blast and were later amazed when she returned home. "From then on, I started believing in God. And even these days, I thank God when I wake up every morning and before I go to sleep each night," she said. Even so, McKenzie and her family suffered the impacts of war. Their port city was razed by allied bombs. "Kure was burned out. The allied bombs fell all night until there was nothing left. "We hid in tunnels, and a night we heard the explosions. And I was crying 'I do not want to die here, I do not want to die." From Hiroshima to Melbourne: Journey of a 'war bride' McKenzie's life took another unexpected turn at 19 when she met an Australian soldier while working for the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces. "I thought to myself, 'Oh, he is good looking'. And he was very good-looking," she said with a giggle. Corporal Ray Murray McKenzie was 22, and soon after, the pair began courting. But it wasn't simple — Japanese girls had been warned to stay away from enemy soldiers. Australian soldier Ray McKenzie was stationed in Japan when he met Tetsuko. Source: Supplied / Tetsuko McKenzie "Some people did not like to see Japanese women with soldiers," McKenzie said. "But they slowly changed their minds when they learned that most Australians were very sincere and had warm hearts," she said. The couple married in 1952 and made a home in Melbourne, marking the beginning of McKenzie's life as a 'war bride' — a term used for women who married soldiers and immigrated to their partner's home country after the war. McKenzie said her husband's family made her feel welcome and helped her establish a new life in Australia, far from home. Tetsuko married Australian soldier Ray McKenzie in 1952 and moved to Melbourne. Source: Supplied / Tetsuko McKenzie But she missed her life in Japan and like many other war brides, worried she would never return. "Life was very hard at first, in this unknown place," she said. McKenzie was among more than 650 Japanese war brides who migrated to Australia after the end of World War Two. Some struggled to settle and McKenzie shared memories of a friend who was rejected by her mother-in-law. 'She suffered harsh treatment and was forced to do all the dirty work around the house," McKenzie said. Tetsuko McKenzie on her wedding day in 1952, in traditional Japanese attire. Source: Supplied / Tetsuko McKenzie McKenzie learned typing and soon started working for the Victorian health department. After decades of marriage, McKenzie lost her husband, Ray, 18 years ago. She remains close to her extended family, especially Eri Ibuki and Tahila Pynt. "When she first told us about her experience, we just couldn't believe it. And she still remembers every detail," granddaughter Ibuki said. "We are all very proud of nanna and the way she radiates happiness and peace. And we are so grateful to still have her with us today," Ibuki said. (Left to right) Eri Ibuki said she was surprised when Tetsuko McKenzie told her about witnessing the falling of the atomic bomb in 1945. Source: SBS / Scott Cardwell Like many young people of Japanese descent living in Australia, Ibuki and Pynt are eager to learn about their heritage and regret that, growing up, only English was spoken at home. "I would have loved to learn Japanese and it is definitely something that I would love my kids to learn, to better connect with their culture," said great-granddaughter Pynt, 21. "I plan to visit Hiroshima next year and look forward to touring the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum to learn more about the atomic bomb and the devastation that it caused. "I expect it to be heartbreaking, really, knowing that someone from my family lived through that." Tetsuko McKenzie loves to share her stories about her life in Japan with young students. Source: SBS / Scott Cardwell Masafumi Takahashi from the Association of New Elderly in Melbourne, a community group that aims to prevent social isolation among senior members, often brings young students to McKenzie's cozy home. "Her stories and experiences are just so precious and unique," Takahashi said. "It helps to understand about the destruction and the loss of life." McKenzie said the 80 th anniversary of the bombing is a time to reflect not only on the lives lost, but also on the broader consequences of atomic warfare — particularly as nuclear tensions rise in some parts of the world. "We must never forget what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "Yet countries keep making weapons to destroy people. "When I heard that World War Two had ended, I was very happy, but at the same time, so many people had lost their lives. "And what was it all for?" This story has been produced in collaboration with SBS Japanese
