At the end of World War I, the United States drew up the Washington Naval Treaty limiting the number of ships Japan could possess, to maintain control of the waters with American and British fleets. The Treaty and the subsequent oil embargo that the Japanese nation suffered from the United States served as a context for a Japanese fleet to launch an air attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, with which Japan and the United States would enter a state of war.
The American response was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ordered by the then-President of the United States, Harry Truman. That fateful August 1945 went down in history as the moment when the only massive nuclear attacks in history took place.
NAKANO Kenichi
There was one man still alive in the streetcar, and he asked for water.
Year of Birth: 1898
Age at time of blast: 47
Age when the image was created: 76
It is believed that by the end of that year, the bombs had killed 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki, of which it is estimated that half had died during the days of the bombings. Among the victims, 15 to 20 percent passed from injuries or illnesses attributed to radiation poisoning. The health consequences of diseases such as leukemia or different types of cancer continued due to the permanent radiation that took lives even after almost seven decades.
But as in these cases, the most heartbreaking testimony can only be told by the survivors, who keep in memory the images of the nightmare of waves of fire and heat that proved that the greatest threat to man is still himself.
KIYOYOSHI Gorō
One hour after the explosion: From a hill on the outskirts, we looked out over the city engulfed in flames.
Year of Birth: 1897
Age at time of blast: 48
Age when the image was created: 76
“Children of the Atomic Bomb”
“Children of the Atomic Bomb” was a project made by the American organization UCLA which was involved in the study of the effects of the nuclear attack during the decades following the event. Dr. James N. Yamazaki, a pediatrician, in conjunction with UCLA and the Center for Asian and American Studies, developed research on the so-called “children of the atomic bomb,” the survivors of the nuclear attack, which involves monitoring the physical development and the consequences of radiation on the brains of the people who saved their lives in the face of the tragedy.
Dr. Yamazaki was 33 years old in 1949 when he was appointed chief physician by the United States to study the effects of the bomb on the generations following the nuclear attack. The research revealed the vulnerability of children to this type of catastrophe, which led to the project “The Children of the Bomb,” a study of the physical consequences of this event: an increase in the incidence of cancer and the birth of individuals with malformations and mental retardation due to the development of diseased brain cells.
YAMASHITA Masao
Placing names on the injured before death at Honkawa Elementary School.
Year of Birth: 1909
Age at time of blast: 36
Age when the image was created: 66
Part of the research involved a series of drawings made by survivors. Dr. Yamazaki and his team asked the survivors, who were children at the time, to draw the most significant episodes they remembered from the tragedy. The drawings revealed the extent to which such an event penetrates children’s memories; as a pediatrician, Yamazaki is especially concerned with the images of terror that inhabit children’s minds for life and affect their emotional stability throughout their adult lives.
The drawings made by the now adults are graphic episodes of the terror they experienced during the fall of the bomb that destroyed “the human body, brain, and genes for generations.” Each drawing has a description of the image, the age of the person at the time of the tragedy, and the age when the drawing was made. The series was part of an exhibition for the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan.
KOBAYASHI Masao
They fled with arms raised like a procession of ghosts.
Year of birth: 1899
Age at the time of the explosion: 45
Age when the image was created: 74
With this research, it was determined that nuclear weapons constitute the greatest danger to humanity. The nuclear threat is present in the 21st century with the United States and Russia, two of the nations that possess the largest number of weapons of mass destruction in the world, but above all because of the struggle between countries for the control and manufacture of nuclear weapons, mainly in Asia, where the ghosts of the nuclear attacks of 1945 still haunt the population and their offspring.
More Drawings Made by the “Children of the Atomic Bomb”
TAKAHARA Yoshio
My friends died. They went bald. Their gums and fingertips bled, and they died.
Year of birth: 1911
Age at the time of the explosion: 34
Age when the image was created: 63
YOKOYAMA Yoshihisa
Night scene of the cremation of the dead in the riverbed.
Year of birth: 1913
Age at the time of the explosion: 32
Age when the image was created: 62
YAMASHITA Masato
August 31: My little brother died vomiting blood. His nose was bleeding, and his hair had fallen out. He had small red spots all over his body.
Year of birth: 1924
Age at the time of the explosion: 20
Age when the image was created: 50
TAKUMI Kasumi
The corpse of an American prisoner of war tied to the railing of a bridge.
Year of birth: 1930
Age at time of explosion: 15
Age when the image was created: 45
YAMADA Sumako
In a split second strange ring of lights spread over my head.
Year of birth: 1924
Age at the time of the explosion: 20
Age when the image was created: 49
ISHIKAWA Fumie
Dead pupils on the veranda of an elementary school. One dead boy was standing and leaning on an umbrella.
Year of birth: 1928
Age at the time of the explosion: 16
Age when the image was created: 46
This story was originally published in Spanish in Cultura Colectiva
