From:
[email protected] (Gary S. Trujillo)
Newsgroups: alt.activism,soc.culture.japan
Subject: Hiroshima Survivors' Accounts (9 of 16) [was Re: Universal Peace Day]
Date: 4 Aug 90 21:04:15 GMT
Organization: gst's 3B1 - Somerville, Massachusetts
90/07/30 11:17:53 SYSOP HIROSHIMA_WITNESS_No.3-2
Mr. Yoshitaka Kawamoto was thirteen years old. He was in the
classroom at Zakoba-cho, 0.8 kilometers away from the hypocenter.
He is now working as the director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial
Museum, telling visitors from all over the world what the atomic
bomb did to the people of Hiroshima.
Kawamoto: One of my classmates, I think his name is Fujimoto, he
muttered something and pointed outside the window,saying, "A B-29
is coming." He pointed outside with his finger. So I began to
get up from my chair and asked him, "Where is it?" Looking in
the direction that he was pointing towards, I got up on my feet,
but I was not yet in an upright position when it happened. All
I can remember was a pale lightening flash for two or three
seconds. Then, I collapsed. I don t know much time passed
before I came to. It was awful, awful. The smoke was coming in
>from somewhere above the debris. Sandy dust was flying around.
I was trapped under the debris and I was in terrible pain and
that s probably why I came to. I couldn't t move, not even an
inch. Then, I heard about ten of my surviving classmates singing
our school song. I remember that. I could hear sobs. Someone
was calling his mother. But those who were still alive were
singing the school song for as long as they could. I think I
joined the chorus. We thought that someone would come and help us
out. That t why we were singing a school song so loud. But
nobody came to help, and we stopped singing one by one. In the
end, I was singing alone. Then I started to feel fear creeping
in. I started to feel my way out pushing the debris away little
by little, using all my strength. Finally I cleared the things
around my head. And with my head sticking our of the debris, I
realized the scale of the damage. The sky over Hiroshima was
dark. Something like a tornado or a big fire ball was storming
throughout the city. I was only injured around my mouth and
around my arms. But I lost a good deal of blood from my mouth,
otherwise I was Ok. I thought I could make my way out. But I
was afraid at the thought of escaping alone. We had been going
through military drills everyday, and they had told us that
running away by oneself is an act of cowardice, so I thought I
must take somebody along with me. I crawled over the debris,
trying to find someone who were still alive. Then, I found one
od my classmates lying alive. I held him up in my arms. It is
hard to tell, his scull was cracked open, his flesh was dangling
out from his head. He had only one eye left, and it was looking
right at me. First, he was mumbling something but I couldn't
understand him. He started to bite off his finger nail. I took
his finger out from his mouth. And then, I held his hand, then
he started to reach for his notebook in his chest pocket, so I
asked him, I said, "You want me to take this along to hand it
over to your mother?" He nodded. He was going to faint. But
still I could hear him crying out, saying "Mother, Mother" I
thought I could t take him along. I guess that his body below
the waist was crashed. The lower part of his body was trapped,
buried inside of the debris. He just adhered to go, he told me
to go away. And by that time, another wing of the school
building, or what used to be the school building, had caught on
fire. I tried to get to the playground. Smoke was filling in
the air, but I could see the white sandy earth beneath. I thought
this must be the playground, then I started to run in that
direction. I turned back and I saw my classmates Wada looking at
me. I still remember the situation and is still appears in my
dreams. I felt sorry for him, but it was the last time I ever
saw him. I, so, was running, hands were trying to grab my ankles,
they were asking me to take them along. I was only a child then.
And I was horrified at so many hands trying to grab me. I was in
pain, too. So all I could do was to get rid of them, it s
terrible to say, but I kicked their hands away. I still feel bad
about that. I went to Miyuki Bridge to get some water. At the
river bank, I saw so many people collapsed there. And the small
steps to the river were jammed, filled with people pushing their
way to the water. I was small, so I pushed on the river along
the small steps. The water was dead people. I had to push the
bodies aside to drink the muddy water. We didn't know anything
about radioactivity that time. I stood up in the water and so
many bodies were floating away along the stream. I can t find
the words to describe it. It was horrible. I felt fear.
Instead of going into the water, I climbed up the river bank. I
couldn't move. I couldn't find my shadow. I looked up. I saw
the cloud, the mushroom cloud growing in the sky. It was very
bright. It had so much heat inside. It caught the light and it
showed every color of the rainbow. Reflecting on the past, it s
strange, but I could say that it was beautiful. Looking at the
cloud, I thought I would never be able to see my mother again, I
wouldn't be able to see my younger brother again. And then, I
lost consciousness. When I came to, it was about seven in the
evening. I was the transportation bureau at Ujina. I found
myself lying on the floor of the warehouse. And an old soldier
was looking in my face. He gave me a light slap on the cheek
and he said, "You are a lucky boy." He told me that he had gone
with one of the few trucks left to collect the dead bodies at
Miyuki Bridge. They were loading bodies, treating them like
sacks. They picked me up from the river bank and then, threw me
on top of the pile. My body slid off and when they grabbed my by
the arm to put me back onto the truck, they felt that my pulse
was still beating, so they reloaded me onto the truck, carrying
the survivors. I was really lucky. But I couldn't stand for
about a year. I was so weak. My hair came off, even the hair in
my nose fell out. My hair, it s started to come off about two
weeks later. I became completely bald. My eyes, I lost my eye
sight, probably not because of the radioactivity, but because I
became so weak. I couldn`t see for about three months. But I was
only thirteen, I was still young, and I was still growing when I
was hit by the A-bomb. So about one year later. I regained my
health. I recovered good health. Today I m still working as you
can see. As the director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum,
today, I am handing my message over to the children who visit.
I want them to learn about Hiroshima. And when they grow up, I
want them to hand down the message to the next generation with
accurate information. I d like to see him conveying the right
sense of judgment so that we will not lead mankind to
annihilation. That is our responsibility. This has been
testimony by Mr.Yoshitaka Kawamoto.
--
Gary S. Trujillo
[email protected]
Somerville, Massachusetts {wjh12,spdcc,ima,cdp}!gnosys!gst
