(Ok, let’s try this again. I had already almost finished this post the other day, but I guess I didn’t save it correctly, so I lost it.)
On Saturday, I taught my Mitaka group. We talked about many things. One of the students had seen my Hiroshima pictures on Flickr. During the class, she and another student both told me about a mutual friend, who survived the bombing of Nagasaki. Some of the details are too graphic and upsetting, But I thought the story was amazing. They told me the story in Japanese, and i wrote it in English on the whiteboard for them. Here is what they told me:
The second A-Bomb that the U.S. dropped on Japan was in Nagasaki. At the time, their friend was about 11 years old. She was in school that day, and at the moment the bomb hit, she had bent down under a table to pick up an eraser.
When she stood up, she saw that the walls and the ceiling of her school had been destroyed. She was burned, but because the desk was very thick, somehow, she survived.
As she was walking home, she saw many people she knew lying dead or barely alive in the street. The ones who were alive were begging for water. They had an unquenchable thirst.
She survived that day, and in fact is still reasonably healthy today. However, many of the stories I heard, which I won’t repeat here now, would make any reasonable person lose their appetite. People sometimes ask me: Do Japanese hate Americans because of what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? I usually say no, but I guess it depends on the person. In general, I don’t think so, but some people might. I don’t know. Should they? No one blamed me because I was an American. It was not about politics; Japan or the United States. It was more of a discussion about the fact that their friend was very fortunate, because she faced a very extreme and hellish moment, and yet she has lived a full life. But it makes me think about the wanton destruction of human life. And it continues to this day on every continent. And we all harbor conflict in our hearts, even if we call ourselves “peaceful” or “pacifists.”
I think we should really examine our hearts and try to understand the conflict and pain we all carry. And we should try to work together to build understanding and respect, if not equality, so that future tragedies may be avoided.
As I said the other day, I don’t want to sound preachy. Just sharing something that really affected me. It is one thing to talk about suffering. It is truly another thing to see the burned clothes of a schoolchild.
Perhaps war is necessary. Perhaps all things happen for a reason. I certainly believe that. But it doesn’t make it any less sad. And it is true that the Japanese military was extremely brutal and cruel. But, as they say, two wrongs don’t make a right. We must never forget…
Here is a picture the Atomic Bomb Dome In Hiroshima. The bomb was dropped not far from here. Most of the buildings were completely destroyed, but this building remained. The area is now a World Heritage Site, with a museum, monuments and memorials, and a beautiful park.
