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Japanese worry that memory of horrors of war will fade when last Hiroshima survivors are gone
BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - It's hard enough to get the attention of a bunch of noisy, opinionated journalists for even a few minutes, so it takes special skills to captivate them for an hour - which is what Keiko Ogura did.
On a cold, grey, rainy late November afternoon in Hiroshima, I was among 20 or so journalists from the Asia Pacific region who sat fixated by the diminutive 77-year-old, whose energy belies her age and her struggles.
Ogura-san (a title of respect) is one of the dwindling group of people, called hibakusha, who survived the world's first nuclear attack when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, reducing the thriving city to ashes.
"All of a sudden I experienced a very bright flash ... I was thrown to the ground and I became unconscious for a while," remembered the short-haired, bespectacled Ogura, who founded Hiroshima Interpreters for Peace in 1984.
"I saw other survivors. They had skin hanging off their bodies and their faces were swollen. It was so awful."
She was eight years old.
Marcel Junod from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was the first foreign doctor to reach Hiroshima. He wrote: "The centre of the city was a sort of white patch, flattened and smooth like the palm of a hand. Nothing remained."
The city was rebuilt and is thriving again, so much of it has no memories of the bomb, even though the enormity of what happened here almost 70 years ago is immortalised in the spacious Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
We were there for a regional conference organised by the ICRC that looked at the media's role in reporting on conflicts and disasters.
It was an apt location and a poignant reminder of the horrors of war as we discussed the challenges facing journalists covering humanitarian issues.
We worried that natural disasters and conflicts are occurring with alarming frequency. We felt this calls for more in-depth field reporting just when constraints in terms of resources and safety are increasing.
STORYTELLERS AGEING, DWINDLING
The death toll from the bomb was estimated at about 140,000 by the end of 1945, out of the city's population of 350,000. Many more have died in the intervening years and the elderly survivors are struggling with various illnesses.
I was privileged enough to interview another hibakusha during my stay in Hiroshima. Shigeaki Mori spent over 20 years tracking down the families of 12 American prisoners of war who died on that fateful day.
Both Mori-san and Ogura-san have come to terms with the past and forgiven the United States, like most hibakusha, who are vocal and powerful advocates for peace. Which is why there is mounting concern about the survivors.
There are around 200,000 hibakusha still living in Japan, according to Yumi Kanazaki, writer at the Hiroshima Peace Media Center, a wing of the local newspaper Chugoku Shimbun.
This may sound like a lot, but once you take out those who were too young to remember what happened, the number drops.
"Many hibakusha are ageing and the time to hear first-hand accounts is very limited. In 10 years from now, it will be extremely difficult to listen to these survivor stories," said Kanazaki, who has interviewed dozens of hibakusha in the past eight years.
"It's not just about history or looking back at the past. The nuclear danger is still there," she added.
Many ordinary Japanese I met were concerned that the current right-wing government would encourage revisionists. They also worry that the new generation of Japanese - and the rest of the world - may not understand the horrors of war when the hibakusha are no longer around to share their experiences.
Countries in Asia, including Myanmar, where I'm from, have a complex relationship with Japan because of its past military aggression, yet I share these worries and was grateful for the opportunity to meet these two incredible survivors.
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