Global Hibakusha

Global Hibakusha
Hiroshima & NagasakiChoi Il Chul
Korea Atomic Bomb Casualty Association
Republic of Korea
Millennium Forum, New York, May 2000

My name is Choi Il Chul, president of the Korea Atomic Bomb Casualty Association.In the 20th century, the world experienced two world wars, in which the atomic bombing and Auschwitz are regarded as the worst mistakes and tragedies in history.Since atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 55 years, more than half a century, have passed.  Not only 320,000 survivors in Japan but thousands of them abroad are still suffering from mental and physical hardships caused by A-bomb diseases, isolation, aging and discrimination, etc.When Hiroshima was attacked by the A-bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, I was a twelve-year-old 6th grader of a primary school.  At that moment, I was at my older sister's home at 2-chome, Higashi Kannon-cho town which was about 1.3 km from the blast center.  I saw a flash like lightening outside the window near the entrance and the living room.  No sooner had I felt a shock so enormous as to collapse the two-story house than I fell unconscious.  I came to as I felt choking.  I suspected that a bomb might have hit a factory behind the house even though the air raid warning was lifted.  I wondered if it might have been an incendiary because I saw a brilliant flash.  As soon as I thought that it was an incendiary and I might be burned to death, I frantically moved my arms and legs.  Fortunately, I was saved uninjured under the space of a piece of leaning furniture.When my brother-in-law came back home from his work place, just after he rescued my sister, niece, myself and younger brother, fire approached.  We desperately ran away toward Koi.  If rescue had been delayed 2 to 3 minutes, we all might have been burned to death.  What I saw on our way to refuge was a hell on earth.My older brother was a seaman for the company of Osaka Merchant Ship.  He had been in Hiroshima for a one-month holiday.  On that day, he left home around 7:00 a.m. to go back to Osaka.  He met his friend on the way.  He decided to stay one more day in Hiroshima and got off the train.  He suffered the A-bombing in front of Fukuya department store, Hattchobori, about 300 m from the explosion center.  His upper body was burned by heat rays and he was blown down by blast.  After he came to, he desperately ran away toward Mt. Hiji.  On the way he fell and was rescued by soldiers and brought to a naval hospital in Edajima.  My parents searched for him and brought him back to his family on Aug. 27.  On Aug. 30, three days later, he died young at age 19.After I returned to Pusan, my hometown, in December of the year the war ended, I was confined to bed for two years for a kidney disease.My parents entered the city just after the bombing to look for my brother and were exposed to radiation.  My father died of stomach cancer three years after the bombing, and my mother died of the same disease five years after the bombing.  My younger brother has become disabled due to the shock of the bombing.According to a survey conducted by the Police Bureau of the then Ministry of Interior of Japan at the end of 1945, it was estimated that the number of Koreans who were victimized by the atomic bomb was 70,000 in Hiroshima and 30,000 in Nagasaki.  Of a total of 100,000, 50,000 were killed by the bomb and of the 50,000 survivors, 7,000 remained in Japan and about 43,000 returned to South Korea or North Korea.Within five years after they returned, among 9,900 people with heavy injuries, 6,930 (70%) died.  Also, 5,300 of the 16,500 with lighter injuries (32%), 7,100 among 16,000 with no apparent injuries (44%) died of diseases and in the Korean War.  It is estimated that there are about 10,000 survivors in South Korea.Now the membership of our association totals about 2,300.  Every year, we have new registrants who have obtained the Hibakusha certificate in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Recently, however, the death toll of the survivors has surpassed the number of new registrants, resulting in a decrease of the membership.The continuing development of nuclear weapons and nuclear tests have repeatedly destroyed nature and inflicted damage on humanity.  Nuclear weapons states have turned their back on the abolition of nuclear weapons, continuing to take the policy of threatening to use them against other countries.Once a war starts, all individuals or states will completely lose their rational senses.  It is, therefore, hard to foresee when a nuclear war could break out.On the occasion of the Millennium Forum, we Korean A-bomb victims will make an appeal with fresh determination to devote ourselves to ensure that nobody on earth will suffer the A-bomb damage and subsequent hardships we have sustained.1) Megaton-class hydrogen bombs are major arms in present nuclear arsenals.  Their destructive power is said to be equivalent to 1 million times that of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki type bombs.  If nuclear war takes place, it will lead to the annihilation of humankind and the last day of the earth.  We call on you to promote cooperation and exert utmost effort to establish lasting world peace in the 21st century by having the Three Non-nuclear Principles observed and abolishing nuclear weapons.The damage we, the A-bomb victims in Korea, have suffered, is the damage Japan inflicted on us during its colonial rule and the war of aggression.  As it waged the war of aggression, the State of Japan should take responsibility to make amends for the damage it caused and make post-war compensation to the victims.  Evading its responsibility is a violation of human rights.  We say that maintaining peace is less costly than dealing with the aftermath of war.We Korean victims demand that the Hibakusha Aid Law enacted in Japan in 1994 should be equally applied to the A-bomb survivors living abroad.  Discrimination against the same Hibakusha is a violation of human rights.  Thank you.

Global Hibakusha
Hiroshima & NagasakiKwak Kwin Hoon
Plaintiff, Lawsuit on Applying Relief Law to Atomic Bomb Victims Abroad
Republic of Korea
2001 World Conference against A & H Bombs, HiroshimaIt is said that about ten percent of those killed or injured in A-bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945 were South Koreans.  Because South Korea was in a turbulent period before and after its independence and there were subsequent disturbances, we, the South Korean A-bomb victims were left alone without any relief.  Many of us were plagued with disease, poverty and starvation and many died in destitution.When the relief program for Hibakusha was initiated in Japan after the enactment of two A-bomb laws, no relief was given to us, and the issue of compensation to South Korean A-bomb victims was not discussed in the Japan-Republic of Korea Treaty.  We, therefore, founded the South Korea Atomic Bomb Victims Association in 1967 and have been claiming compensation and relief from Japan, which was responsible for causing our suffering.The Japanese government has never dealt with us seriously, claiming that ?the issue of compensation has already been settled in the Japan-Republic of Korea Treaty.?  It was exactly 30 years after our exposure to the A-bomb when the Japanese government finally started to issue A-bomb victim certificates (Hibakusha Techo) to the South Korean A-bomb victims (after its defeat in the Son Jito trial in 1974).However, on July 22 the same year, when a South Korean A-bomb victim applied for a Hibakusha Techo, on that very same day, the Ministry of Health and Welfare went against the court ruling by submitting an official notice from the chief of the bureau stating that ?this Techo becomes invalid when the holder leaves Japan.?  Thereafter the Ministry even went so far as to ignore the Supreme Court ruling and for these 27 years has never admitted the A-bomb victims residing outside Japan as certified Hibakusha.  It was appalling to find that in law-governed Japan, the chief of bureau notice superceded the Supreme Court ruling.  During this time 90% of the South Korean A-bomb victims have died and now only 10% (or 2,200) people are left.When I was hospitalized in Osaka in May 1998, I was given a Hibakusha Techo and became eligible for a health management allowance to be paid for five years.  When I was about to go back to South Korea, I asked the Osaka prefectural office to pay the allowance to my bank account during my absence, their reply however was that I was no longer eligible for the allowance, since I forfeited my right by leaving the country.  We therefore filed a lawsuit on October 1 the same year and the ruling was completely in our favor.In the trial, the Japanese government and Osaka prefectural government gave various arguments, saying that the Relief Law was a social security law for Japanese and foreigners who were not paying tax were not eligible, or that the Law was established in the process of legislation based on the understanding that foreigners were to be excluded.  The Supreme Court justice however made an unequivocal decision, stating that ?since the Relief Law was a law made to provide relief to A-bomb victims, and considered from a humanitarian stand point, it shall aid all A-bomb victims regardless of their nationality, and the act of discriminating against those who have left the country from those who reside in Japan may be in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution.Soon after the court judgment, I went to Tokyo and met with leaders of political parties, the Justice Minister and the Health, Welfare and Labor Minister and strongly claimed that they should withdraw from appeal just as they did in the Hansen?s disease case 20 days ago.  The government however appealed to a higher court with a vague reason saying that ?the issue is different from Hansen?s disease,? so we have a long way to go in the court dispute and my heart aches when I consider the age of the victims abroad.  I cannot help but shed tears on their behalf.The average life expectancy of a male in South Korea is 70, and the average age of conscript workers who constitute most of South Korea A-bomb victims, is 78.  That means we are 7 or 8 years older than the average life expectancy.  If it takes five years until the case is brought to the Supreme Court, how many could survive until the final ruling?  This is exactly what the Japanese government is aiming at.  The number of A-bomb victims abroad is around 3,200 in North and South Korea combined, 1,000 in the United States, and 190 in Brazil, which makes the total little short of 4,500, and they are all getting old.  So we have no time.  We need to tackle the issue of relief immediately.  This is exactly what the humanitarian way is all about.  Though there has been a delay, the Japanese government must keenly realize its responsibility in WWII and, as an expression of remorse, must tackle the issue of relief for A-bomb victims abroad.Because of the public criticism both within and outside of Japan against the court appeal, the Japanese government has been trying to get around the situation by making up various rumors, such as the contribution of an extra four billion yen, or establishment of a Study Committee for the possible amendment of the Relief Law, or payment of travel allowance for those who come to Japan for treatment.  But let me state this explicitly.  It is all just their tactics to deceive you and you must not fall into their traps.If they care about A-bomb victims abroad, all they need to do is to accept the court rulings or terminate the official notice No. 402.  They do not need to go some roundabout way.  Who asked them for any money anyway?The Japanese government has completely discriminated against us, the South Korean people, especially the South Korean A-bomb victims, by consistently adopting a policy of cruel treatment.  This kind of attitude must be corrected immediately.  Even without giving any concrete example, the fact that the percentage of South Korean victims of the total A-bomb victims fell from an initial 10% to less than 1% at present eloquently tells the history.  The 21st century must not be an era of discrimination and prejudice but an era of cooperation.I will continue to fight through the High Court and the Supreme Court to defend the human rights of A-bomb victims abroad until my life comes to an end.  I deeply appreciate your ardent support as before.

Global Hibakusha
Hiroshima & NagasakiMikiso Iwasa
Counselor, Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A & H Bomb Sufferers Organizations)
International Symposium; “Fifty Years since the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki”
August 1995, Hiroshima
 

I want to express my deep gratitude for giving me an opportunity to speak in this symposium commemorating the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombings.Today, 50 years after the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while voices are increasing against the threat of nuclear weapons and nuclear war, the damages of the A-bombings are fading as a memory of the past.  In the circumstances of the damages caused by the A-bombs gradually disappearing from people's memories as time passes by, it is of historic significance that this symposium should propose the reconfirmation that the damages of the A-bombs, nuclear weapons, are so inhuman that for the future of mankind they should never be allowed to be used again.I have already presented a written report to the symposium based on the survey of atomic bomb victims, carried out in 1985, the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing, by the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), the national organization of A-bomb sufferers.  Please refer to the report for more detail (available from Nihon Hidankyo).  As time is limited, here I want to sum up general aspects of the A-bomb damages, throwing in my own experience of the A-bombing.First of all, I want to point out that the survey made clear that because of the A-bombs the Hibakusha are continuously suffering even today from the inhumane damages that would "neither allow them to die as human beings nor to live as human beings".  It also showed that such damages are beyond human endurance.The atomic bombs dropped on the citizens of Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, destroyed the two cities instantly.  Houses within 2 km from the epicenter were completely demolished.  According to the survey, the majority of those who died on the day were: burned alive under the collapsed houses - 45%; smashed on the ground by the blast - 36%; and burned by the heat rays - 10%.  And what is worse, 65% of those who died on the day were children under the age of 9, elderly people over 60 years and women.  The A-bombs killed those noncombatants indiscriminately and utterly destroyed everything.I suffered the A-bombing in Hiroshima.  My house was located 1.2 km from the hypocenter.  At the moment when the A-bomb exploded, I was in the yard.  I was knocked down on the ground by the blast.  With the blast pressing me down from above, I could not move at all.  Everything went black.  When I staggered to my feet after a few seconds, the city of Hiroshima was gone.  Remembering that my mother was trapped under the fallen house, for about 30 minutes I tried to help her out but the fire was approaching.  Mother told me to get away and started to recite Hannyashingyo, a sutra.  I left her there and ran away with painful reluctance, hearing her voice behind me.  Can you imagine the feeling if you had to wait for the moment of death, being buried under a collapsed building with flames approaching you?  How much have I regretted that I didn't give my life to save her.  I have been tortured by the thought that virtually I killed my mother.A few days later, I went to the ruins of my house to dig up the place where my mother was trapped.  I dug up from the piled ashes something greasy, like a burned mannequin covered with coal tar.  It could not be regarded at all as a dead human body.  This was a common experience for the Hibakusha.  In the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such odd dead bodies, deaths as things, were seen everywhere.In such circumstances, people could not afford to help others; all they could do was to save themselves.  In the survey, many Hibakusha testified that they still feel guilty for having abandoned those who were crying for help or for water, and that it has remained like a big scar in their minds.  The word "hell" represents not only the miserable devastation just after the A-bombing, but such a situation where people were unable to think and behave as humans as they would otherwise have done.Hibakusha, who narrowly survived that day, were not allowed even for a moment to feel relieved.  The so-called acute A-bomb diseases attacked them without mercy.  Those who showed acute symptoms by the end of 1945 account for 52% of the total.  Of those who were directly exposed, they reach as high as 58%.  What should not be overlooked is that, not to mention those who were directly exposed to a huge amount of radiation emitted from A-bomb, not a few of those who entered the city after the A-bombing showed acute symptoms and died suddenly with no ways to help them, though they appeared to have neither burns nor wounds.Since the policy of the US Occupation Forces was to hide all these damages by ordering a press code, and the Japanese government acted in concert with them, the Hibakusha had to die without receiving any help or assistance from the State.The deaths of the Hibakusha did not end by the end of that year.  From the year following the A-bombing up to 1960, many of them died of various diseases, especially of leukemia.  After 1960, the number of the dead decreased for a while.  But it started to increase again, and in the 1970s the death toll showed a remarkable increase.  This is because deaths by cancer rapidly increased.  Since the 1970s, those who died of cancer have exceeded 30% of all Hibakusha deaths.  Hibakusha had to be afraid of death by cancer, even more than ten years after the A-bombing.Careful observation on the relation between the Hibakusha ages at the time of the bombing and their age at death shows that the cause of Hibakusha deaths was not always due to aging.  In particular, as for those who experienced the A-bombing at a relatively early age, under twenty, the death toll increased around 1970.  They died in their thirties through sixties.  Compared with today's tendency, we can say that they were forced to die young.  This can be described as "too early death".On the Hibakusha deaths, nearly 60% of their bereaved families (many of whom are also Hibakusha) think that their deaths are related to the A-bomb.  All the bereaved families believe so in the case of Hibakusha who died of leukemia, while 75% of them do, in the case of Hibakusha who died of cancer.  This shows that even if their A-bombed family members die of diseases other than leukemia and cancer, many bereaved families are distressed with the doubt that they may have died a "late death from the A-bomb".Such concerns held by the bereaved families were caused by the fact that Hibakusha die after having suffered so much.  70% of the bereaved families said that their family members had all sorts of worries: because of their bad health, they had anxiety and fear of becoming ill and dying; they felt sorry for their families for being a burden to them without working.  "To die a late death from the A-bomb" represents the death of the Hibakusha, full of the agony they had to go through due to the A-bomb.Such Agony is precisely what the survivors of the A-bomb have been experiencing.  The survey shed light on the fact that 80% of survivors have ?experienced hardships because of the A-bomb".  74% of them replied that their lives after the A-bombing have been full of anxieties.  For Hibakusha, anxiety about their own health entails uneasiness about living and even about the future, including the health and life of their children and grandchildren.In case Hibakusha go to a hospital with some health problems, they are worried that their diseases may be attributed to the A-bomb, and fear that illnesses induced by the A-bomb may attack them at any time.  This shows that many Hibakusha are still not free of doubt that their illnesses may be A-bomb diseases, or are afraid of their outbreak.Hibakusha have had to continuously face worries and pains, including social discrimination and misunderstanding at home, at every important point in their life, such as employment, marriage, starting a family life, and bringing up of children.  Their hardships and anxieties were far beyond the imagination of others.What should not be missed is that Hibakusha's worries are connected with the fear of death.  77% have felt the fear of death when they fell ill or when they saw or heard of other Hibakusha deaths.  This shows that Hibakusha are afflicted with the fear of death, imaging the future deaths of their own from their relatives dying in their sight.More attention should be paid to the fact that one out of four Hibakusha have thought until today that they would rather die than suffering so much pain, or that they would rather have died on that day.  The A-bomb has continuously given Hibakusha such worries and troubles as to cause them to give up their will to live.  According to the survey, as many as 47 Hibakusha have committed suicide, which speaks eloquently of the cruel scars the A-bomb left on Hibakusha.  Such damages are imaginable only for Hibakusha.  The A-bomb damage still drives Hibakusha to the verge of death.Hibakusha have to continue to live with the burden of being Hibakusha until they die, just because they happened to be in Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the A-bombs were dropped.  However hard they may try to forget their painful experiences which have made them too distressed, or even though they hide the fact that they are Hibakusha to avoid discrimination when they get a job or get married, this would not bring any change to the fact that they are Hibakusha.  Is there any such merciless life like this?  Can we, as humans, ever allow such damages caused by the A-bomb?It is only natural that the Hibakusha have a strong desire as their mainstay of life, for living an ordinary life and building a stable life with their family members, because they were deprived of their families, properties and their lives as humans.But this is not all the Hibakusha's mainstay of life.  Many of them expressed that their mainstay of life, along with leading an ordinary life, is to live in order to eliminate nuclear weapons from the world, to manage to live until a Hibakusha Aid Law is enacted, and to tell about their experiences of the A-bombing to the next generations.  This shows their will to fight against A-bombs and nuclear weapons as Hibakusha, to prevent other people from suffering the A-bomb damages that they experienced, and to ensure there are no more Hibakusha.  Rejection to the inhuman nature of the A-bomb is more strongly expressed by those who suffered all sorts of unbearable damage and are worried with greater anxiety and agony, and are more committed to fighting against the A-bomb as their support of life.Urging the U.S. and Japanese governments to acknowledge respectively the responsibility of dropping the atomic bombs, and for waging the war, the ?Atomic Bomb Victims Demand? issued by Nihon Hidankyo says:?Nuclear weapons must never be approved.  If the sacrifices of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were ever to be considered unavoidable, it would lead people to tolerate nuclear war.  The enactment of a Hibakusha Aid Law would require the government to compensate for the damages caused by the atomic bombing, and would establish the right to reject nuclear war and its destruction.  It would be a proclamation by the State that it never again will create Hibakusha.?For the future and the survival of all mankind, this is exactly the earnest and painful demand of Hibakusha who by the A-bomb have not been allowed to live as humans, based on their own experiences of hardships.  Aiming to abolish nuclear weapons from the earth, we are determined to continue to strive along with you to disseminate and pass on to coming generations the results of the survey as a common asset of all mankind.We, survivors, must be witnesses of history for those who died and can speak no more.

Global Hibakusha
Hiroshima & NagasakiJunko Kayashige
Democratic Women’s Club
Japan
Millennium Forum, New York, May 2000

I feel privileged to be able to take part in the Millennium Forum and be with you today.  I want to share with you the A-Bomb experience of my family and myself.I was 6 years old, a first grader of a primary school in Hiroshima, and on the morning of August 6, 1945, I was in the neighborhood of my home (Yokokawa 1-chome) located 1.3 kilometers from what would be the blast center of the Hiroshima A-bomb.My family members consisted of: Father, Mother, Brother Nobuo (college student; then a young soldier stationed in Yamaguchi), First sister Hideko (middle school student), Second sister Hiroko (middle school student), Third sister Michiko (6th grader), Fourth sister Katsuko (4th grader), myself (1st grader), First little sister Fumie (3 years old), and Second little sister Toshiko (11 months old).  During the height of the war, in order to escape from air raids, people usually left cities to stay in rural areas in groups, either arranged by schools or by families.  With three primary school children, including myself, and still smaller ones in the family, my parents decided to send those younger than my third sister and Mother to stay outside Hiroshima.  My father had a factory producing sawing needles, which stood in the back of our house with many people working there.However, on August 6, I was in Hiroshima, for Mother had taken us back home for some errands and visits.  On that morning, Father was in Okayama on his business trip.  Mother took my baby sister Toshiko to visit a relative on his sickbed on the outskirts of the city.  First sister Hideko was at home on a monthly school holiday, together with Fourth sister Katsuko.  Second sister Hiroko was in the schoolyard with her schoolmates, before setting off to work in evacuating houses to make fire lanes.  Third sister Michiko went off by bicycle to get ice for our home refrigerator.  My immediate little sister Fumie and I were visiting our uncle?s home in the neighborhood, listening to music in the study.Suddenly, an air-raid siren sounded.  But the warning was lifted after a while, which let us go back to our normal life.  Then, I saw a B-29 plane flying over Hiroshima.  Although we knew it was an enemy plane, we did not feel danger as the warning had been lifted, and I climbed onto the windowpane to see the plane better.  My cousin followed me to come to the window.  We saw the plane glittering in the clear blue summer sky.  That was when the bomb detonated.When I came back to my senses, I found myself lying on the dirt ground under the window, inside the house.  My aunt and Sister Fumie, who had been in the same room, were also blown 5 to 6 meters and were raising themselves when I saw them.  Fortunately, the house was new and escaped from collapsing, but the desk, two chairs, bookshelves, tatami mats and flooring boards were gone.We stepped outside.  Fire was not yet seen, but all our neighbors? houses were crushed to the ground.  I saw an old woman crying for help, trapped under a stone wall.  But the wall was to heavy for my aunt or other women to lift.  Trying to take us three children with her, my aunt went inside the house to look for a rope to use for tying them on her back.  I waited for my aunt to come back, but became terrified to see the house beginning to catch fire and flames raging out of the windows.  Unable to wait for her any longer, I ran away by myself, stepping on the roofs of collapsed houses toward the riverbank.  Seeing other people fleeing in the direction of the mountain, I followed them.  Some people trod with their burned arms lifted forward.  When I was about to cross a wooden bridge, flames started from its both ends, so I gave up the idea.  Since grown-up people were crossing the river on foot, I tried to follow them, but the river was too deep for me.  A kind woman carried me by her side and crossed the river.  Seeing that she had some cucumbers, I thought of using them to heal the burns on my face and arms.  Remembering the cucumber tells me that I already knew that I had been burned.Continuing to talk, I came across my relatives: my father's brother-in-law whom my mother intended to visit that morning, and the father of my aunt who was with me that morning.  This was a crucial event that eventually saved my life.  Father's brother-in-law carried me on his back to an emergency clinic to sterilize and bandage my injuries on the face and arms, and took me back to his home.  I was so relieved to be on his back, and did not remember anything before I got home.  At his house I was able to meet my mother.  At the moment of the bombing, Mother was at Koi Station with her baby Toshiko, and fled from there over the mountain.  Unable to contact her family in Hiroshima City by phone, she managed to get to the relatives? house full of worries.  Hearing that Hiroshima was totally destroyed, she was afraid every one of her family had perished.  She was so happy to see me and said, ?At least Junko was alive?.  The man who helped me drew a large two-wheeled cart and headed back to Hiroshima to look for other members of our family.  Some time later, he brought back my aunt and cousin, and my sisters on the cart.  My immediate elder sister Katsuko, who was at home, crawled out of the fallen house with heavy bleeding from her thigh.  A neighbor woman tore her own kimono and tied my sister?s groin tightly, which stopped the bleeding and saved her life.But my third sister Michiko, who had left home on her bicycle to fetch ice, and the second sister Hiroko, who was in the schoolyard, did not come back.  After days of searching, Father at last found Hiroko lying on the floor of a school with heavy burns all over her back.  All the classrooms of the school were filled with injured people lying on the floor.  Father looked for my sister from room to room, calling her name.  By the time he was about to give up, he heard a faint voice at his foot, ?Daddy??  At the moment of the flash, she was crouching down and tying her shoestrings.  In those days, even during summer, schoolgirls were wearing black school uniforms for fear of being spotted by enemy planes.  Her black uniform absorbed the intense heat rays of the bomb, which burned her back more heavily.However, when she was brought back to our relative?s house, she was able to say, ?Mother, I am home!? loud, which made all of us so glad and relieved.  But many maggots had already bred on her injured back, which we could never pick off completely, crawling into her flesh and caused her pain.  Military planes still flew over Hiroshima often and scared us all.  We made a pile of bedding mattresses around my sister to ease her fear.It was the morning of August 17th, 1945 that my Second sister Hiroko died.  When we were having breakfast, she said, ?Mama, could you come for a second??  Mother told her to wait for a moment.  A litter later she went to see my sister.  With the voice of Mother crying, ?Hiroko! Hiroko!?, we rushed to her bedside, but she was already dead.  Despite the joy she gave us when she came back home, she died, without being able to receive any treatment worthy of the name.Mother took me and Katsuko with an injury to her thigh on the cart to a clinic for treatment, despite her own suffering from nausea and diarrhea.  I was later told that our neighbors were very worried about her health.I clearly remember the day when the war ended on August 15.  The adults listening to the broken voice of the emperor on the radio started to cry loudly.  As a small child, I felt relieved, for there would be no more burns or injuries.After the war ended and Hiroko died, my family moved to the countryside to our relatives, together with Mother?s younger sister, who lost her parents.  My brother came back from Yamaguchi and joined us.  We stayed there for some time, but it was hard for us from the city to live in the rural community.  We decided to go back to the ruined Hiroshima and built a shabby hut with boards and plates we collected.  Even in such a small house with no furniture, we were happier together there than in the countryside.The injuries on my face and arms, and on my sister?s thigh did not heal easily.  Hearing the reputation of a good medicine, Father bought in Kure City the semitransparent ointment in a small container.  He handed it to me, saying, ?Use this little by little, as this is a very expensive medicine?.  This ointment worked miraculously well on me.  Mother always took great care to apply the medicine to my face, saying that a face is very important for a girl.  I suffered pus oozing from my right eye for a long time, and she was worried that I might lose my eyesight.  But I escaped becoming blind, though my eyesight got weaker since I was about 10 years old.On the day of the bombing, I was wearing a simple white dress made by my mother.  I was on the windowpane to see the plane in the sky, and the bomb's heat rays burned my face, neck and the right hand holding the window frame.  Other parts of my body were covered by the white dress and the wall, which shielded the heat rays.  I was lucky to have worn the white clothing.The house of my mother?s parents was close to the blast center.  My mother collected the ashes found in the kitchen, and the body clutching the handle of a chest of drawers, assuming that they were the remains of her parents.My father?s younger brother was in my father?s office, meeting a guest.  Though we hoped he had escaped, his body was later found there on the chair.  Flames might have engulfed him while he was unable to move.  The guest he met on the day later visited us to describe the situation.My third sister Michiko, who had gone to get ice, is still missing.  My parents looked everywhere and found that she did visit the ice shop, but her whereabouts were unknown after that.  Every year, they searched for her name on the annually revised list of the A-Bomb deceased, but could not find her name.While the injuries and burns may heal with time and treatment, the trauma and the effects of radiation linger on in the victims? minds and bodies.  One of my female cousins died two years ago from leukemia.  Many of my friends Hibakusha are undergoing the treatment for an abnormality in their thyroid glands.  I myself have had a problem in my thyroid and was told at a medical examination in February this year that the condition has worsened.  The Japanese Health Ministry does not easily accept the causation between the thyroid problems and the A-bomb, and would not understand the fears we have every day.Hiroshima and Nagasaki Hibakusha are not the only victims from nuclear weapons.  Many people in many parts of the world suffer from nuclear tests and accidents from nuclear facilities.  We say ENOUGH.  NO MORE!  We must be able not only to stop all nuclear tests, but abolish all nuclear weapons from the face of this planet.  Dear friends who have gathered here today, let us work together, and also in each country, to abolish nuclear weapons, so that we will have no more Hibakusha on earth.I sincerely hope this meeting will mark a big step forward in our efforts to achieve a nuclear weapon-free world.  Thank you.

Global Hibakusha
Hiroshima & NagasakiNikolai Palchikoff
U.S.A.
International Symposium; “Fifty Years since the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki”
August 1995, Hiroshima
 
 

Honorable delegates and distinguished guests, I am both humbled and moved by my previous speakers.  My purpose here today is to share my experiences and feelings of the first American soldier to enter Hiroshima after the devastating attack on my hometown and birth place.My name is Nikolai Palchikoff, son of Russian immigrants who arrived in Japan after the Russian Revolution.  I was born June 10, 1924, a few hundred meters from the location of this conference.During my life in Hiroshima I had many friends and never felt as a foreigner in spite of the fact I was only one of two caucasians to my knowledge of being born in this city up to that time.  I was an accepted Hiroshimajin.This then was a beautiful city which provided me with a full range of activities which I have always cherished.  I swam and rowed in the rivers, fished, walked in the beautiful Sentei gardens, saw my first airplane on the parade grounds, went horse-back riding, rode my bicycle all over the city and last but not least rode the quaint street cars.I watched the city grow and stood in awe with my Japanese friends watching the tallest multistory building being erected:  The four story department store Fukuya.I left Hiroshima and my family December 1940 when a group of American missionaries took me to the United States on an educational scholarship.  This was when all non essential U.S. citizens were asked to leave Japan because war seemed to be imminent to everyone, including the U.S. government.In the United States to maintain my independence I worked as a janitor at the Culver City Hospital.  It was there on Sunday December 7, 1941, when a nurse came running to me while I was cleaning the hallways and told me of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  This single event then re-shaped my whole entire life.First an angry boy because of the fate of his family, then a remorseful disappointed, disenchanted and saddened veteran soldier of 21.  Then a recycled old man dedicated to the cause of peace, full of optimism and confidence in the youth of the world for a nuclear free world.In January 1943, just prior to my graduation from high school I entered the U.S. army as a Japanese interrogator.  In 1945 I was preparing for my last mission, which was to land on Kyushu prior to the invasion of Japan, I was listening to the Japanese news broadcast where a very solemn newscaster reported that Hiroshima was destroyed by a single bomb.  I listened in disbelief until several hours later President Truman spoke to the nation and confirmed this terrible event.  We were sent soon after to Yokohama to secure the area prior to General MacArthur's arrival.Approximately three weeks later I was on my way to Hiroshima to search for my family.You can imagine the shock when I got off at the same train station as you did. Instead of being confronted with a city I was confronted with a wasteland with a few twisted skeletons of building, images which are all too familiar to us all.I started to walk slowly towards my home knowing what I would find - My home where I left my family was approximately 500 meters from the epicenter of the bomb.  As I walked through the remains of my hometown, I observed not one living plant, animal or person.  As I crossed the first bridge, all I encountered were human shadows burned into the concrete.As I approached my home I experienced more and more panic.  I could not understand this since I had been in combat and had not felt panic.  Why now! I located my home in this waste land by a fish pond that was in our garden and in the rubble a twisted wrought iron bed on which I slept.  As I stood there surrounded by absolutely nothing I began to understand my panic.  All of a sudden I began to feel I was the only human being left on this earth.  Where could I get water to drink?  Would it be safe?  Where do I get food, where do I get anything for my existence?  I had left Tokyo in a hurry to search for my family and brought nothing except the uniform I was wearing.I would like all of you here today to experience this feeling by closing your eyes, and as I clap my hand imagine that everybody you know, everything you are accustomed to seeing every day, indeed your home town has just been vaporized into nuclear dust.  I will not waste your time with the story of finding my family their experience of horror and tragedy.  The speakers before me have already shared their experience of this nuclear holocaust as it happened.In my immediate family the following problems have developed:  They may or may not be due to my exposure in Hiroshima but I have been told that I may have suffered some chromosomal changes.1. My sister suffered from cataracts in both eyes.
2. One son and one daughter have suffered some bone problems in their knees.
3. One daughter was born quite small and has lost two children at birth.
4. One grandson had problems with his scull and had to have three major surgeries.
5. Another grandson just prior to my leaving for Japan in July of this year developed a hip problem, the outcome of which is still unknown.
6. A grand-daughter is at this time only in the lower 5 percent of bone development.Then out of four children I fathered and seven grandchildren, there are 8 abnormalities that have surfaced.  I question in my mind if this series of events is statistically acceptable.  Where do I turn for answers?I share my experiences and feelings not for pity or sympathy but to again remind concerned citizens around the world that the danger of another nuclear holocaust is very real.  The end of the cold war increased not decreased this possibility.  Buying and selling of nuclear technology in the black market is an indication of the present danger!We human beings on this planet can no longer wait for negotiations, treaties and protracted discussions for a nuclear free world.  We must demand it now.We can no longer leave the leadership of these negotiations to a country which is the only country to use this awesome destructive force not once but twice.  We must all work to free ourselves from being held as nuclear hostages.I have often wondered what adjectives President Roosevelt would have used to describe the destruction of two cities and all the inhabitants; would he also have felt that these bombings would "live in infamy."Whenever I see a picture of the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima, I see a collage of faces of friends, acquaintances and memories of my happy childhood, all disappearing into nuclear dust.  It fills my heart with sorrow, remorse and a new commitment to peace.Let us all here today,
renew our commitment,
renew our vigilance
renew our energy
renew our dedication to the elimination of nuclear weapons all over the world.As we pass the torch to the next generation to carry on this awesome task, let us respond to the call to arms by standing up and proclaiming together.No more Hiroshimas
No more Nagasakis
No more HibakushaI would like to conclude in my original native tongue by simply saying, "Minasama, domo arigato gozaimasu.  Isshoni gambatte kudasai."Also visit: http://www2.cc22.ne.jp/~yfukuma/rosiajin.htm  (in Russian and Japanese)

Global Hibakusha
Hiroshima & NagasakiMiyoko Tando
Hiroshima Prefecture A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organization
Millennium Forum, New York, May 2000

On August 6, 1945, 55 years ago, I was living in the town of Funairi-Nakamachi, Hiroshima City, 1.2 km away from the blast center of the atomic bomb.  I was 13 years old and in the first grade of Hiroshima City Girls High School.On that day the first and second year students were to engage in building demolition work, which was conducted to make vacant lots in order to prevent the spreading of fire.  But I decided not to go to work because my father, 10-year-old brother and 8-year-old sister and I were going to take a chest of drawers to the place where my mother and 2-year-old brother were, about 10 kilometers away from our house.  It was around seven o?clock in the morning.  I went to see a friend of mine to ask her to give the notice of absence to the teacher.  I remember the air raid warning had been cancelled.When I got home, my father was packing the chest and my brother and sister were playing outside.  I went upstairs to darn the snapped strings of my canteen.  Just when I opened the window, a light flashed.  I automatically covered my face with my hands and turned my body away.  At that moment I got burns on 30% of my body including the back of the right hand, left hand and the chest.  (As I was to be absent from school, I was wearing a white blouse with a low neckline.)  I fell unconscious, and when I came to, I found myself in total darkness.  I was trapped under my collapsed house.  I moved my right leg, which could have been seen from outside.  Seeing it, my father rescued me.My grandmother, who was on the first floor, was crushed to death by the collapsed house.  My younger brother, who had been playing in the yard, was missing.  I desperately ran away with my father and sister to the Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Company?s housing complex in Kannon-cho town, located 3 km from the hypocenter.On the morning of Aug. 8 my sister died, and in the evening my father died, too.  I was left alone.  I was bewildered as to how to deal with their bodies because I was unable to move.  A man brought a door board to carry out their bodies.  They were taken to a nearby place and cremated with others.  Unable to move, I could neither see their cremation nor collect their ashes.  While I was at a loss as to what to do, my uncle came to search for me on Aug. 11.  I talked to him about my father and sister.  He went to the cremation site and brought me back some ashes which he picked up from the ashes of many bodies.  He carried me on a large cart to a relative's house where my mother and 2-year-old brother had been evacuated.  However, as my burns smelled like rotten meat, my relatives didn't want me to stay and we left there.  Mother devoted herself to me, leaving my two-year-old brother to the care of her parents.  There was neither food nor medicine.  She mixed oil with baby powder, applied it to the burns and bandaged them.  As changing the bandages was so painful I became arrogant and said, "Leave me alone!"  Around November I began to have new skin.  She could not work because she had to take care of me.  As she did not have money, so she made a living by selling things she had evacuated.Our living situation grew worse and my burns took a long time to heal.  As my burns became better and I became able to walk, I decided not to go to a school and began to work for my family, whose breadwinner was gone.  Marriage and employment were difficult as I was a Hibakusha.  I survived because I had been absent from school on that day.  Almost all of my friends who were at school at that moment died.  I felt guilty for being the only one who survived.At one time I was apprenticed to a nurse.  After that, fortunately I was employed by the supplies section of the National Railways.  As I was in poor health around 1975, I went to a hospital and was diagnosed with chronic hepatitis.  I continued working in spite of my bad physical condition, but I reached the limits of my strength and stopped working at age 51.About 20 years after the atomic bombing, I came to feel uneasy to know that in Vietnam the same evil hands that had dropped the atomic bomb on us were committing the same atrocities against the Vietnamese.  Around the same time, I was asked to speak to young people about my A-bomb experience.  I thought over and over because speaking about it meant exposing my unhealed mental and physical trauma.  But keeping silent does not make nuclear weapons powers stop their development.  I thought I should make the horror of nuclear weapons known to the world by speaking about what diseases and agonies the atomic bomb had brought to the Hibakusha.  Then I started telling high school students about my A-bomb experience, and through this act, I came to feel encouraged and more cheerful than before.  I could not help changing myself through this decision to speak out.Speaking about myself turned my eyes toward other survivors living in the same district.  Then I learned that there were many Hibakusha living in Motomachi town where I lived and Hakushima-machi town.  I also came to notice that many of them were living by themselves.  I also learned that as of March 1999, the sufferers with official certificates as Hibakusha living in Hiroshima City totaled 91,940.  Of them, 16,760 were living alone.We set up an ?Hibakusha Counselling Center? in Hiroshima City in October 1996.  Shortly after it was opened, I began to help at the center.  During three and a half years, I dealt positively with various problems of the Hibakusha including applications for the Hibakusha certificate.In January 1997, we formed the Motomachi-Hakushima District Atomic Bomb Sufferers Association.  There the Hibakusha, who have the same experience and have lived through the same circumstances, have sung songs together and consulted with each other about all kinds of problems.  It is a place where Hibakusha with physical scars and trauma can feel relieved and heal themselves.  We are making efforts to keep such functions of the association going.Radiation effects on peopole have become more and more serious as the Hibakusha are getting older.  Many Hibakusha have suffered cancers and other kinds of diseases of unknown origins.  In Hiroshima City alone more than 2,000 Hibakusha with the certificate die every year.  Hibakusha who are recognized as having atomic bomb diseases numbered 1,318 as of March 1999.  They are constantly facing the fear of death and battling with fatal illnesses.The Japanese government has been reluctant to acknowledge that the Hibakusha's diseases are caused by the damage and effects of the atomic bombs.  Let me take up the case of one survivor.Mr. K is living in Motomachi where I am living.  K suffered the A-bombing four kilometers from the blast center.  K desperately looked for his family in the hell-like fire.  K frantically searched for his family in the black rain, falling down many times because of fever, diarrhea and injuries.  At around age 40, he got leukopenia and he had an operation for gallbladder cancer at age around 50.  He has been repeatedly hospitalized.  He applied to the Health Ministry for recognition as an A-bomb disease patient.  The ministry coldly turned down his application with just a two-line notice that his diseases were not regarded as caused by radiation.  He at once lodged an appeal against the decision.The urgent abolition of nuclear weapons is essential to ensure that no more Hibakusha will be created.  The Hibakusha are not limited to those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  There are a number of victims of nuclear weapons all over the world, including those who were victimized by nuclear tests and accidents of nuclear facilities.  I call on you to do your utmost hand in hand with the Hibakusha all over the world to achieve a nuclear free 21st century.

Global Hibakusha
Hiroshima & NagasakiShigeru Terasawa
Tokyo Federation of A-Bomb Sufferers Organizations
Millennium Forum, New York, May 2000I was an 18-year-old enlisted soldier.  At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, I was at Edajima Island, about 10 km south of Hiroshima City.  It was a hot summer morning.  I was getting ready for an exercise of the command unit in the barracks.  Suddenly, there was a brilliant flash.  Some seconds later an enormous roar echoed as if the earth had burst.  Instantaneously I lay flat, and was hit by a door board on the back.After a while, I was able to go outside the barracks.  I saw black and brown-colored smoke-like cloud going up into the sky.  I had no knowledge of what had happened.  Eventually I saw a fire breaking out under the mushroom cloud.  I realized that Hiroshima was devastated.  At the same time, I felt strange because I didn't see U.S. planes flying over the city.  (In those days, even if one or two B-29s flew over the city, an air-raid warning was not issued.)About three hours after the bombing, marching orders were issued.  Thirty minutes later, we arrived at a pier in Ujina.  There I saw a horrible scene.  Many heavily injured people were lying down.  Their clothes were torn off.  Their skin had peeled off due to severe burns.  Their hair bristled up.  This cruel sight was a hell on earth.  They were being brought to Ninoshima, a neighboring island of Edajima, which was being used as a temporary aid station.  Among them, however, there were also dead people.We entered the city and conducted a rescue operation for the heavily injured in areas about 2 to 4 km from the blast center.  "Give me water!"  "Help me!"  Many people were groaning.  When I grasped arms, legs and shoulders of the victims to carry them, I touched their bones.  Even many of those who we could rescue died one after another.  I tried to forget the scene in vain.On Aug. 8, we entered the blast center, which had turned into a ghost town.  What remained standing were only the frames of some of the reinforced concrete buildings.  Other buildings were all burned out.  Charred bodies were lying here and there.Soon we began cremating the dead bodies.  At the beginning, we took time to cremate them one by one.  However, as there were so many bodies, we began to treat them like things.  We piled five to ten bodies up and cremated them all at once.After I finished work late at night, I slept like a log near the cremation.  Even by the next morning, cremation was not completed.  We gathered their ashes along with unburned hair and intestines using a shovel and temporarily buried them.  Many of the dead we cremated were students of junior high schools and girl's middle schools.  They had a name card on their lapels on which their addresses, names and blood types were written.  I noted them down.  But there were still many charred bodies that could not be identified.  How were the remains of these bodies dealt with?  I still think about that.We returned to Edajima on Aug. 14.  On Aug. 15, the people were told by the emperor over the radio that Japan had surrendered.  It was the first time to hear the emperor's voice.  We felt more relief than regret.After the war ended, I looked back on my 20-year life.  After I engaged in agriculture for one year, I came up to Tokyo to study history which had been my favorite subject since my childhood.  I decided to work during the day and go to a university in the evening.I became a junior high school teacher in 1953.  With my students, I studied what motivated Japan to wage the war and whether it was wrong or right, etc.  By speaking of my A-bomb experience, I have tried to show that atomic bombs are terrible and humans cannot coexist with nuclear weapons.No more Hiroshimas.  No more Nagasakis.  No more Hibakushas.  Let us work together for peace all over the world.

Global Hibakusha
Hiroshima & NagasakiShuntaro HIDA, M.D.
Director, Nihon Hidankyo Hibakusha Counseling Center
International Symposium; “Fifty Years since the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki”
August 1995, Hiroshima
 
 

The 1977 NGO symposium was an epoch-making meeting, which for the first time made clear to the people of the world the realities of the damage of atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, especially the number of immediate deaths from acute radiation sickness, including the deaths by the end of 1945.  It presented detailed studies not only on the immediate effects from the A-bomb radiation, but also such delayed effects as keloid, eye diseases, blood diseases, malignant tumors, psycho-neurotic dysfunction, early aging, effects on children or babies in uterus, genetic effects or chromosome abnormalities.  The symposium built the basis for solution for these radiation-induced diseases by giving full-scale analysis of them.However, the discussions of the 1977 symposium were limited to the radiation injury by external high level radiation exposure of those who were close to the epicenter, and dealt neither with low level radiation exposure of those who were far from the epicenter nor with the internal exposure to radioactive materials of those who entered the city after the A-bombing.  The idea prevailing at that time was a ?threshold dose theory?, which determined on the grounds that effects caused by radiation are correlated with the amount of radiation to which one was exposed, ?the amount of radiation under threshold dose would have no effect.?  According to this theory, cases of internal exposure were excluded on the ground that the dose of radioactive substances taken in human bodies was small.  Interference by the U.S. forces in the study should not be denied, who, in fear of its leakage to the Soviet Union, kept A-bomb effects a military secret.After defeated in the war, Japan was placed under the occupation by U.S. military forces, who confiscated all materials concerning the surveys and studies on A-bomb damage carried out by Japanese scholars immediately after the bombing.  Since then, all studies on the damage and aftereffects of the bombings were carried out exclusively by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC), an institute set up by the United States.  The law on the relief of the Hibakusha enacted by the Japanese government in 1957 was based on the reports of the ABCC, and focused only on those who were exposed to the A-bomb at a short distance from ground zero, making very little or no account of the internal exposure to low level radiation of those who were away from ground zero or who entered the city after the bombing.  The law, judging mechanically different cases of damage mainly by the amount of radiation, came to contradict with the actual clinical cases of the Hibakusha that doctors faced daily, especially of those who went near the epicenter immediately after the A-bombing.  This caused sufferings to both doctors and patients.Since the Chernobyl accident in 1986, attention has been called to the damage caused by internal exposure to low level radiation from ingested radioactive substances in human body.  An article, ?Internal Exposure to Low Level Radiation?, written by a Canadian doctor Abraham Petkau in 1975 revealed the facts on the damage from U.S. nuclear tests and industry, with the help of medical scientists, basic scientists and statisticians of the United States.  The content of Dr. Petkau?s article may be summarized as follows:- Low level radiation is destructive to cells, through a mechanism completely different from that of high level radiation;
- Radiation destroys cells, affecting the electric charge of cell membrane inside the human body, by converting oxygen molecules in water into electric charged harmful free radicals.
- Such conversion takes place more efficiently by low level radiation than high level radiation.
- As to the correlation between the high-level and low-level radiation dose and incidence of damage, in the case of high-level radiation, the incidence goes up in a straight line (if the doze is 0, the incidence is also 0). In the case of low-level radiation, the increase of incidence follows a bow-shape line, showing the drastic increase at the small dose.  (Please refer to the chart X: from: ?Deadly Deceit? by Jay M. Gould:Omitted)The achievement of Dr. Petkau was that he opened the way for dealing with radiation effects, emphasizing the mode of exposure to radiation rather than the radiation doze, i.e., if the exposure is internal or external, or both.The survey on the Hibakusha conducted by Nihon Hidankyo in 1985 revealed that among the victims who entered the city after the bombing, there were some who suffered ?loss of hair? and ?purple spots on the skin?, the symptoms whose cause is greatly attributed to exposure, and that there is no difference between those who were directly exposed and those who were exposed on entering the city after the bombing in the ?frequency of being hospitalized? and ?change in health conditions before and after the A-bombing? (Table 1), and in the ?occurrence of Bura-Bura disease (neurasthenia or neurosis accompanied by general fatigue, languid hands and feet)? (Table 2).  These facts indicate that the following conclusions may be drawn:(1) ?Low level radiation exposure from radioactive substances taken in the human bodies? of those who entered the city after the A-bombing caused the same damage as ?external exposure to high level radiation? did to those who were exposed directly to the bomb near the center of the blast.(2) Low level radiation from radioactive fallout, inevitably inhaled by those who were directly exposed, caused the same symptoms as those who were exposed on entering the city after the bombing.Since exposure to high level radiation at a short distance from the epicenter caused ?many? functional disorder ?simultaneously? on ?multiple internal organs?, killing the patients comparatively in early stage, it might be reasonable to consider that the replies to the 1985 survey of those who were directly exposed to the bomb, apply to case (2) mentioned above.At the time of the survey, as there was little interest in the effect of internal exposure and no specific questions were asked focusing on the exposure after the dropping of the bomb by entering the city, we should not draw a definite conclusion based only on the data from this survey.  But still we cannot disregard the fact that a peculiar symptom such as loss of hair appeared in quite a few of those who later entered the city after the bombing.Inhuman nature of nuclear weapons are not seen only in the ?hellish ravages?, which Hibakusha saw, heard, smelled, touched and felt in their heart.  The true inhuman nature of nuclear weapons can be found in such ?tragedy? that Hibakusha were dying without being aware of the real facts on radiation damage which deeply eroded their health, or of the fact they were killed by the Atomic bomb.  It can also be found in the ?comedy?, where the assailants cannot be conscious of being the murderer, however many thousands of people may have been killed.In the movement for the abolition of nuclear weapons, the following fact was not discussed frequently:  Due to the abnormal cells formed by the low level radiation taken into the body, which might develop into the cause of cancer or immune disorder, human beings would slowly be killed after several years or decades of different kinds of cancer, liver dysfunction, arteriosclerosis, heart diseases, blood diseases, and disorder in endocrine system and others.To conclude this article, I would like to express my earnest desire that the year marking the 50th anniversary of the A-bombing be a new starting point for rallying the people around the common task of eliminating nuclear weapons, by overcoming a false nuclear deterrence theory, which justifies the possession of nuclear weapons, in defiance of the fact they have produced innumerable Hibakusha at all stages of mining and refining of uranium, and manufacture, testing and possession of nuclear weapons.Table 1:

Table 2:

Solidarity with Hibakusha