Hiroshima

Hiroshima, written by John Hersey, is a fascinating book forty years in the making. It follows six survivors of the Atomic Bomb dropped by the United States. Some came out good, because they benefitted from the overload of work, and some weren’t so lucky, they came down with sickness’, and much worse. The A-Bomb Had more effects beyond helping America and the Allies win the war.

Here are the stories, before and after the bomb, of the six survivors:

Toshinki Sasaki, was a clerk in the East Asia Tin Works. At the exact moment of the bomb drop, she had turned her head to chat with the girl at the next desk. After the bomb, she nearly lost her right leg after it had been crushed, and then became a nun at the local orphanage. Dr. Masakazu Fujii , a physician, was reading the local newspaper on the porch of his private hospital. He luckily suffered no injuries, and opened many clinics, hospitals, and therapy clinics around Hiroshima to help the “hibakusha”, people affected by the bomb. Hatsuyo Nakamura, A tailor's widow, was watching her neighbor from her kitchen window. She didn’t have very good fortune after the bomb. She was destitute and working long hours while having to deal with radiation sickness and keloids. Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a Japanese-German priest, was laying in his cot reading a Jesuit Magazine. After dealing with years of organ and bodily failures, he finally died a peaceful death in his hometown house in Hiroshima. Dr. Terefumi Sasaki, a young surgeon was walking down a corridor of his hospital with a blood specimen ready for a Wassermann Test. He stayed behind in his little hopital alone to help all the hibakusha. Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto, Pastor of the Hiroshima Methodist Church, was delivering clothes to a rich mans house as the bomb dropped. He survived and helped many people restore hope as a hibakusha himself, and he resided in a little home with his little woolly dog.

These six were extremely lucky beyond belief, even they are dumbfounded they survived. They were most confused with the question of why they survived, when the other 166,000 didn’t. These are the questions that haunt them every day of their lives.