Friends House visitors share A-bomb experiences
Survivors spoke of their experiences at Friends House
Atomic bombing survivors (hibakusha) Masashi Ieshima and Kuniko Kimura visited Friends House on 12 October, as part of a tour of Europe.
Paul Parker, recording clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting, welcomed the visitors to Friends House. He said: ‘It is important to us as Quakers that the events of 1945 are never forgotten and can never be repeated.’
Kuniko, a member of the Chiba Association of A-Bomb Survivors, was five years old when the bomb fell on Hiroshima. She was 1.7 kilometres from the epicentre, and spoke of the roar of the planes and the blinding flash in the sky, which was so intense that her mother thought the bomb had fallen on the family home.
‘I cannot be free of fear and anxieties,’ Kuniko said. She described her mother’s guilt at having refused a dying girl water, acting on instructions not to give water to burns victims. Kumiko spoke, too, of the stigmas and health concerns facing children, and even the grandchildren, of hibakusha.
Masashi and Kuniko were accompanied by peace activists from Gensuikyo, the Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs. Genuiskyo representative Saburo Sugasawa spoke of the need to increase public support for the total banning of nuclear weapons. He added that the group had chosen to visit France, Spain and the UK, as they are NATO members and ‘nuclear weapon countries’.
The Japanese visitors had brought a number of artefacts with them, including a roof tile that had survived the blast in Hiroshima and glass taken from a survivor’s body. That survivor is still alive, and in good health, but has gone through life with countless tiny fragments of this glass lodged in her body, a visitor told the Friend.
You need to login to read subscriber-only content and/or comment on articles.