The other day, I had a chance to go on a business trip to Hiroshima, so I went to the Peace Memorial Park on that trip.
This is the Atomic Bomb Dome. I had seen it in various photos, but seeing it in person, it looks very realistic.
This is what the building looked like before it was destroyed by the atomic bomb.
It was a beautiful building with a beautiful Taisho romantic atmosphere. It seems to have been a very large building, but you can see that only a small part of it remains.
The destructive power of the A-bomb, which shattered a sturdy structure made of reinforced steel in an instant, is truly devastating.
We also visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
I was allowed to take a few pictures as long as I didn’t use flash, but the exhibits in the museum were so sad, painful, and gruesome that I couldn’t take any more pictures.
The tattered clothes of the victims were also on display, but they were small. They were children. Children who were so tender suffered from the heat and wind that their clothes were so tattered, some died instantly, and others suffered from severe burns with no help.
Many of the victims were not combatants, but innocent civilians, vulnerable women and children.
Seeing this devastation, I felt that dropping the atomic bombs was a loveless violence, a mistake, and an irretrievable madness for which no excuses are available.
Among the exhibits was an A-bombed reenactment doll that depicted the damage caused by exposure to radiation immediately after the bombing using wax figures.
The dolls realistically depicted victims with severe burns wandering through the burning, destroyed city with their arms raised in front of them, their skin hanging down like rags. The tragedy, pain, and suffering of the victims are very compelling to the viewer.
In fact, however, this exhibit is scheduled to be removed in the near future.
The reason for its removal is generally believed to be that it is too scary.
Officially, it is due to the museum’s “policy that materials conveying the horrific devastation of the atomic bombing should basically be viewed as they are. In short, this exhibit is a fake and does not depict the facts as they really are, so they are removing it.
When I heard this, I groaned and wondered what they thought about it.
I think it is an excellent teaching tool that allows people to directly understand the pain of what was really experienced. I don’t think such a meaningful exhibit should be removed for trivial reasons.
As a matter of fact, I once suffered severe burns on both upper arms and face in a gas explosion.
My upper arms and hands were all burned third-degree burns from the elbows to the tips of my fingers, so my experience was partially similar to that of the Hibakusha. (Although their severity and suffering are not even close to those of the Hibakusha.)
Third-degree burns are the most severe of all burns, and are deep enough to cause damage beyond the dermis to the subcutaneous tissue, leaving pigmentation and keloids even after healing.
I have had such burns on both of my arms.
I am sure you know that when you get burned, you get blisters. In my case, my entire arm became blistered. Therefore, immediately after the accident, when I touched my arm by myself, the skin was soggy and the slightest shock would cause the skin to tear and droop. So I can understand the injuries on the reenactment dolls very well.
Also, in the exhibit, the A-bomb survivor is walking with his arms outstretched in front of him like a ghost.
When I asked him about his experience, he told me that in the city immediately after the bombing, many people actually fled with their arms outstretched in front of them.
Do you know why they walk with their arms outstretched in front of them?
It is because when the entire arm is bare dermis due to burns, the capillaries in the subcutaneous tissue are damaged, and when the arm is lowered below the heart, the capillaries swell and cause pain as if the arm is going to burst.
Just as a balloon inflates with air and bursts, when the arm is lowered below the heart, the capillaries inflate with blood pressure, causing intense pain that feels as if the entire arm is going to “pop. Therefore, I could not lower my arm below my heart, and had to hold it up in front of me like a ghost.
I was in the exact same situation for a while after I got burned. When I was lying in bed, it didn’t hurt, but when I had to stand up to go to the bathroom, I couldn’t lower my arm and had to walk with it sticking out in front of me like a ghost (what about when I actually had to go to the bathroom? (What did I do when I actually had to go to the bathroom? In fact, it is not that I could not lower my arms at all. If you take your time and lower them slowly and gently, you can manage to lower them. So when I had to go to the bathroom, I had to take a very long time, sweating and struggling with the pain. (Incidentally, at the time I had my face wrapped in bandages, my arms bandaged, and I was wearing a white yukata, so anyone who saw me walking around at the time might have felt quite horrified.)
Because of this experience, the situation depicted by the A-bombed reenactment dolls is very familiar to me.
However, after returning home, I looked up the reason for the posture of thrusting arms forward on the Internet, and found that the correct reason for this posture was rarely communicated. This was a shock to me. The reason for the unreasonable posture experienced by so many people, the sad reason why they had to raise their arms when they were exhausted and in pain and suffering, and the pain and agony of having to do so, are no longer known to anyone today.
Maybe because we don’t know the right reasons, we don’t understand the reality of the reenactment dolls and feel that they are fake. It is a great pity.
I think that is why these exhibits should be passed on to future generations. According to the story, the creator of this exhibit listened to the experiences of many Hibakusha.
One must listen to and learn from the experiences.
Listening to authority figures rather than people’s experiences, blindly believing what a strong authority says rather than what one feels and honestly believes. It is because of such arrogant and despicable attitudes that these tragedies occur.
On August 6, I pray from the bottom of my heart that the pain and sorrow of the many victims of the atomic bombing may be healed.
Gassho
