An interview with a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing

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A representation of a nuclear bombing shows burned skin peeling and hanging from hands at the Peace Museum in Hiroshima, Japan. (CNS/Octavio Duran)

By David DeCosse | Dec. 19, 2016 NCR Today

Editor's note: For the fall 2016 semester, David DeCosse is invited visiting professor at Sophia University, the Jesuit university in Tokyo. He is on the staff of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. He will be blogging about his experience abroad via the blog "Letters from Japan."

Professor Norimitsu Tosu, 74, survived the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. Tosu and his wife, Katsumi, live in the Setagaya Ward of Tokyo, where they are parishioners at Matsubara Catholic Church. Their son Fumiaki is a resident of Casa de Clara, the Catholic Worker house in San Jose, Calif.; his daughter, Rei, lives in Orange County, Calif.; and another son, Fumitsugu, lives in Myanmar. Tosu was interviewed in his office in Tokyo Dec. 1. The interview was conducted in English.

DeCosse: Where is your family from in Japan?

Tosu: My father [Yoshio] was from Toyama Prefecture and my mother [Hatsuko] was from Kanagawa Prefecture. They were married and moved to Hiroshima for my father's job. He worked for the Kirin Beer company. My parents moved to Hiroshima in the early 1930s. So my family had lived there for some time.

I was born right here [he pointed to a map of Hiroshima] — that's 1.3 kilometers away from the epicenter of the bombing. It's the Hakushima area of Hiroshima. It's on the river, a very beautiful place. Next to my house was a girls' high school. Around my house were lots of temples. It's a kind of a very religious area, with a lot of Buddhist temples. This is the place — Hijiyama Park — where I played often. My family included my mother and my father; my twin brother (Hiroyoshi); three elder sisters (Yukiko, Hiroko and Emiko); and one elder brother (Yoshihiro).

Can you tell us what happened to you and your family on the day of the bombing?

My elder brother was in the military forces and he was a lot older than me. He was here in Hiroshima and he was dead instantly. But we didn't locate our sister's body. Hiroko was apparently in the blast epicenter area. She was a high school student and many students were forced to work during the war clearing streets of debris and such. So she and other students must have been working around the central area. But we didn't know what happened to her and we never located her body. Nothing. We didn't even know where exactly she was when the bomb exploded.

https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/interview-survivor-hiroshima-bombing