Street roots., July 31, 2015, Page 8, Image 8

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Page 8
Street Roots •
tween
H
w Hawaii
m Oregon
m Hiroshima
^■ IfM asaki is a hibakusha,
a survivor of the atomic bomb.
BY LEONORA KO
C O N TR IB U TIN G W R ITER
d Kawasaki, bora and raised in Hawaii, was
visiting Hiroshima in 1945 when the U.S.
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military exploded the atomic bomb 2,000 feet
overhead. It immediately destroyed five square miles
of the city. While Hiroshima was chosen for its
military and industrial operations, most of the
estimated 90,000 to 150,000 people killed were
civilians.
Kawasaki, one of the hibakusha, or atomic bomb
survivors, returned to the U.S. after the war and
became a successful businessman with numerous
awards for community service. Oh Aug. 6, he will be
the keynote speaker at the Wholistic Peace Institute
Lunch at Concordia University as part of the 70th
P H O TO BY ISSEI KATO/REUTÉRS
anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.
The gutted Atom ic B om b Dome, now the site ó f the H iroshim a Peace M emorial, is silhouetted in Hiroshim a, Japan.
The Wholistic Peace Institute is collaborating with
the Hiroshima Ground Zero Museum to bring the
ninth grade used to work in the ammunitions factory. equipment was blasted through, and that was it. So
“Educating for Peace: Never Again” traveling exhibit
they told us to go home.
The students were mobilized because there were not
to the United States. It will be on display at the
There was no ambulance or transportation to take
enough workers in the factories.
George R. White Library & Learning Center at
us home. So they put a new bandage on my (incision),
The bomb was dropped on Aug. 6.
Concordia University in August and September.
and I walked home for 2 miles. I had to rest in
It flashed on the opposite side of the hospital.
Street Roots met with Ed Kawasaki at his home
between because of the ruptured appendix. I had two
just outside Portland to talk about his experience and Heat and the flash travel about the same speed. I
holes in my stomach, and the pus was still coming out
saw the flash; I didn’t feel the heat. There was a
how it has shaped his views on nuclear policy today.
of the tube.
chimney right outside of my window, about 25 yards
Our home was about 3 1/2 miles away from the
away. Nobody can explain this, but the chimney
Leonora Ko: How did you happen to be in
reflected a rainbow color. And it was very unusual. I
epicenter. The damage was not as severe as the
Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped?
said, “Wow.” I stood up from the bed because I
hospital. But the glass windows were broken; in
thought something was happening. A few seconds
some places the walls were caved in and the tile roof
Ed Kawasaki: My dad emigrated from Japan to
later, the blast came through the hospital.
blown.
Hawaii in 1906, over a hundred years ago. In 1941,
The hospital was about 2 miles from the. epicenter.
Fortunately that day, two of my sisters were sick
he took the whole family back to Japan to see my
The buildings, the glass doors and the windows were
and they stayed home. So nobody in our family was
grandfather, who was ill. And in 1941, we got stuck.
all blasted through, and I was hit by shrapnel. So I
injured.
We stayed there during the war and postwar, from
had some blood trickling down. That was the extent
I had to go back to the hospital to change my
1941 to 1951, when I was 11 years old to 21 years
of my injury.
dressings on a weekly basis. We lived in the country,
old.
The nurses came around and said to get into the
so I had to walk through the rice paddies in the
bomb shelter. It was a real crudely built bomb
farmland. They had piles of wood, and they put
L.K.: Could you describe some o f your experiences
shelter, with some wood, just like you’re going
corpses on the wood. They burned the corpses, and
when the atomic bomb was detonated? ,
through some coal mine. As I was going to the bomb
that was the crude way of cremation because there
shelter, I could still see the blue sky and the shiny
was no way of cremating the bodies properly.
E.K.: Just a few days before the atomic bomb, I
bomber was passing by. I was in the shelter for half
had a ruptured appendix. My dad called a sturgeon,
Going in the morning, I see it burning, and on the
an hour, and they said it’s clear.
who was one of the top surgeons at Shima Hospital
way back, the fires are done. But some of the
When we came out of the bomb shelter, the
in Hiroshima. It just so happened that the telephone
corpses - there wasn’t enough wood to completely
people coming from the epicenter started to trickle
didn’t connect to that surgeon.
burn the bodies — so part of the body was h a n g in g
into the hospital. They were burnt, and they Were
And so we went to a (different) hospital, which
over the ashes. Going through those things, the
was a military hospital. Even though it was a military trying to get help from the hospital. Shortly after
smell is awful. I don’t know if you’ve smelled your
that, the nurses came around and said we all have to
hospital, I was accepted there because I was in the
fingernails or hair burning. The whole body smells
go home because there are no facilities. The
student mobilization. During the war, students in the
the same way. So you can imagine rows of corpses
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