Yoko's Diary

by Paul Ham

  Then I was sent away to Kyushu on 12 June, just as air raids were becoming deadlier and more frequent, and Yoko, concerned about my safety, mentions that she prayed for me. ‘God, please protect my brother Kohji.’ I, for whom she prayed, was saved while she, who prayed for me, was killed.

  What Yoko’s diary taught me is that twelve- and thirteen-year-old schoolgirls had no idea that Japan’s war defeat was imminent or that the remaining days of their own lives were numbered. Right until the very end they believed in their country. And above all, the diary tells us how cheerfully and valiantly they lived the days of their tragically short adolescence.

  The last entry in Yoko’s diary was written on 5 August, exactly four months from the date of the Kenjo school entrance ceremony. The following day, 6 August, the Year 7 Kenjo students met their fate in Dobashi. They had barely begun their demolition labour service when the atomic bomb exploded above their heads at 8.15am.

  After the atomic explosion, my little sister was picked up by a relief truck and taken to a makeshift relief centre located 10 kilometres away. Critically injured, she died the same evening.

  Report from Dobashi

  On 6 August, approximately 220 Year 7 students were clearing away houses that had been demolished in the Dobashi area under the supervision of their form master, Kenichi Sasaki, and several other teachers.

  The students gathered at Koamicho Tram Station at 7am to begin clearing away debris, such as tiles and pieces of wood. The first thing they did was to remove their school uniforms and change into light working clothes. They then placed their uniforms, together with their other belongings, such as bento boxes, in the shade of a row of trees. Afterwards, some of these uniforms and charred bento boxes were found and returned to the girls’ families.

  The students formed two lines and were passing tiles and other debris to one another relay-style when they met their fate. It is believed that most of the students and teachers died instantly and that the open space created by the demolished houses would have made the blast even more destructive.

  The several dozen students who survived were instructed by their teacher to head to an evacuation centre in Koi. All of them were critically injured and by 7 August the following morning all had died.

  According to reports made by the students before they died, Kenichi Sasaki, the teacher who had been supervising their work duties that day, sustained injuries to every part of his person including both of his legs, which were severely burned. Despite this, the last instruction he ever gave his students was, ‘I am done for. Everyone, head for the Koi evacuation centre!’ He then drove his critically injured body forward through the flames to save his students and was never seen again.

  The following day, Mr Sasaki’s bag was the only trace of him found in the area.

  Thus, all of the teachers and students who were at the school that day, and all of those who had been doing housing demolition work, ultimately perished.

  Altogether, 297 Kenjo students and teachers were killed by the atomic bomb. Of these, twenty were teachers (including the school principal) and 277 were students.

  Extract from the 1 March 1982 issue of the Minami Yuho 80th Anniversary Commemorative Magazine (Hiroshima Minami High School – predecessor of First Hiroshima Prefectural Girls’ High School or ‘Kenjo’)

  Never spoken of, never forgotten

  August 6, being a labour day for Yoko, meant her diary remained at home. Whenever I look at the diary that Yoko left behind, I am reminded of my mother who, during the remainder of her life, would read the diary alone, overcome with sadness. It was very difficult for me to see her like that, and so I would pretend that I didn’t notice, and I did not open the diary for a very long time due to the sense of fear and distress I associated with it.

  Eventually the diary came to the attention of the makers of a special NHK documentary entitled Girls in Summer Dresses – Hiroshima – 6 August 1945, which told the story of the Year 7 students of Kenjo who were killed by the atomic bomb. Through this documentary, which was broadcast in August 1988, I met Hiroshi Kamei, a teacher from the Hosei University Girls’ High School in Yokohama, who was coordinator of a special course for students about the atomic bombings. Each year the school conducted a four-day Hiroshima Study Trip, and on one such trip, at the pressing of the students, Mr Kamei tried to make contact with my father. My father was then in poor health so I offered to speak to the students in his place

  Yoko with her father, Ataru Moriwaki, and her mother, Masae Moriwaki, in 1938.

  Until then, I had barely mentioned to anyone the fact that I had experienced the atomic bomb and my sister had been killed by it; not because I was concealing the fact that I was a hibakusha (‘atomic bomb survivor’), but because I did not want to remember it.

  The meeting with Mr Kamei was a turning point in my life. I had always known that talking about the experience of the atomic bomb and leaving a record for future generations was the duty of hibakusha; but meeting him made me regret that I had avoided doing so. Now, every year on 6 August, I attend the memorial service for Kenjo A-bomb victims. The victims’ parents who attend the ceremony are getting very old, and as the years pass their numbers grow fewer. And of course, there are no parents who can attend the ceremony for those schoolgirls whose entire families were wiped out by the bomb.

  Hibakusha

  Hibakusha – meaning literally ‘bomb-affected people’ – is the Japanese word for the survivors of the bomb. There were several hundred thousand survivors. Many were hit by flying debris. The flash and the firestorm burned others, and tens of thousands were exposed to potentially deadly radiation. Radiation poisoning was the most terrifying, because nobody understood the disease. The victims lost their hair, small purple spots appeared on their skin, and gradually they lost control of their bodies and died.

  But many survived the poisoning to live out their lives with chronic health problems. Others were so badly deformed with burn scars called ‘keloids’ that they were shunned and forced to hide indoors by day. In many homes the parents of young hibakusha hid all the mirrors to spare the child the misery of seeing him- or herself. Many bomb-affected children refused to go to school because they were mocked as ‘red demons’ and ‘monsters’.

  All hibakusha were, at first, treated as outcasts in Japanese society, rather like lepers. But gradually efforts were made to help them, and today special hospitals and nursing homes treat the survivors.

  – Paul Ham

  I began this mission too late in life, so the time that remains is very precious to me. For that reason, I now tell my story every year to Hosei University Girls’ High School students who visit Hiroshima on their annual Hiroshima Study Trip.

  One such time, Mr Kamei took Yoko’s diary in his hands and urged me to have it published, saying, ‘This precious record must be left behind.’

  At the very least, it is a diary from the era when, in the last days of World War II, Japan was in the grip of a severe food shortage.

  Kohji Hosokawa with his wife, Kazuko Hosokawa, and (centre) Masako Kajiyama, who was in the same class at Kenjo as Yoko, and was involved in the publishing of Yoko’s Diary in Japan in 1996.

  The paper quality is poor, the ink has faded, and the diary itself is quite badly damaged. Realising that I could delay no longer, I sat down at my computer. The task I had set myself forced me to type the words of my little sister’s diary into my PC. It was an extremely painful task, which I did with a heavy heart.

  Nevertheless, as I turned the pages, a strange thing happened – my sweet, gentle little sister came back to life before my eyes, and my emotion changed from one of heavyheartedness to one of nostalgia. I felt as if we were having a conversation. One by one, the diary brought things that I had forgotten flooding back to me, and quite to my surprise it warmed my heart.

  The hole that Yoko left

  by Miki Koroyasu

  Whoever would have thought my father had so many memories buried deep inside him?

&n
bsp; He had always been hesitant to talk about the atomic bomb and his sister, Yoko, but the thing that changed all that was the NHK production Girls in Summer Dresses, which was broadcast on 7 August 1988. He later told me that he had been unable to sleep that night. Necessity forced him to read his sister’s diary.

  Ever since I was a child, I had found it strange that my father never spoke publicly about his experience of the atomic bomb. Now I saw him completely immersed in the task of painstakingly revealing, piece by piece, that part of his past he had been most loath to remember. I guess it took fifty years before he could finally bring himself to talk about it.

  My grandmother also hardly ever mentioned Yoko or her life around the time of the atomic bomb. But shortly before she died, she did tell me something that I will never forget as long as I live.

  After being repatriated from China, my grandfather finally arrived home one day to find my grandmother gaunt and emaciated, her grief at Yoko’s death having robbed her of the very will to live. She tried to tell him what had happened to Yoko, but as she tried to move her mouth, her voice and strength both failed her and she found she was unable to speak. My grandfather reassured her, ‘You don’t have to tell me.’ He then ran her a hot bath and bathed her emaciated body. She told me that she was deeply comforted by that act of kindness.

  I have been told that when I was a newborn baby, my grandfather, who was a music teacher and who had inspired Yoko to dream of being a musician, would sit at my bedside, his mind awash with memories of his daughter, and play the harmonica to me. Both my grandfather and grandmother were delighted when I quite unwittingly decided to pursue a career in music.

  One thing I remember vividly is my grandmother bringing me a box of tomatoes which she had carried home from the market. It was a hot summer day, about one year before my university entrance exams, and the sun was beating down mercilessly. The box was huge and crammed to the top with rows of delicious-looking bright red-ripe tomatoes. Goodness knows how heavy it must have been! My grandmother was sweating and panting with exertion. The tomatoes were gleaming in the summer sunlight, and the sight of them suddenly reminded me of Yoko’s necklace of red beads, which I used to call ‘rubies’ even though they were really made of glass. It dawned on me that my grandmother really wanted to give those tomatoes to Yoko, who had loved tomatoes.

  Yoko playing the piano at home in 1943. (Kohji Hosokawa)

  Now Yoko’s diary has been published. I believe that the aspect of Yoko’s diary that people find most appealing and powerful is that it is a faithful record of facts.

  These unadorned facts are passed on to the next generation, unfaded by the passage of time. This, I believe, is the mission that is demanded of us, the ones left behind.

  Second-generation hibakusha

  by Yo Hosokawa

  When I was a small child, my parents would occasionally take me to Hiroshima to visit my grandparents. Hanging in the cool, dark entranceway of their home was a picture of a young girl. For a very long time, I found the gaze of that girl, who always seemed to be looking my way and smiling faintly, quite unnerving. After all, I was just a young lad.

  For as long as I can remember, 6 August has been a somewhat special day for me. In the morning our family would visit Peace Park, folding our hands together in prayer before the numerous monuments. We would also sing songs at various ceremonies we attended, such as the memorial service for Kenjo atomic bomb victims. In the evening, we would stand on the bank of the Motoyasu River and pray as countless lanterns drifted by on the current. Although I never consciously thought of the day as being either special or normal, 6 August was for me, I suppose, a day when our family normally did special things.

  As I grew older, I changed schools several times, as my father moved around a lot with his job. I was surprised to learn that in other prefectures what was a normal thing for me was not normal for others. This prompted me to go around telling people about the Hiroshima holocaust. I was now acutely aware of the fact that I was a second-generation Hiroshima survivor. Despite that, I knew virtually nothing about the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, and made no effort to learn about it.

  A portrait of Yoko by Kenzo Oya, which hung over a doorway in Yoko’s parents’ house. (Kohji Hosokawa)

  As I moved to different cities and schools every couple of years, I developed a strange feeling that because I was a second-generation Hiroshima survivor, and therefore hadn’t experienced the atomic bomb myself, I didn’t really belong to either world – the world of Hiroshima or the world outside. This feeling for a long time both sustained and tormented me.

  My father has occasionally talked to me about his experience of being an atomic bomb survivor. Even when I was only a child, it was obvious to me that the experience had completely shattered his whole world, so much so that it was difficult for him to describe. As a child, I listened grave-faced whenever he told me those grim stories. Before long, I also became aware that the story told by my father and that told by my mother held different nuances.

  I had not heard my father tell Yoko’s story all that often, and when he did, he did not provide many details. Most of what he has ever told me about Yoko was triggered by Yoko’s diary, which even I saw only for the first time when I was working on tasks related to the publication of this book.

  Perhaps for my father the atomic bomb and especially Yoko are now like a part of himself. Although my father began speaking about the atomic bomb, and finally Yoko, as he started to age, he has still never spoken to me even once about his inner self.

  When my child was diagnosed at a young age with a sarcoma, I suspected it was linked to my being a second-generation atomic bomb survivor. Even though there is no scientific proof of it, I feel in my bones that the two things must be linked. As my child gets older, I notice the resemblance to my father in everything from his features to his personality, and to me this reinforces the fact that my mother’s and father’s blood flows in his veins.

  I guess that for me, thinking about the atomic bomb means thinking about its impact on my identity and family, before considering the past mistakes made by Japan or world peace.

  My grandmother passed away fifteen years ago and my grandfather followed two years ago. Whenever I visit their home, I feel as though two people who should be there are missing. For my grandparents, I suppose the young girl in the picture was always the person who should have been there.

  My parents now live in that home. Today, it seems they live more freely, selfishly and with more regard for themselves than they ever could have in the past. The picture of the young girl still hangs in the home my parents settled in after many years of constantly moving around. For my father, I believe she will always be the one who should be there. Naturally, that girl is still looking my way and smiling faintly. Only now I don’t find the feeling that she is watching me unpleasant. She will remain a young girl forever.

  Even though I am now an adult, my parents continue to worry about me. But I believe that Yoko, although far away, is watching over me.

  Little sisters

  by Kazuko Hosokawa

  Yoko Moriwaki is my older sister-in-law whom I never met. And Yoko’s father, Ataru Moriwaki, is my former music tutor. Yoko’s dream of following in her father’s footsteps by pursuing a career in music was cruelly ripped away by the atomic bomb. After the war, by some twist of fate, I began to learn the piano from Mr Moriwaki. At that time, I was about the same age as Yoko had been when she died.

  My husband and I share a common experience in that we both lost our younger sisters, who can never be replaced, to the atomic bomb. Although we were aware of this fact before we got married, for some reason we never broached the subject with one another; perhaps there was some unspoken agreement between us not to do so. But on the eve of the publication of this book, my husband began furiously writing down all of his memories of Yoko, something he had so determinedly avoided doing in the past.

  As I watched him in this task, I was filled with a deep sadnes
s because it stirred up vivid memories of my own younger sister, Fumiko.

  In 1944, my family left Tokyo, where air raids were becoming deadlier and more frequent, and evacuated to my grandparents’ homes in Hiroshima. For various reasons, temporarily my younger brother and I stayed with my mother’s parents in Hatsukaichi, while my younger sister stayed with my father’s parents in Enomachi, Hiroshima.

  In the spring of 1945, my younger sister started her first year of national school. On 6 August, the day of the atomic bomb, she was at Hirose National School, located only 600 metres from the hypocentre, coincidentally in the same vicinity as Dobashi, the area where Yoko was when she was bombed.

  I believe that Fumiko was fatally burnt by the sudden wave of intense heat and thrown by the sheer force of the blast. Meanwhile, my grandmother on my father’s side somehow managed to crawl from the ruins of her home and run to the school to look for Fumiko. In the ensuing chaos, she was unable to find her, and in a deeply distressed state she narrowly escaped death herself by running to my mother’s parents’ house.

  On 7 August, Fumiko was found crouched near the household drinking fountain, her body charred black. My small sister had used the very last of her strength to make her way home, only to be engulfed by the raging inferno when she got there. We could faintly make out the letters of her name on a fragment of clothing that had been spared by the flames. She was only five years old.

  My grandmother, who doted on her like no other, passed away one month later, on 5 September. At the time it was as if she had followed Fumiko to the grave to be with her. Although she didn’t have any obvious physical injuries, my grandmother’s hair fell out and her whole body became covered in red marks – typical symptoms of radiation sickness.