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There are perhaps a lot of people in the world who think that nothing ever changed in Hiroshima after 6 August 1945, when America dropped an atom bomb on the city. There are a lot of western peacenik tourists who step out of the station in their sandals and yoga outfits, and they look surprised that there isn’t still a mushroom cloud hanging over the city, or people with terrible burns lurching around the streets. You get the feeling that they’re a bit disappointed that there isn’t any black rain, or that they’re not in danger of getting radiation sickness, that they’ve missed the drama. The thing that I say to myself over and over again is this: I can’t believe an atom bomb was detonated here. The fear of nuclear war was a thread that ran through my childhood and teenagerhood in the 1980s. The Bomb terrified me, it was the worst thing imaginable, it conferred a horrible death, nobody survived, and even if you had the luxury of a bomb shelter, the devastation would be so incredible that you would wish you were dead. The fear of nuclear attack was a big part of my life, though it seems strange to think it now. It’s odd, to say the least, to be in a city where the worst thing imaginable really happened. Hiroshima blows it all right back at you. Whether I can believe it or not, the bomb did go off here, and in the sixty years that have intervened, the city has become rebuilt (and how!) and has devoted itself to peace. A city devoted to peace! I must tell my friend Helen Wickham about that. So here’s a thing: every time a nuclear weapon is tested, the Mayor of Hiroshima writes to the head of state and explains to them the reality of what happens when you drop a bomb on people. The area that was once ground zero (though the bomb was detonated 600 metres above the ground) is now a peace park. There is a peace museum and the city hosts many peace-related events. During the reconstruction period after the war, some people wanted to demolish the building that has come to be known as the A Bomb Dome, but others insisted it remain a memorial to what happened, and so it did. The people of Hiroshima remember the past, but they have rebuilt their city and turned it into a living testament to peace. Isn’t that something! The place where the worst possible thing happened, really happened, is a testament to human endurance, the will to survive and thrive. I’m being rose-tinted. The reality for survivors of the bomb was not so jolly, I learn. Hibakusha is a term that’s used to describe the survivors of the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a conformist society, squeaky wheels don’t get grease, instead it’s all about the protruding nail that is hammered down. Hibakusha and their offspring suffer terrible ostracism, they are excluded socially and economically from the rest of Japanese society which is enough to break your heart before you even consider the mental and physical problems they have carried with them for 60 years, and from which younger generations also suffer. That’s the thing about atom bombs, they kill and maim people long after they have been dropped. It’s a terrible shock to learn that these survivors – many of whom were children orphaned and made homeless by the bomb – are treated in such a shoddy way and carry the burden of such appalling shame regarding their experiences. In the Peace Park there is a new museum, the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, which hosts hundreds of first person accounts of what happened. It is a stunning memorial which recognises the power of oral history. Why don’t you read some testimonies? The Peace Park and Peace Museum are overwhelming. There are many times that I have to stand aside during the day and breathe deeply and have a cry. I am not one for mawkishness, but the Children’s Peace Monument, and the thousands and thousands of paper cranes are incredibly moving. The A Bomb Dome, although iconic and familiar, is shocking in reality, the rubble is still there, it’s a building that transports you to a terrible place. Alongside this there is, of course, the bizarre world of the gifte shoppe. Granted, it is not as bad as it could be, there are no mushroom cloud fridge magnets or Geiger Counter novelties, but it’s still kind of weird. You can buy Hiroshima peace biscuits, t-shirts and baseball hats that proclaim the wearers to be Nuke Free, stationery made of recycled paper cranes and…a pin with Hello Kitty sitting blankly by the A Bomb Dome. The museum gives you a fair idea of what it was like to be bombed. Photographs show confusion, panic and devastation, there was no warning, nobody knew what had happened. Panels discuss the nationalism that gripped the country at the time and hint at the atrocities carried out by Japan, they discuss the opinion I have heard from English and American people who lived through the war, that the bomb was the best way of ending it. I realise for the first time that this is not true, that there could have been other ways. The museum makes me think about America, American wars, the American attitude to its enemies, it’s all so horribly relevant to today. Over the following weeks I become obsessed with the bomb, I find the website of the guy who dropped it, his name is Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tibbets Jr and he uses his site to sell A Bomb collectibles. Last year he said: "If you give me the same circumstances, hell yeah, I'd do it again." I often think about what I will leave behind after me when I die. Will I leave books, or memories, or possessions? How long will it be until nobody remembers me at all? These thoughts come back to me as I look at the remains of the person in the museum, the person sitting on the stone steps at the bank, maybe waiting for it to open on that morning in August. The person who was vapourised by the bomb, who left only their shadow. What is it, to leave only your shadow? It really is too much to take in. Shaken and numb, we go shopping. There’s a Tokyu Hands here. |
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