NikkeiWest--Northern California Japanese American Newspaper

By J.K. Yamamoto--VIZ Cinema in San Francisco Japantown commemorated the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with an Aug. 6 screening of “White Light/Black Rain” and a talk with local hibakusha (A-bomb survivors) and their supporters.

The documentary by Bay Area filmmaker Steven Okazaki features several survivors, who give first-hand accounts of the world’s first (and so far only) nuclear attacks. They tell horrific stories of seeing family members die before their eyes and being permanently scarred themselves. Members of the crew that dropped the bomb were also interviewed.

Rev. Nobuaki Hanaoka moderated the post-screening discussion. “It’s such a powerful film,” he remarked. “I’ve seen those photographs many, many times, but it still leaves me speechless to watch a film like this.”

Hanaoka, a United Methodist minister who has served congregations in Sacramento and San Francisco, is himself a Nagasaki survivor, but “I was only an eight-month-old baby, so I can’t talk about the bombing or aftermath. My mother died and my sister died also, later on.”

Seiko Fujimoto, a Hiroshima survivor, came to the U.S. in 1971 and raised a family here. When she was growing up in Japan, she recalled, “I always hid where I came from. I never mentioned too much (about) Hiroshima, where was I born … Especially the girls were not allowed to tell anyone they are from Hiroshima ... because (it was believed) that deformed children will be born in that family.”

The film mentioned that hibakusha were initially shunned because of the mistaken belief that radiation sickness was contagious, but that prejudice against them persists to this day.

Fujimoto also touched on the issue of survivor guilt. “My brother never had a chance to grow up. I have two beautiful children and grandchildren. My brother never had a chance to enjoy … his nephew and grandnephew.”

As the film pointed out, many hibakusha question why they survived while their families perished. That feeling never goes away, Fujimoto said.

When asked by an audience member about the March 1945 incendiary attack on Tokyo by American bombers, which created a huge firestorm and killed at least 100,000 people, Fujimoto agreed that it was comparable to Hiroshima even though non-nuclear weapons were used. In both cases, she said, people were trapped by walls of fire, and many jumped into a river to escape the heat, only to die in the water.

“My brother had leukemia from the A-bomb disease. We had to bring my brother to Tokyo, and Hiroshima to Tokyo it takes 24 hours by train,” she recalled. “When we arrived in Tokyo, we were really surprised. We didn’t see a house. We didn’t see nothing. Just like Hiroshima.”

‘I Keep Going’

Michiko Benevedes, who survived the Nagasaki bombing at age 13, talked about her experiences. “I’m not supposed to be here … I was buried under the house. Lucky I didn’t stay outside. Otherwise I’m burned like my cousin and die … I fainted … I don’t know how long … All of a sudden I woke up … I smell smoke because house is burning. I start screaming, ‘Mother, help me! I’m here!’ ”

Despite being injured, her mother, “a skinny lady,” was able to move the wreckage and dig her out, Benevedes said. “Incredible, the power she had.”

The family took shelter in a cave, where her cousin, who had been burned beyond recognition, died after taking a sip of water. Many survivors have told stories of burn victims who begged for water, only to die the moment they were given some; it was apparently too much of a shock to their systems.

“We have to sleep in the cave, same place with dead people,” Benevedes said.

The family sought shelter at her grandmother’s house in the Goto Islands, a three-hour boat trip from Nagasaki. “On the way … my mother died. Just drink spring water. She said, ‘Oh, delicious.’ That’s the last word. She finally found peace that day.”

Shortly thereafter, Benevedes showed symptoms of radiation sickness. Her hair fell out, she was vomiting blood, and there were purple spots all over her body. When she was taken the hospital, “doctor says, ‘Give up. We cannot save you. We have no medicine to cure.’ ”

She lived through it, but within one month she had lost six family members, including her father and a sister. One sister survived, “but she was handicapped for all her life.”

Benevedes, who later married an American and moved to the U.S., added, “I don’t have children. I cannot give birth to children. (It was a) defect from when I was 13 … from the atomic bomb. Doctor told me, ‘You cannot have no children.’ … I don’t have nobody now, but I keep going.”

‘War Is Hell’

Fujimoto said she doesn’t dwell on questions of blaming Japan’s militarists for starting the war or the American government for dropping the bomb. “To me, if you have casualties in your country, you are the loser too. Because there is a sad family … just like my family … Japanese people feel it’s wartime, nothing we can do. We suffered, other countries suffered, everybody suffered ...

“So the children are the ones who have to start to make peace in this world. Adults, they already made up their own mind, they’re not going to change it. But children still can change their mind … If you go to Hiroshima, you can see hell and heaven at the same time. At the museum of the atomic bomb, that’s hell. But when you go outside of the building and (see) the children laughing and running around and singing, that’s heaven … So that’s the lesson that we have to give to the younger generation — that they never should start any war in the world.”

Hanaoka had similar sentiments: “War is tragedy, war is hell. And to me war is the indication of the failure of diplomacy. When I came here, actually even before I came here, I knew American persons and they were the nicest people … It’s not the people that I hate, but the war that I hate. Japanese are people too, and Americans are people too. And it’s very unfortunate that this happened. Personally, I think it’s our mission to make sure we don’t start anything like this ever again.

“The film reminded me of the Uragami Church in Nagasaki. That was the largest Christian congregation in all of Asia with 18,000 members, and 12,000 members of 18,000 were killed that day. That’s what war does. Very unfortunate.”

Kiku Funabiki, a Nisei, said she was struck by the opening of the film, in which young Japanese people are asked if they know what important historical event happened on Aug. 6, 1945 (the day Hiroshima was bombed). All of them respond in the negative. One guesses, “An earthquake?”

“My goodness, don’t they teach it in school? Why are they so unaware?” Funabiki asked. “It’s the young people that are going to have to carry on the story … Of all people in the world, it’s people in Japan that need to keep this story going.”

Manami Iiboshi, programming director for VIZ Cinema, responded, “We were all told about the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So it’s not that the Japanese government is hiding this fact from young students. So it was really surprising to me to see those young kids really had no idea of what this day means … I was kind of shocked.”

Hanaoka added that while Japanese students do learn about the war, “history textbooks have some serious omissions about Japanese atrocities in China ... in Korea and the Philippines. But also I think lately the emphasis is not on the war and responsibility, who was responsible for starting the war and so forth ... So there’s a problem with education too.”

Helping the Hibakusha

A portion of the proceeds from screenings of “White Light/Black Rain” on Aug. 6 and 7 went to Friends of Hibakusha. Geri Handa explained that the non-profit organization was formed in 1981. “We were actually supporting the survivors who were trying to pass a bill in Congress to receive some aid or assistance for many of their medical problems they were having, and also to receive some support here in the United States. But after 10 years of trying to do this, they weren’t succeeding, but they still needed assistance.”

Few American doctors have experience treating radiation-related illnesses. Survivors in the U.S., including Nisei who were stranded in Japan during the war, are entitled to free medical care from the Japanese government, but they must travel to Japan to get it. Starting in 1977, medical experts from Hiroshima have visited the U.S. to provide free examinations for hibakusha and their children.

Friends of Hibakusha was started by Okazaki, Hanaoka, author Dorothy Stroup, Committee of Atomic Bomb Survivors President Kanji Kuramoto and others “to raise funds to help survivors go to Japan to receive medical care,” said Handa. “The cost of flying to Japan was almost prohibitive for many of them, so we actually did that as a first project.

“As a result of that, we also became involved with the medical visits. There’s a medical team that comes over every two years to the United States and they usually come to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu and Seattle ... This is sponsored by the Japanese government.”

Friends of Hibakusha provides local doctors and others who volunteer their time to help with the examinations. “We’ve been very privileged to have the San Francisco Medical Society sponsor the medical team and St. Mary’s Medical Center to utilize their facilities there, to help us with the examinations,” Handa noted. The next visit will take place next year.

Hanaoka said that he is also involved in an oral history project. “A few years ago, we interviewed some of the survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the sake of keeping the record and preserving the memory, the stories of the hibakusha. At this time we are trying to put it on the Internet so that those stories could be accessible to the people who are interested … who want to teach their children about the horror of the atomic attacks. Through the Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley, their online service will soon make the stories accessible. We’re working on that right now.”