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Hiroshima University Archives confirms 500 original documents on Hiroshima Hidankyo’s early history

by Gosuke Nagahisa, Staff Writer

On August 3, Hiroshima University Archives (located in Higashihiroshima City) announced it has confirmed the original documents that describe the preparation, and early activities, involved in founding the Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations established in 1956. The collection contains about 500 pieces of written material that were sent from September 1955 to around April 1961. Also included are the records of board meetings, and correspondence with persons involved. The collection is scheduled to be opened to the public at the end of September.

A document issued in September, 1955, considered to be the drafted rules of the A-bomb survivor alliance association, an organization formed before Hiroshima Hidankyo, incorporates a provision regarding “requests for securing (living of) A-bomb survivors made to the Japanese government officials” (sic). This request was a near-term activity of the organization at that time. Other documents are correspondence with the late Takeshi Kawate, who supported the early phase of A-bomb survivors’ movements, concerning the foundation of Hiroshima Hidankyo. These documents tell us the process of how the association demanded financial support and relief from the government.

The documents also include a petition letter to the U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower who was expected to visit Japan in 1960 when Japan was shaken by the revision of the Japan-US Security Treaty. The letter says, “We strongly urge you to cancel your visit to Japan if you don’t apologize for the dropping of the atomic bombs in front of the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims, don’t promise to compensate for it, and are not determined to promise to never repeat the same mistake.”

A series of the documents were lent to present-day Hiroshima University’s Research Institute for Radiation Biology and Medicine in the early 1980s, and the institute prepared a list and copy of the documents and returned them to Hiroshima Hidankyo. A person who was concerned, obtained the documents in 2005 when Hiroshima Hidankyo (chaired by Sunao Tsuboi) moved to its office in Ote-machi, Naka Ward, and donated the documents to the Hiroshima University Archives in 2018. Hiroshima Hidankyo, which had been looking for its early documents, was discussing the donation with the Hiroshima University Archives.

Masaharu Ishida, an associate professor who sorted out the documents, says, “These documents are very important evidence of the A-bomb survivors’ history and the greatest reference material for studying the post-war history of Japan.”

(Originally published on August 4, 2020)

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