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Descendent of White Russian Sergei Palchikoff writes book from U.S. about family hardships experienced while living in Hiroshima before and during war

Publication touches on A-bombing experience and everyday life in Hiroshima

by Kyoko Niiyama, Staff Writer

A new book has been published in the United States featuring the lives of the family of the late Sergei Palchikoff, a White Russian who experienced the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The publication touches the family’s life in the city during World War II and its experience in the atomic bombing, based on writings left by Kaleria Palchikoff, Sergei’s oldest daughter, who died at the age of 93 in 2014. Anthony Drago, 70, Kaleria’s oldest son, who lives in California, is the book’s author.

The publication includes quotations from Kaleria’s post-war writings and transcripts from a taping of her responses in an interview with the United States Strategic Bombing Survey team in December 1945. It describes how the Palchikoff family fled Russia after the Bolshevik revolution and managed to arrive in Hiroshima in 1923 after traveling by sea on a voyage of around four months. The book also touches on the family’s pre-war daily life in the area of Kaminagarekawa-cho (now part of Naka Ward, Hiroshima) after her father had begun to work as a music teacher at Hiroshima Jogakuin School (present-day Hiroshima Jogakuin Junior & Senior High School).

During the war in the Pacific, Mr. Palchikoff was detained on suspicion of espionage for a time, losing his job at the school. The family’s hardships at that time and the situation on August 6, 1945, are described in detail in the book. The family experienced the atomic bombing at home in what is now Ushita-asahi, in the city’s Higashi Ward, located about 2.5 kilometers from the hypocenter. Kaleria helped care for the wounded at an evacuation shelter. She wrote how she was unable to help a young boy with impaled fragments of glass over his entire body who died crying out for his mom.

After the war, Kaleria and her family moved to Tokyo. She worked for the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Allied Forces, and upon marrying emigrated to the United States in 1948. In that same year, she spoke on a U.S. radio program about her personal experience in the atomic bombing. The information she conveyed on the radio was incorporated into the book.

Mr. Drago’s book, Surviving Hiroshima, was co-authored by Douglas Wellman, 70, Mr. Drago’s acquaintance, and sells for $16.95 (about 1,800 yen). It can be purchased on Amazon and other online sites. Mr. Drago explained how he wanted to convey his mother’s wish that such a tragedy never be repeated, and indicated his desire to have the book translated into Japanese.

Keywords

Sergei Palchikoff
Born in Kazan, a city in central Russia. After fleeing the Russian revolution, Mr. Palchikoff arrived in Hiroshima at the age of 29. He worked as a music teacher at Hiroshima Jogakuin School from 1926 to 1943, after his musical talent was discovered as he performed on the violin at a movie theater. After the war ended, he moved to the United States and ultimately died in 1969. His daughter, Kaleria, donated his violin, which had survived the atomic bombing, to Hiroshima Jogakuin School in 1986. The violin is now displayed in the history museum at Hiroshima Jogakuin University (Higashi Ward).

(Originally published on September 15, 2020)

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