News

by Fumiyasu Miyano, Staff Writer

On February 16, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, located in the city’s centrally located Naka Ward, added two A-bombed items for the first time in seven years to its permanent exhibit. The items had been donated to the museum by Minoru Hataguchi — former director of the museum and a resident of Hatsukaichi City in Hiroshima Prefecture — who experienced the atomic bombing as an ‘in utero survivor’ while in his mother’s womb. About the belongings of his father, who died at the young age of 31 in the atomic bombing without knowing his wife was pregnant, Mr. Hataguchi said, “My hope is that the items give visitors a sense of his regrets and his family’s sorrow.”

Still attached to a chain, his father’s A-bombed pocket watch, which lacks a minute hand, still has a charred hour hand stuck at the dial plate’s eight o’clock position. The other of his father’s belongings is a rusty belt buckle he had received after participating in a national railway communications competition.

At the time of the atomic bombing, Mr. Hataguchi’s father, Jiro, was wearing both items while on duty at the Japan Ministry of Railways’ Hiroshima Railway Bureau, located 1.8 kilometers from the hypocenter. Four days after the bombing, Mr. Hataguchi’s mother, Chieno, who died in 2016 at the age of 99, is described as finding the watch and belt buckle amidst the incinerated ruins of the city and retrieving the items, along with nearby human remains, back to their home.

Mr. Hataguchi served as the Peace Memorial Museum’s director for nine years, beginning in 1997. After assuming the post, he removed the belongings from his father’s grave and introduced the items in A-bomb exhibits held overseas and at the museum. During the period 2005–2017, the belongings were part of the museum’s permanent exhibit in its main building and observed by many visitors.

With the belongings once again being put on display, Mr. Hataguchi said, “The artifacts of A-bomb victims have even more power to communicate than words. I want people to see my father’s belongings while I’m still able to continue sharing his story.”

Once each year, the museum rotates a portion of the 500 items it displays, including the A-bombed materials in its permanent exhibit in the museum’s main building. On that day, February 16, a total of 74 newly displayed items were made available to the public, including a pillow that a male A-bomb victim had been using when he died at home as well as the items donated by Mr. Hataguchi.

(Originally published on February 17, 2024)