Documenting Hiroshima of 1945: September 2, A-bomb victim’s certificate issued to Koreans
Sep. 2, 2024
by Kyosuke Mizukawa, Senior Staff Writer
On September 2, 1945, the Japanese government signed the Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri battleship in Tokyo Bay, formalizing the Allied occupation of Japan.
Kwak Kwi Hoon, 21 at the time, who died in 2022 at the age of 98, was granted an A-bomb victim’s certificate on that same date. The certificate for “Tadahiro Matsuyama,” the Japanese name assigned to Mr. Kwak under the policy that forced Koreans to change their names to Japanese, indicated that he had been “wounded by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima City and developed pernicious anemia.” The certificate includes the signatures and official seals of the commanding officer of the unit to which he belonged and an army surgeon.
According to Mr. Kwak’s memoir, titled A-bomb Survivors are A-bomb Survivors No Matter Where They Are (Japanese translation published in 2016), he had been drafted into the Japanese military and sent to Hiroshima in 1944 from the Korean Peninsula, which was under Japanese colonial rule, when he was a student at Jeonju National Normal School. He experienced the atomic bombing while in the barracks yard at the military base of the fifth engineering battalion, located around two kilometers from the hypocenter. When his jacket caught on fire, he suffered severe injuries. He was admitted to an Army hospital branch in the village of Ono (in present-day Hatsukaichi City).
On August 15, 1945, while at the branch hospital, he listened to the broadcast of the Emperor’s announcement of Japan’s surrender and the end of the war. Mr. Kwak wrote in his memoir, “My heart raced and tears gushed from my eyes … it meant the independence of my country, which I longed for achingly, was about to become a reality. Or at least it had come as close as right before my eyes.” His unit was disbanded in early September, and after his demobilization, he became a teacher in Korea.
In 1967, he participated in the founding of the Association for the Relief of Korean Atomic Bomb Victims (present-day South Korean Atomic Bomb Sufferers Association). With the support of Japanese citizens, he filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government for failing to support A-bomb survivors living overseas, arguing that “A-bomb survivors are A-bomb survivors no matter where they are.” In 2002, the Osaka High Court ruled in favor of Mr. Kwak, granting him health-care allowances under the Atomic Bomb Survivors Relief Law.
He donated the certificate proving he had experienced the atomic bombing to the Independence Hall of Korea in South Korea and provided a replica of the certificate to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima City. In 2019, Mr. Kwak toured the exhibits at the Peace Memorial Museum and left the following message — “From my documents, I want people to know about the countless deaths and hardships of Koreans.”
(Originally published on September 2, 2024)
On September 2, 1945, the Japanese government signed the Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri battleship in Tokyo Bay, formalizing the Allied occupation of Japan.
Kwak Kwi Hoon, 21 at the time, who died in 2022 at the age of 98, was granted an A-bomb victim’s certificate on that same date. The certificate for “Tadahiro Matsuyama,” the Japanese name assigned to Mr. Kwak under the policy that forced Koreans to change their names to Japanese, indicated that he had been “wounded by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima City and developed pernicious anemia.” The certificate includes the signatures and official seals of the commanding officer of the unit to which he belonged and an army surgeon.
According to Mr. Kwak’s memoir, titled A-bomb Survivors are A-bomb Survivors No Matter Where They Are (Japanese translation published in 2016), he had been drafted into the Japanese military and sent to Hiroshima in 1944 from the Korean Peninsula, which was under Japanese colonial rule, when he was a student at Jeonju National Normal School. He experienced the atomic bombing while in the barracks yard at the military base of the fifth engineering battalion, located around two kilometers from the hypocenter. When his jacket caught on fire, he suffered severe injuries. He was admitted to an Army hospital branch in the village of Ono (in present-day Hatsukaichi City).
On August 15, 1945, while at the branch hospital, he listened to the broadcast of the Emperor’s announcement of Japan’s surrender and the end of the war. Mr. Kwak wrote in his memoir, “My heart raced and tears gushed from my eyes … it meant the independence of my country, which I longed for achingly, was about to become a reality. Or at least it had come as close as right before my eyes.” His unit was disbanded in early September, and after his demobilization, he became a teacher in Korea.
In 1967, he participated in the founding of the Association for the Relief of Korean Atomic Bomb Victims (present-day South Korean Atomic Bomb Sufferers Association). With the support of Japanese citizens, he filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government for failing to support A-bomb survivors living overseas, arguing that “A-bomb survivors are A-bomb survivors no matter where they are.” In 2002, the Osaka High Court ruled in favor of Mr. Kwak, granting him health-care allowances under the Atomic Bomb Survivors Relief Law.
He donated the certificate proving he had experienced the atomic bombing to the Independence Hall of Korea in South Korea and provided a replica of the certificate to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima City. In 2019, Mr. Kwak toured the exhibits at the Peace Memorial Museum and left the following message — “From my documents, I want people to know about the countless deaths and hardships of Koreans.”
(Originally published on September 2, 2024)
