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Documenting Hiroshima of 1945: October 26, shacks erected alongside Industrial Promotion Hall

by Maho Yamamoto, Staff Writer

On October 26, 1945, efforts to restore daily life were evident in the area next to the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall (present-day A-bomb Dome, in Hiroshima City’s Naka Ward), a structure that suffered great damage in the atomic bombing. It was one part of Sarugaku-cho, a devastated area near the hypocenter. A photograph taken on that date from the building of the Hiroshima Prefectural Association of Commerce and Industry (present-day Hiroshima Chamber of Commerce and Industry) shows a structural foundation that had not been evident in a separate photo taken of the same spot on October 5, 1945 (that photo was introduced to readers in an article from this feature series published this month on October 5).

According to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Fukuichi Kawamoto, who died in 1970, had managed the Kawamoto Shokai bicycle wholesale business at that location from before the war. Mr. Kawamoto wrote in his personal account that he had begun cleaning up the ruins of his business’ premises starting around September 20.

On August 6, he had been severely wounded in the bombing on his way to Ujina (in Hiroshima’s present-day Minami Ward), and had lost his wife, Tsuyako, 48 at the time, and his sixth daughter, Ikue, 17. He worked to restore his business by traveling back and forth between his second home on the outskirts of Hiroshima and the ruins. When the photos are compared, it becomes evident that shacks in the area had taken shape in November.

Soon after Mr. Kawamoto returned to Sarugaku-cho, he found among the ruins of the Promotion Hall sprouting tree seeds that had been taken there by small birds and said the discovery made him feel keenly that, “Hiroshima was alive.” After then, he transplanted many seedlings to cultivate them in other spots in the area. The seedlings have now grown into big trees around the A-bomb Dome.

(Originally published on October 26, 2024)

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