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Documenting Hiroshima of 1945: October 25, school classes begin in Chokin Bank branch office

by Minami Yamashita, Staff Writer

On October 25, 1945, Senda National School (present-day Senda Elementary School, in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward) began to hold classes in space on the fourth floor it had rented from the nearby Hiroshima Chokin Bank branch office. The school’s own wooden building, located around 1.7 kilometers to the south of the hypocenter, had been burned to the ground in the atomic bombing. Although closure had once been considered an option, the school was able to resolve its predicament by securing the required space for classrooms, with groups of students that had been evacuated to the outskirts of the city returning to the area from the end of September to early October.

“Teachers and staff at the school were so happy at the time,” wrote Nobuo Gamo, then vice principal of the school at the time, in a personal account he contributed to a magazine, published in 1975, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the founding of Senda Elementary School. In the account, Mr. Gamo described the appearance of the new school life.

Every morning, teachers and staff would hold a meeting in a tent set up on the school’s grounds, and after the morning assembly was finished, they would escort the students in the upper-grade levels to the Chokin Bank’s branch office. The bank’s ferroconcrete building was made up of four stories aboveground and a single-story basement. The glass in the windows had been blown out by the blast from the bombing, but the building itself had been spared due to efforts made to fight the spreading fires.

Classrooms were created by partitioning a long and narrow room, with straw and woven mats spread out on the floor and sewing tables that had been brought back from evacuation sites used as desks. Mr. Gamo wrote in his personal account, “When it grew cold, snowflakes would float into the room from the windows lacking even a single pane of glass, making the cold penetrate ever more deeply.”

Meanwhile, students in the lower grades remained at the site of the former school, learning in open-air classes. Matsuko Hasebe, 85, a first-year student at the school at the time who currently lives in Uji City, Kyoto Prefecture, would study in the school’s auditorium, whose steel framework was the only thing remaining after the fires.

Ms. Hasebe experienced the atomic bombing near her home in the neighborhood of Senda-machi 3-chome, losing her two-year old brother. Her mother suffered severe burns. Despite the circumstances, she recalled, “I was happy to see my friends at school, although I’m sure the adults were overwhelmed by sorrow.” She used to take her study materials to school from her home, which was undamaged by the fires, and the students all would share school textbooks.

Upon request from the bank, the school left the Chokin Bank branch office at the beginning of 1946. The school had rented a private house located within the school district, where it continued to conduct classes. In March 1946, after raising funding for construction expenses from neighborhood associations and school support groups, the school built a school office that would serve as the first school building constructed after the bombing. The school building was used to provide classes to sixth-grade students and for graduation ceremonies.

(Originally published on October 25, 2024)

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