Documenting Hiroshima of 1945: December 4, black markets thrive amid shortages of goods
Dec. 4, 2024
by Maho Yamamoto, Staff Writer
On December 4, 1945, the Chugoku Shimbun ran an article, accompanied by a photograph, reporting on a thriving “black market” in front of Hiroshima Station (in Hiroshima City’s present-day Minami Ward). “Shops open casually with only a backpack and furoshiki wrapping cloth, attracting waves of shoppers,” explained the article. Goods sold there included blankets, tangerine oranges, and alternative manju cakes made only of flour used in udon noodles and sweet potato paste.
A black market refers to a market dealing in illicit goods that bypass public price controls and supply chains, a situation that had continued on in Hiroshima from the wartime period. For people who were unable to obtain items necessary for their daily lives due to limited supply chains triggered by goods shortages, the black market was a place on which they relied, despite some of the goods being sold at excessively high prices.
Fumiaki Kajiya, 85, a resident of Hiroshima’s Asaminami Ward, distinctly remembers what the area in front of the station was like in those days. “It was a bustling place that seemed to be the center of recovery. I would search for metals such as pans and copper cables from amid the incinerated ruins and also sell the materials on the market,” said Mr. Kajiya. Seventy-nine years ago, he was a first-year student at Kojin-cho National School (present-day Kojin Elementary School), located near the station.
He experienced the atomic bombing at an alternative learning site, established near the present-day Kamiosuga-cho in Hiroshima’s Higashi Ward, near his home. His older sister, Fumiko Kajiya, nine at the time, who was a third-year student at the school, was killed in the bombing. The school had lost its building in the bombing and started open-air classes around the middle of September. He commuted to the classes from a shack the family had built in the incinerated ruins near his family’s original home. The black market was located on the route he took to school.
According to the Record of the Hiroshima A-bomb War Disaster, published in 1971, around the third day after the war’s end, people began to lay straw mats and galvanized sheet iron to sell things in front of the station. Around December, the number of shops in the market exceeded 400. Homeless emaciated children and elderly people would gather in the market and “managed to survive by picking up discarded food,” a situation that was reported in an article published in the Chugoku Shimbun on November 22. An unidentified man had died of “malnutrition” there on November 21.
An article carried in the paper on December 4 reported that black markets had appeared in the Koi district (in Hiroshima’s present-day Nishi Ward), and elsewhere, selling food. “Most of the shop owners are middle-aged married women, probably reflecting the bleak economic situation in which families could not survive only on the husbands’ income.” According to the 100-year history of Hiroshima Prefectural Police, published in 1971, soon after the end of the war, the police “had no option but give a certain level of tacit approval for the black markets in order to facilitate the livelihoods of citizens.”
(Originally published on December 4, 2024)
On December 4, 1945, the Chugoku Shimbun ran an article, accompanied by a photograph, reporting on a thriving “black market” in front of Hiroshima Station (in Hiroshima City’s present-day Minami Ward). “Shops open casually with only a backpack and furoshiki wrapping cloth, attracting waves of shoppers,” explained the article. Goods sold there included blankets, tangerine oranges, and alternative manju cakes made only of flour used in udon noodles and sweet potato paste.
A black market refers to a market dealing in illicit goods that bypass public price controls and supply chains, a situation that had continued on in Hiroshima from the wartime period. For people who were unable to obtain items necessary for their daily lives due to limited supply chains triggered by goods shortages, the black market was a place on which they relied, despite some of the goods being sold at excessively high prices.
Fumiaki Kajiya, 85, a resident of Hiroshima’s Asaminami Ward, distinctly remembers what the area in front of the station was like in those days. “It was a bustling place that seemed to be the center of recovery. I would search for metals such as pans and copper cables from amid the incinerated ruins and also sell the materials on the market,” said Mr. Kajiya. Seventy-nine years ago, he was a first-year student at Kojin-cho National School (present-day Kojin Elementary School), located near the station.
He experienced the atomic bombing at an alternative learning site, established near the present-day Kamiosuga-cho in Hiroshima’s Higashi Ward, near his home. His older sister, Fumiko Kajiya, nine at the time, who was a third-year student at the school, was killed in the bombing. The school had lost its building in the bombing and started open-air classes around the middle of September. He commuted to the classes from a shack the family had built in the incinerated ruins near his family’s original home. The black market was located on the route he took to school.
According to the Record of the Hiroshima A-bomb War Disaster, published in 1971, around the third day after the war’s end, people began to lay straw mats and galvanized sheet iron to sell things in front of the station. Around December, the number of shops in the market exceeded 400. Homeless emaciated children and elderly people would gather in the market and “managed to survive by picking up discarded food,” a situation that was reported in an article published in the Chugoku Shimbun on November 22. An unidentified man had died of “malnutrition” there on November 21.
An article carried in the paper on December 4 reported that black markets had appeared in the Koi district (in Hiroshima’s present-day Nishi Ward), and elsewhere, selling food. “Most of the shop owners are middle-aged married women, probably reflecting the bleak economic situation in which families could not survive only on the husbands’ income.” According to the 100-year history of Hiroshima Prefectural Police, published in 1971, soon after the end of the war, the police “had no option but give a certain level of tacit approval for the black markets in order to facilitate the livelihoods of citizens.”
(Originally published on December 4, 2024)
