Documenting Hiroshima of 1946: In February, journalist from occupation forces photographs Hiroshima citizens
Feb. 27, 2025
by Minami Yamashita, Staff Writer
In February 1946, Stephen Kelen stepped foot in Hiroshima City for the first time as a journalist of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force of Japan. Mr. Kelen, who died in 2003 at the age of 91, took photographs of scenes of rubble-strewn streets remaining in the city center and of citizens living in shacks, and began his work of interviewing survivors of the atomic bombing.
In his book titled I Remember Hiroshima, published in 1983, he described residences near a bridge that even at that time appeared to be on the verge of collapse, and because they were so small and pitiful, he wrote that even huts built during the Great Depression seemed like mansions by comparison. Guided by a Japanese person, he went around the city taking photos of children living in shacks and an elderly woman collecting firewood.
When he encountered a woman carrying a baby on her back, Mr. Kelen gave her biscuits and received a bottle that had been melted by heat from the atomic bombing in return. Although the bottle was evidence of A-bomb damage, he wrapped it in newspaper and disposed of it immediately after the woman was out of sight, worried that it might have been exposed to the bomb’s radiation. Witnessing former Japanese soldiers returning from the military at Hiroshima Station, he put himself in their place and thought about what he would have felt after returning from the military to a hometown that had been completely destroyed.
Meanwhile, looking around the city from the rooftop of a building that had survived the fires after the bombing, he found hope in a streetcar running amidst the ruins. He described the sight of the streetcar as being a complete denial of the death sentence that had been delivered to Hiroshima City.
During his roughly three-year stay in the Hiroshima area, he continued to report on the conditions of devastation and on the recovery taking place in the city. He sent articles to newspapers in his home country of Australia as well as the United Kingdom.
After being discharged from military service, Mr. Kelen actively worked as an editor and writer and also served as president of the Sydney Branch of PEN International. In 1983, he returned Hiroshima to report again on the city and, in an interview with the Chugoku Shimbun published on May 20 the same year, he said he hoped to provide momentum to the anti-nuclear movement. It was also the year he released I Remember Hiroshima.
S. K. Kelen, 69, son of Mr. Kelen and a poet from Canberra, Australia, said that his father had hoped the devastation caused by the atomic bombing would play a role as a warning to humanity, and that Hiroshima would become a symbol of peace. However, Mr. Kelen wondered what it would take to return sanity to humanity in a world marked by the proliferation of nuclear weapons and ceaseless wars even several decades after the atomic bombings. Carrying on his father’s ideas, in 1995, S. K. Kelen released a poem based on the theme of Hiroshima.
(Originally published on February 27, 2025)
In February 1946, Stephen Kelen stepped foot in Hiroshima City for the first time as a journalist of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force of Japan. Mr. Kelen, who died in 2003 at the age of 91, took photographs of scenes of rubble-strewn streets remaining in the city center and of citizens living in shacks, and began his work of interviewing survivors of the atomic bombing.
In his book titled I Remember Hiroshima, published in 1983, he described residences near a bridge that even at that time appeared to be on the verge of collapse, and because they were so small and pitiful, he wrote that even huts built during the Great Depression seemed like mansions by comparison. Guided by a Japanese person, he went around the city taking photos of children living in shacks and an elderly woman collecting firewood.
When he encountered a woman carrying a baby on her back, Mr. Kelen gave her biscuits and received a bottle that had been melted by heat from the atomic bombing in return. Although the bottle was evidence of A-bomb damage, he wrapped it in newspaper and disposed of it immediately after the woman was out of sight, worried that it might have been exposed to the bomb’s radiation. Witnessing former Japanese soldiers returning from the military at Hiroshima Station, he put himself in their place and thought about what he would have felt after returning from the military to a hometown that had been completely destroyed.
Meanwhile, looking around the city from the rooftop of a building that had survived the fires after the bombing, he found hope in a streetcar running amidst the ruins. He described the sight of the streetcar as being a complete denial of the death sentence that had been delivered to Hiroshima City.
During his roughly three-year stay in the Hiroshima area, he continued to report on the conditions of devastation and on the recovery taking place in the city. He sent articles to newspapers in his home country of Australia as well as the United Kingdom.
After being discharged from military service, Mr. Kelen actively worked as an editor and writer and also served as president of the Sydney Branch of PEN International. In 1983, he returned Hiroshima to report again on the city and, in an interview with the Chugoku Shimbun published on May 20 the same year, he said he hoped to provide momentum to the anti-nuclear movement. It was also the year he released I Remember Hiroshima.
S. K. Kelen, 69, son of Mr. Kelen and a poet from Canberra, Australia, said that his father had hoped the devastation caused by the atomic bombing would play a role as a warning to humanity, and that Hiroshima would become a symbol of peace. However, Mr. Kelen wondered what it would take to return sanity to humanity in a world marked by the proliferation of nuclear weapons and ceaseless wars even several decades after the atomic bombings. Carrying on his father’s ideas, in 1995, S. K. Kelen released a poem based on the theme of Hiroshima.
(Originally published on February 27, 2025)
