Sarugaku-cho, neighborhood around A-bomb Dome, Part 6: Names of seven dead family members engraved on gravestone
Jul. 30, 1997
In early summer, the smell of burning incense fills the air in the area of Tera-machi, in Hiroshima City’s Naka Ward. A lone woman pays a visit to her family grave, carving out time during a trip with former girls’ school classmates with whom she is close. On the gravestone are engraved the names of seven family members who died “that day,” August 6, 1945. Below is a description of their identities as well as age at death and their relationship to the woman with her hands together in prayer in front of the grave.
Father, Jintaro, 61; mother, Tora, 58; second oldest sister, Kimiko, 23; third oldest sister, Hanako, 31; oldest brother, Shutaro, 28; fourth oldest sister, Sachiko, 23; and Mamoru, her nephew and Sachiko’s son, an infant eight months of age. All died at the Hiroshima Branch Office of the company Shimizu-gumi (present-day Shimizu Corporation) and in neighboring company housing at the address “58 Sarugaku-cho,” around 200 meters east of the A-bomb Dome.
Yoshiko Hayashi, 73, the fifth daughter in the family who now lives in Nakahara Ward in Kawasaki City, energetically recounted her memory, saying, “My father, older sister immediately above me, and I all worked for Shimizu-gumi.”
Family moved after original home scheduled to be dismantled for war effort
According to the Thirty-year History, edited by the Shimizu Corporation’s Hiroshima Branch Office in 1975, “In accordance with the expanded Sino-Japanese War (which began in 1937), we were ordered to carry out urgent construction projects for the military one after the other.” Ms. Hayashi’s father, originally a tatami craftsman, worked for the company as an office clerk. Following the path of her older sister who had graduated from Hiroshima Girls’ Commercial School, Ms. Hayashi graduated from the same school and joined the company as typist clerk in 1941. Later, their home in the area of Onomichi-cho (present-day Otemachi 2-chome, in the city’s Naka Ward) “fell within the scope of the government’s building-demolition program and, with that, the family moved to company housing soon after Mamoru was born.”
Using prevention of the spread of fires after air-raids in the city area as justification, Japan’s national government announced its introduction of a building-demolition program. In Hiroshima City, the program began in November 1944. Under the slogan “All-out war,” citizens were forced to leave their homes. Even so, it was hard for displaced people to find other places to live in timely fashion. The Hayashi family had no option but to move in to the company housing while also acting as caretakers. Even if they had stayed in their original home, it would have suffered the same fate, since the single atomic bomb, which had the power of more than 3,000 B-29 bomber attacks, also blew away the Onomichi-cho area.
Ms. Hayashi said, “I found my father’s body in front of the branch entrance, and those of other family members were found at home in a circle seemingly gathered around the table in the kitchen for breakfast at home.”
On that day, she happened to have taken the day off from work and was on her way to visit a friend living in Hiroshima’s Minami Ward. In confusion and disbelief, she quit her job at the company and tried to make a living through sewing. But she was never able to escape from her sense of indescribable loneliness.
Hopes to be buried with loved ones after death
In 1954, Ms. Hayashi traveled alone to Tokyo with a piece of paper she still keeps on hand, reading, “Chief of the Higashi (East) Police Department hereby certifies that the person listed at right was a victim of the wartime disaster occurring on August 6, 1945.” She made the visit after being encouraged by friends who had said, “Why don’t you come to Tokyo, rather than fretting in the small city of Hiroshima?” Some of her other friends who had developed keloids from the A-bombing’s thermal rays had also begun life anew. She has never felt alone.
“That’s when I became tough,” she explained. Ms. Hayashi worked at a newspaper transport company in Tokyo based on referral until reaching the mandatory retirement age of 60. Meanwhile, she joined a group of A-bomb survivors living in Kanagawa Prefecture, engaging in memorial commemorations of A-bomb victims in the prefecture as someone who experienced the day of the Hiroshima atomic bombing.
Ms. Hayashi said, “If asked, I share what I experienced. People in Kanagawa Prefecture often respond, ‘People born in Hiroshima sure are strong.’ Considering the bias about inherited radiation effects in offspring as well as the air-raid victims in other areas who didn’t even receive a single blanket from the government, I grow hesitant to speak about myself,” she said clearly, describing feelings shared by A-bomb survivors in places other than Hiroshima. She laughed, calling herself “a carefree type of person.”
Nevertheless, she has decided to be buried in the family grave in her hometown after she dies. “Because my parents and siblings are there,” she explained. Engraved on the back of the gravestone in red are the words, “Erected by Yoshiko Hayashi, September 1991.”
(Originally published on July 30, 1997)
Father, Jintaro, 61; mother, Tora, 58; second oldest sister, Kimiko, 23; third oldest sister, Hanako, 31; oldest brother, Shutaro, 28; fourth oldest sister, Sachiko, 23; and Mamoru, her nephew and Sachiko’s son, an infant eight months of age. All died at the Hiroshima Branch Office of the company Shimizu-gumi (present-day Shimizu Corporation) and in neighboring company housing at the address “58 Sarugaku-cho,” around 200 meters east of the A-bomb Dome.
Yoshiko Hayashi, 73, the fifth daughter in the family who now lives in Nakahara Ward in Kawasaki City, energetically recounted her memory, saying, “My father, older sister immediately above me, and I all worked for Shimizu-gumi.”
Family moved after original home scheduled to be dismantled for war effort
According to the Thirty-year History, edited by the Shimizu Corporation’s Hiroshima Branch Office in 1975, “In accordance with the expanded Sino-Japanese War (which began in 1937), we were ordered to carry out urgent construction projects for the military one after the other.” Ms. Hayashi’s father, originally a tatami craftsman, worked for the company as an office clerk. Following the path of her older sister who had graduated from Hiroshima Girls’ Commercial School, Ms. Hayashi graduated from the same school and joined the company as typist clerk in 1941. Later, their home in the area of Onomichi-cho (present-day Otemachi 2-chome, in the city’s Naka Ward) “fell within the scope of the government’s building-demolition program and, with that, the family moved to company housing soon after Mamoru was born.”
Using prevention of the spread of fires after air-raids in the city area as justification, Japan’s national government announced its introduction of a building-demolition program. In Hiroshima City, the program began in November 1944. Under the slogan “All-out war,” citizens were forced to leave their homes. Even so, it was hard for displaced people to find other places to live in timely fashion. The Hayashi family had no option but to move in to the company housing while also acting as caretakers. Even if they had stayed in their original home, it would have suffered the same fate, since the single atomic bomb, which had the power of more than 3,000 B-29 bomber attacks, also blew away the Onomichi-cho area.
Ms. Hayashi said, “I found my father’s body in front of the branch entrance, and those of other family members were found at home in a circle seemingly gathered around the table in the kitchen for breakfast at home.”
On that day, she happened to have taken the day off from work and was on her way to visit a friend living in Hiroshima’s Minami Ward. In confusion and disbelief, she quit her job at the company and tried to make a living through sewing. But she was never able to escape from her sense of indescribable loneliness.
Hopes to be buried with loved ones after death
In 1954, Ms. Hayashi traveled alone to Tokyo with a piece of paper she still keeps on hand, reading, “Chief of the Higashi (East) Police Department hereby certifies that the person listed at right was a victim of the wartime disaster occurring on August 6, 1945.” She made the visit after being encouraged by friends who had said, “Why don’t you come to Tokyo, rather than fretting in the small city of Hiroshima?” Some of her other friends who had developed keloids from the A-bombing’s thermal rays had also begun life anew. She has never felt alone.
“That’s when I became tough,” she explained. Ms. Hayashi worked at a newspaper transport company in Tokyo based on referral until reaching the mandatory retirement age of 60. Meanwhile, she joined a group of A-bomb survivors living in Kanagawa Prefecture, engaging in memorial commemorations of A-bomb victims in the prefecture as someone who experienced the day of the Hiroshima atomic bombing.
Ms. Hayashi said, “If asked, I share what I experienced. People in Kanagawa Prefecture often respond, ‘People born in Hiroshima sure are strong.’ Considering the bias about inherited radiation effects in offspring as well as the air-raid victims in other areas who didn’t even receive a single blanket from the government, I grow hesitant to speak about myself,” she said clearly, describing feelings shared by A-bomb survivors in places other than Hiroshima. She laughed, calling herself “a carefree type of person.”
Nevertheless, she has decided to be buried in the family grave in her hometown after she dies. “Because my parents and siblings are there,” she explained. Engraved on the back of the gravestone in red are the words, “Erected by Yoshiko Hayashi, September 1991.”
(Originally published on July 30, 1997)
