Sarugaku-cho, neighborhood around A-bomb Dome, Part 7: Last family gathering near Industrial Promotion Hall, place of her youth
Jul. 31, 1997
Amidst a downpour, Etsuko Yamauchi, 69, a home maker who lives at the address of Yamakido 5-chome in Niigata City, drove her car in the direction of Niigata University. For the liberal arts class titled “Considering peace,” which is available to students from all years, Ms. Yamauchi began speaking about her youth in Hiroshima in a dignified voice in front of more than 100 students packing the classroom.
“In April 1944, I transferred into the third year at Hiroshima First Municipal Girls’ School…,” began Ms. Yamauchi. The address where her family including her parents and newborn younger brother had settled was “15 Sarugaku-cho,” on the grounds of what is now known as the A-bomb Dome. In November the previous year, the Chugoku-Shikoku Civil Engineering Branch Office of Japan’s Ministry of Home Affairs was established in the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. Her father was a chauffeur for the branch director. It was his third job transfer, after working in his hometown of Toyama and then spending time in Kobe.
Filing detonators at military factory
Clapboard housing for government workers had been built next to a fountain that remained on the south side of the Dome. Ms. Yamauchi’s father renovated one part of the garage to make space for a hot bath and also created a field for food. The shops around the housing appeared to be closed down. The bustle of Sarugaku-cho, which had continued from the time it was a castle town, had vanished.
Her school had been turned into an Army Clothing Depot factory. The students also sewed field mosquito netting with sewing machines collected from private households. When she was a fourth-year student, she was mobilized to work at a munitions factory and filed detonators and fuses for bullets on a lathe day and night. She experienced day after gloomy day with no prospect about when the work would end. That is why she has vivid memories of the few exciting moments she experienced at that time.
“In summer evenings, I would go to the General Affairs Section on the third floor of the Promotion Hall to pick up my father, and we would walk out on the balcony from the corridor. The river wind was so cool.” In Motoyasu River, she and her father would catch shrimp with a net and a special glass box for underwater viewing. They would deep fry the shrimp they had caught in melted coconut oil sent from her mother’s birth home to make tempura. Tomatoes and cucumbers cultivated on the grounds of the Dome were set out on their low table for eating. The family lived a modest life together last summer, but it was filled with warmth and coziness.
Two months before the atomic bomb was dropped on the city, her family moved to government housing in Hiroshima’s Higashi Ward, located around 2.5 kilometers from the hypocenter. “When I recovered consciousness after the bombing, there were no roof or walls around me. Following after people with their skin hanging down like an accordion, my father Yozo returned to the housing with his bones visible.” Forty years old at the time, he had lost the hair from his head and eyebrows and passed away 14 days after the bombing. After his body was cremated in a park, the three remaining members of the family — the mother and children — departed Hiroshima on an open wagon carrying soldiers discharged from the military, holding an unvarnished wooden box containing the father’s remains in their hands.
Serving as chair of A-bomb survivors’ group in Niigata
Before long, the sun appeared in the sky of the rainy season outside the windows in the classroom. She said to the silent students, “We cannot coexist with nuclear weapons, which are capable of stealing the lives of all living things.” Her heartfelt cry was ultimately accompanied by tears.
Ms. Yamauchi was a home maker for a long time. Since her marriage at the age of 19 with her husband, who worked for the Hokuriku Region Construction Bureau, she was busy raising a boy and two girls and handling the family’s moves accompanying her husband’s job transfers. When she had finally caught her breath, her husband, eight years older than she, suffered a deterioration in a chronic disease he had suffered since he was young. The couple continues working together to battle the disease. She made up her mind last year to obtain a driver’s license to take him to and from the hospital.
“I began to drive at this age, which made it possible to help Shinyu-kai group activities.” Shinyu-kai is the abbreviated name of a group of A-bomb survivors in Niigata Prefecture. The group has 280 members, primarily consisting of men who had experienced the atomic bombing while serving in the military. She is the only woman serving as a director for the group. Starting last year, she accepted a request to serve as a temporary lecturer in the Peace Course at Niigata University.
On the way back home from the campus, amid the rain that had begun to fall heavily once again, she spoke anew, slowly, as if chewing over her words, perhaps because she was recalling the harsh days of her youth.
“When I think of my friends who, because of the war, did not have the chance to study hard and those who died with no family at their side, I am driven by the idea that I have to do something as someone who survived,” said Ms. Yamauchi.
(Originally published on July 31, 1997)
“In April 1944, I transferred into the third year at Hiroshima First Municipal Girls’ School…,” began Ms. Yamauchi. The address where her family including her parents and newborn younger brother had settled was “15 Sarugaku-cho,” on the grounds of what is now known as the A-bomb Dome. In November the previous year, the Chugoku-Shikoku Civil Engineering Branch Office of Japan’s Ministry of Home Affairs was established in the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. Her father was a chauffeur for the branch director. It was his third job transfer, after working in his hometown of Toyama and then spending time in Kobe.
Filing detonators at military factory
Clapboard housing for government workers had been built next to a fountain that remained on the south side of the Dome. Ms. Yamauchi’s father renovated one part of the garage to make space for a hot bath and also created a field for food. The shops around the housing appeared to be closed down. The bustle of Sarugaku-cho, which had continued from the time it was a castle town, had vanished.
Her school had been turned into an Army Clothing Depot factory. The students also sewed field mosquito netting with sewing machines collected from private households. When she was a fourth-year student, she was mobilized to work at a munitions factory and filed detonators and fuses for bullets on a lathe day and night. She experienced day after gloomy day with no prospect about when the work would end. That is why she has vivid memories of the few exciting moments she experienced at that time.
“In summer evenings, I would go to the General Affairs Section on the third floor of the Promotion Hall to pick up my father, and we would walk out on the balcony from the corridor. The river wind was so cool.” In Motoyasu River, she and her father would catch shrimp with a net and a special glass box for underwater viewing. They would deep fry the shrimp they had caught in melted coconut oil sent from her mother’s birth home to make tempura. Tomatoes and cucumbers cultivated on the grounds of the Dome were set out on their low table for eating. The family lived a modest life together last summer, but it was filled with warmth and coziness.
Two months before the atomic bomb was dropped on the city, her family moved to government housing in Hiroshima’s Higashi Ward, located around 2.5 kilometers from the hypocenter. “When I recovered consciousness after the bombing, there were no roof or walls around me. Following after people with their skin hanging down like an accordion, my father Yozo returned to the housing with his bones visible.” Forty years old at the time, he had lost the hair from his head and eyebrows and passed away 14 days after the bombing. After his body was cremated in a park, the three remaining members of the family — the mother and children — departed Hiroshima on an open wagon carrying soldiers discharged from the military, holding an unvarnished wooden box containing the father’s remains in their hands.
Serving as chair of A-bomb survivors’ group in Niigata
Before long, the sun appeared in the sky of the rainy season outside the windows in the classroom. She said to the silent students, “We cannot coexist with nuclear weapons, which are capable of stealing the lives of all living things.” Her heartfelt cry was ultimately accompanied by tears.
Ms. Yamauchi was a home maker for a long time. Since her marriage at the age of 19 with her husband, who worked for the Hokuriku Region Construction Bureau, she was busy raising a boy and two girls and handling the family’s moves accompanying her husband’s job transfers. When she had finally caught her breath, her husband, eight years older than she, suffered a deterioration in a chronic disease he had suffered since he was young. The couple continues working together to battle the disease. She made up her mind last year to obtain a driver’s license to take him to and from the hospital.
“I began to drive at this age, which made it possible to help Shinyu-kai group activities.” Shinyu-kai is the abbreviated name of a group of A-bomb survivors in Niigata Prefecture. The group has 280 members, primarily consisting of men who had experienced the atomic bombing while serving in the military. She is the only woman serving as a director for the group. Starting last year, she accepted a request to serve as a temporary lecturer in the Peace Course at Niigata University.
On the way back home from the campus, amid the rain that had begun to fall heavily once again, she spoke anew, slowly, as if chewing over her words, perhaps because she was recalling the harsh days of her youth.
“When I think of my friends who, because of the war, did not have the chance to study hard and those who died with no family at their side, I am driven by the idea that I have to do something as someone who survived,” said Ms. Yamauchi.
(Originally published on July 31, 1997)
