By Mariko Umeoka and Makoto Nishimura

NAGASAKI, July 31 Kyodo - Conscious that many young people know little about the real horror of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some of the ever-dwindling number of A-bomb survivors are writing their personal histories to convey their experiences to the next generation.

More than 150 A-bomb sufferers have contributed their own histories to the mini-communication magazine ''Jibunshi Tsushin Hibakusha (A-bomb survivors' personal history communication),'' which has been published since 1993 by Yoshie Kurihara, 59, a former secretariat official at the Japan Confederation of Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Sufferers Organizations.

More than 160 editions have been issued.

A contribution from a woman has remained deep in Kurihara's mind. It takes the form of a reply to a fifth-generation American-Japanese girl aged 18 who asked, ''Why do you still stick to the A-bomb.''

In Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, the woman was fleeing with her 2-year-old son in her arms when a child with its eyes popping out seized her leg.

She escaped by kicking the child away and still feels remorse for her cruel act. At first she tried to forget the incident, but in later days, she confessed it to a group of children while she was talking about her experience.

In her reply to the 18-year-old girl, she told of the confession and the reaction to it, especially from a boy in a wheelchair who shouted out, but nobody could understand him.

The boy's mother stepped up and said, ''(My son,) Hiro is saying this, 'My mother is protecting me, who has such a body. It is natural for you to protect your own child. Please continue to tell us about the cruelty and the fact of the A-bomb and war.'''

''The meeting erupted into applause. I felt seriously the weight of the words 'to hand down a story from generation to generation.'''

At the end of a contribution, another woman hibakusha wrote, ''I am an A-bomb sufferer. So, I want to tell this to you.''

The woman is Fusako Mamii, 84, who now lives in the city of Tama in western Tokyo. ''Unless nuclear bombs are eliminated, I cannot get revenge for the infant whose life I abandoned.'' With this in mind, she is continuing to write her personal history.

Kurihara said, ''Empathy, not only with A-bombed experiences, but also with the appeals of sufferers for their way of life is spreading. There is not much time left for A-bomb survivors, who strongly feel that something should be done to change the current trend. I would like them to leave even a single word for us.''

In an apartment room in Kita Ward, Nagoya, eight men and women gathered one day. It was the 42nd meeting of the ''Aichi Society of Personal Histories.''

Presented to the day's meeting were four articles about collective lawsuits by A-bomb sufferers and dead acquaintances against the state, seeking to be officially recognized as A-bomb survivors, and they were read aloud.

The society was created 10 years ago by A-bomb survivors living in Aichi Prefecture. Shoo Michigami, 77, a member of the society, published a book containing articles presented to the society at his own expense in 2002.

He was 16 and on his way home from a train station where he had gone to get a ticket for his father when the atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki on the morning of Aug. 9, 1945.

His house was about 500 meters away from ground zero, and his parents, two brothers and a sister died in the blast. He still vividly remembers the smell of their burning bodies.

He moved to Mie and Aichi prefectures and worked in the construction business. ''As I worked as hard as possible for survival, I had no time to look back on my A-bomb experience. But on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the deaths of my family, I began writing to hand my experience down to the next generation.''

Keiko Inagaki, 75, another victim of the Nagasaki bombing, said she is not good at writing but began writing her own history as she felt that even if she were to shout out loud, her mental scar would not heal.

Takako Araki, 48, a member of the society who used to work at the secretariat of an A-bomb sufferers' organization, said she helped inaugurate the society because she wanted to know about not only the experiences of the victims but their lives as well.

A male elementary school teacher, 51, who attended the society's meeting twice, said, ''I would like to tell your stories to the children.''

Araki said, ''Even if they are far way from the bombed places, the sufferers' passion to hand down their stories will never disappear.''

(This is the first of two news focus stories about A-bomb survivors)==Kyodo