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Materials behind book on Hiroshima A-bombing to be published by researchers

by Shinji Morito, Staff Writer

Letters and copies of letters written by the late Kaoru Ogura about the atomic bombing have been found. Mr. Ogura, a former director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, set down the sufferings of A-bomb survivors and interviews with doctors in English on more than 800 pages. (Mr. Ogura died in 1979 at the age of 58.) These materials were sent to Robert Jungk (1913-1994), a German-born journalist who worked internationally. Based on Mr. Ogura’s materials, Mr. Jungk wrote Strahlen Aus Der Asche, or Children of the Ashes, which became a worldwide success. Researchers say the materials constitute the basis for studying the damage caused by the atomic bomb and plan to publish them next March.

The materials written by Mr. Ogura clearly describe how A-bomb survivors were suffering from illness, poverty, and discrimination even more than 10 years after the bombing. One high school student wrote a poem that included the words “Atomic bombs, you are demons” then committed suicide. Some survivors, in spite of their deteriorating health, were forced to work to make ends meet. Mr. Ogura also recorded interviews with people from a range of fields including the late Shogo Nagaoka, the first director of the peace museum, and Gensaku Oho, a local medical practitioner who first found that many A-bomb survivors had developed cancer.

Mr. Ogura was born in the United States and was proficient in English. When Mr. Jungk visited Hiroshima in 1957, Mr. Ogura served as interpreter and guide and his service was highly valued by Mr. Jungk. They agreed that Mr. Ogura would translate newspaper articles related to the atomic bombing into English and interview relevant people and send the translations to Mr. Jungk’s residence in Austria. In total, there are 213 typewritten letters on 836 pages.

Based on the materials provided by Mr. Ogura, Mr. Jungk wrote Children of the Ashes and published the book in 1959. It was translated into more than 10 languages and helped convey the horrors of the atomic bombing to the world.

Interested in the background of this book, Yuji Wakao, a professor emeritus at Nagoya University and a specialist in modern German history, began collecting materials linked to Mr. Ogura’s letters in 2008. Between 2010 and 2015, he found about 350 pages of letters in the Robert Jungk Library in Austria and copies of letters in Mr. Ogura’s home in Hiroshima. In February of last year, Keiko Ogura, 79, Mr. Ogura’s widow, came across some 500 pages of copies of his letters. It is thought that most of Mr. Ogura’s letters have been found.

Mr. Wakao and other researchers have been translating the materials into Japanese and analyzing them since last October. The tentative title of the book is Records and Memories of Postwar Hiroshima -- Collection of Letters from Kaoru Ogura to Robert Jungk between 1957 and 1959. The academic work will consist of 500 pages and will be published by the University of Nagoya Press by March 2017. The five sections of the book will include “Probing into the time of the atomic bombing and late effects of radiation” and “People living in pursuit of peace.” The book will also include comments by Makiko Takemoto, an associate professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute at Hiroshima City University and an expert on modern German history, and other figures.

In the acknowledgments section of his book, Mr. Jungk wrote that he hoped Mr. Ogura’s letters would be preserved in perpetuity as valuable materials. Mr. Wakao said, “The documents bring us back to the starting point in considering the atomic bombing. I hope Japanese people today will read this book as we’re now facing problems involving nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.”

Keywords

Kaoru Ogura
Born in Seattle in the United States in 1920. Moved to Hiroshima in 1932 after finishing elementary school in the U.S. Was outside of Japan doing military service when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Worked as a translator after coming back to Hiroshima after the war. Became a city employee in 1960. Served as the director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the secretary general of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation. Made use of his fluent English to explain the damage caused by the atomic bombing to foreign dignitaries visiting Hiroshima.

(Originally published on July 22, 2017)

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