Japanese Atom Bomb Survivors-- Part 8: '...People Are Still Suffering'

Keiko Ogura was 8 when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.  Afterwards, her relatives and friends told her to hide her status as a hibakusha (blast survivor) or nobody would marry her.  She kept her past to herself for decades, until her husband, a peace activist, died, and she decided to continue his efforts.  She set up a group of interpreters for peace.

Her relatives don't want her to mention them in her speeches.  "Why?  Because people are still suffering," Ogura, 83, said in a recent online briefing.

"The impact of radiation, the fear of it and the suffering were not just felt at the moment of the blast -- we still live with it today."

Survivors are frustrated by their inability to see a nuclear-free world in their lifetime, and by Japan's refusal to sign or ratify a nuclear weapons ban treaty enacted in 2017.

"But no matter how small, we must pursue our efforts," said Ogura.  "I will keep talking for as long as I live."

--GreGen

Japanese Atom Bomb Survivors Make Urgent Plea-- Part 1

From the August 6, 2020, Chicago Tribune "A-bomb survivors make urgent plea" by Mary Yamaguchi, AP.

For nearly 70 years, until he turned 85, Lee Jong-keum hid his past as an atomic bomb survivor, fearful of the widespread discrimination against blast victims that has long persisted in Japan.

But Lee. 92, is now a fast-dwindling group of survivors, known as hibakusha, that feels a growing urgency -- desperation even-- to tell their stories.  These last witnesses to what happened 75 years ago Thursday want to to reach a younger generation that they feel has lost sight of the horror.

The knowledge of their dwindling time -- the average age of the survivors is more than 83 and many suffer from long-lasting effects of radiation -- it is coupled with deep frustration over stalled progress in global efforts to ban nuclear weapons.

--GreGen