Hiroshima

by Nakazawa Keiji

  Nineteen ninety-five will mark Gen’s twenty-second birthday and the fiftieth anniversary of Hiroshima. I hope to make it a starting point for Barefoot Gen to set out. I’ve had ideas and made plans for further installments of Barefoot Gen. I hope Gen himself will mature and communicate the spirit of peace not simply to the children of Japan but also to the children of the world.

  Together with Gen, I hope to travel to various places and collect material—Chernobyl, Semipalatinsk, the Urals in the old Soviet Union; Nevada and Three Mile Island in the United States; the islands of the South Pacific (Bikini, Muroroa); Auschwitz; Nanjing in China.

  Barefoot Gen will set out.

  Won’t you, too, set out with him?

  Appendix

  Interview with Nakazawa Keiji

  Barefoot Gen, Japan, and I: The Hiroshima Legacy

  An Interview with Nakazawa Keiji

  Asai Motofumi, President, Hiroshima Peace Institute[1]

  In August 2007 I asked Nakazawa Keiji, manga artist and author of Barefoot Gen, for an interview. Nakazawa was a first grader when on August 6, 1945, he experienced the atomic bombing. In 1968 he published his first work on the atomic bombing—Pelted by Black Rain—and since then, he has appealed to the public with many works on the atomic bombing. His masterpiece is Barefoot Gen, in which Gen is a stand-in for Nakazawa himself. His works from Barefoot Gen on convey much bitter anger and sharp criticism toward a postwar Japanese politics that has never sought to affix responsibility on those who carried out the dropping of the atomic bomb and the aggressive war (the United States that dropped the atomic bomb and the emperor and Japan’s wartime leaders who prosecuted the reckless war that incurred the dropping of the atomic bomb).

  Nakazawa: In my writings there’s a ferocious anger toward power, toward rulers, and I don’t trust people who say nothing about the emperor system. The emperor system—that’s really what it’s about. That emperor system, the horror of the emperor system, still exists today: the Japanese simply have to recognize that! And I’m horrified that once again they’re fanning it, pulling it out. I remember well when the emperor came to Hiroshima in 1947. I wrote about it in my autobiography. . . .

  Asai: In Hiroshima greeting the emperor, there was virtually no anger or hatred toward the emperor. Why not?

  Nakazawa: Because of the prewar education. The prewar education changed the Japanese people completely. I feel acutely how horrible that education was. I’m angry: “If that guy had only swallowed the Potsdam Proclamation, there would have been no atomic bombing.” He survived in comfort, that impudent, shameless guy. Some people did feel the anger I felt toward the emperor, but all of them probably died in prison. I learned from Dad: the emperor system is horrible. When I asked why should Japanese have to bow and scrape so to the emperor, Dad replied, “to unify Japan.” Turn him into a living god and make people worship him. That system. Since I heard things like that from early on, when I was lined up and made to shout Long live the emperor! I got really angry. The rage welled up. That feelings like mine didn’t surface in Hiroshima was probably because Hiroshima was conservative. In Hiroshima Prefecture, there really is a prefectural trait—conservatism. Impossible. It’ll be very difficult to change.

  Asai: Looking at the process in which Hiroshima mayor Hamai Shinzo¯ drew up the Peace City Construction Law and set about rebuilding Hiroshima, I get the sense that it was not a reconstruction that took the atomic bomb victims into careful consideration, that reconstruction took priority.

  Nakazawa: It really left the bomb victims out. And in the Mayor Hamai era, virtually everyone was a bomb victim, so maybe they couldn’t think about compensation.

  Asai: When you consider that the population of Hiroshima, which the atomic bombing had reduced radically, rebounded rapidly after the war, and that the seventy to eighty thousand bomb victims didn’t increase, it was the increase of nonvictims—repatriates and people coming here from other prefectures—that made it possible for the population to rebound rapidly. In the “empty decade” right after the war it was the nonvictims who bore the recovery; it was a recovery in which bomb victims were chased to the fringes. That’s my feeling, at least. What do you think?

  Nakazawa: You’re not mistaken. And in the process discrimination arose. Given the discrimination, you couldn’t talk about having been exposed to the atomic bombing. You simply couldn’t say publicly that you were a bomb victim. So the discrimination was fierce. You couldn’t speak out against it. I was living in Takajo¯, and I often heard stories, such as the neighbor’s daughter who hanged herself. Discrimination. Dreadful. There were lots of incidents like that, in which people had lost hope.

  Asai: O¯ta Yo¯ko’s City of Twilight, People of Twilight depicts a group of bomb victims living in one household in Motomachi in 1953. It was reconstruction Hiroshima, with the bomb victims relegated to the edges. And the August 6 commemoration, too: I get the sense that from the very first it was carried out without the bomb victims as main actors. How did you, someone who was there on August 6, feel?

  Nakazawa: There was discrimination, and if you emphasized the atomic bombing openly, they’d gang up on you and say, “Don’t put on your bomb-victim face!”—a strange way to organize a movement. When there were atomic victims on the Japanese fishing ship, the Lucky Dragon #5, that received fallout from a U.S. nuclear test at Bikini in 1954 and it became a big issue, O¯ta said, “Serves you right!” Meaning, now do you get it? That’s how badly bomb victims were alienated. Even if you wanted to speak, you couldn’t, and if you spoke, the result was discrimination. Discrimination meant they wouldn’t let you complain. An acquaintance of mine proposed to a Tokyo woman, and they celebrated the wedding in Tokyo. And no one came. There was that sense: it’s risky to say you’re a bomb victim. That was what the powerful wanted. Because there was discrimination, you couldn’t say anything: that suited their convenience. Bomb victims were pressured not to assert themselves. Bomb victims first came to the fore at the 1955 World Convention to Outlaw Nuclear Weapons. After all, atomic tests were being carried out one after the other, and death ash was falling; maybe it was the sense of danger that did it.

  The World Convention to Outlaw Nuclear Weapons splintered in 1963, and that, too, is a strange story. There were some who made the ridiculous assertion that Soviet nukes were fine and all other nukes bad. I couldn’t buy that argument. How can it be a matter of left or right? Doesn’t the goal of the abolition of nuclear weapons apply to all?

  Asai: At first bomb victims had great hopes of the movement to abolish nuclear weapons, and in 1956 the confederation of bomb victim organizations also came into existence. But they felt great disappointment and disillusionment at the splintering of the movement to abolish nuclear weapons, were critical of it, and ended up turning their backs on the movement itself. Isn’t that the case?

  Nakazawa: Yes, it was. They couldn’t go along with it. People like me felt, “What are these people doing?” If we joined forces for the abolition of nuclear weapons, we’d be twice as strong.

  In 1961 I moved to Tokyo and, until Mom died in 1966, thought I’d never return to Hiroshima. Return to Hiroshima, and you experience only gruesome things. So I thought I’d die and be buried in Tokyo. Had Mom not existed, I might have become a common criminal or fallen by the wayside in Hiroshima; when she died, I’d accomplished something because of her. She played a major role in my life. Her death was a great shock, and I came back to Hiroshima. Thankful for Mom, I sent her body to the crematorium; I thought I knew what a human body that’s been burned looks like. I’d retrieved Dad’s bones and my siblings’ bones. I thought I’d get Mom’s skull or breastbone in similar shape, too. But when her ashes came from the crematory and were laid out on the table, I found not a bone. I couldn’t find even her skull. Thinking this couldn’t be so, I rummaged for all I was worth. There were only occasional white fragments. And I got very, very angry: does radioactivity plunder even bone marrow? It made off with the bones of my dear, dear Mom.<
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  I shut my eyes entirely to the atomic bombing, but Tokyoites’ discrimination against bomb victims was awful. If you said that you were a bomb victim matter-of-factly, among friends, they made weird faces. I’d never seen such cold eyes. I thought that was strange, but when I mentioned it to people in the movement, they said that if someone says, “I’m a bomb victim,” Tokyo people won’t touch the tea bowl from which he’s been drinking, because they’ll catch radioactivity. They’ll no longer come near you. There are many ignorant people. When they told me this, for the first time it clicked: “Yes, that’s how it is.” And I thought, “never speak of the atomic bomb again!” So for six years in Tokyo I kept silent, and when Mom died and none of her bones were left, I got really angry: both she and I had been bathed in radioactivity, so it made off with even the marrow of our bones. The anger welled up all of a sudden: give me back my dear Mom’s bones! I thought, “manga’s all I know how to do, so I’ll give it a try.” And I wrote Pelted by Black Rain in that anger. I wrote it to fling my grudge at the United States. Its contents were horrific, but that’s how I truly felt. I wrote it in hot anger and just couldn’t get it published. I hoped to have high school students read it. That if they read it, they’d understand. So I took it around to the major magazines that aimed at the high school student audience. I was told the content was good but it was too radical, and for a year I took it around. I was about to give up, but I thought again: even if it wasn’t one of the major magazines, wouldn’t it do if it just got read? And I took it to the publisher of Manga Punch, the porno magazine. The editor in chief there was a very understanding person, “It moved me greatly.” But “If I publish this, both Nakazawa and I will be picked up by the CIA.” It was a magazine for young people; “the guys”—truck drivers, taxi drivers—read it.

  Within the press, the reaction came back that it was “new.” So it came about that I should write a “black” series.

  Asai: Did you get reactions from readers focusing on the bomb victim aspect?

  Nakazawa: “Did such things really happen?”—people expressed doubts like that. Which means they know absolutely nothing about the atomic bombing. Since I write only about what I had seen, it’s not fiction. But although lots of people say Japan’s “the only country to suffer atomic bombing,” it’s not understood in the least. On the contrary, I was the one who was shocked. I received letters, and they brought me up short. It was virtually the same as when I published Barefoot Gen: “Is that true?” “Tell us more!”—the vast majority of messages was like that. “I never dreamed that war and atomic bombing were so brutal.”

  Asai: Barefoot Gen is in the libraries of primary and middle schools, and if they take courage and read it, I think they’ll be able to understand Hiroshima better. How do you as the author feel about that?

  Nakazawa: After all, the overwhelming majority became aware of war and atomic bombing via Barefoot Gen. I don’t pride myself on it, but in that sense I’m a pioneer. Even though Hiroshima figures in children’s literature, there’s nothing that takes it that far. I think manga offers the best access. That people are being made aware of war and atomic bombing via Barefoot Gen: that’s the height of luck for an author.

  Asai: Why on earth does the Ministry of Education allow the libraries of primary and middle schools to keep work that’s so anti war and anti–emperor system?

  Nakazawa: I too find it strange. As for manga in school libraries, Barefoot Gen was the very first. It paved the way. Thanks to Gen, it’s permeated by now to the average person. For me, it’s a delight to think that something I wrote has permeated that far.

  Asai: It was dramatized recently for TV. I felt then the limits of TV dramatization.

  Nakazawa: There certainly are limits. They removed a core issue—the emperor system. Nothing to be done about that. I think the emperor system is absolutely impermissible. The Japanese still haven’t passed their own judgment on the emperor system. I get angry. Even now it’s not too late. Unless we pass judgment on such issues. . . .

  Asai: Pass judgment—how?

  Nakazawa: By a people’s court, actually. The Japanese people must ask many more questions: how much, beginning with the great Tokyo air raid, the Japanese archipelago suffered because of the emperor, how the emperor system is at the very root. To speak of constitutional revision, my position is that it’s okay to change the clauses about the emperor—but only those clauses. The rest can’t be changed. Article 9? Preposterous! Absolutely can’t be changed.

  Asai: In your autobiography, you say that as you keep writing about the atomic bombing, you sometimes need to write light stuff.

  Nakazawa: When I write scenes of the atomic bombing, the stench of the corpses comes wafting. The stench gets into my nose, and appalling corpses come after me, eyeballs gouged out, bloated; it’s really unbearable. Because I’m drawn back into the reality of that time. My mood darkens. I don’t want to write about it again. At such times, I write light stuff. For a shift in mood.

  Asai: In Suddenly One Day and Something Happens, the protagonists—second-generation bomb victims—get leukemia. Did such things actually happen?

  Nakazawa: It’s possible.

  Asai: I’ve heard that as of now the Radiation Effects Research Foundation doesn’t recognize effects on the next generation.

  Nakazawa: I think such effects exist. I worry. I worried when my own children were born because I was a bomb victim. I was uneasy—what would I do if the radiation caused my child to be born malformed?—but fortunately he was born sound. I try to have him get the second-generation bomb victim check-up. There’s a medical exam system for second-generation bomb victims; the exam itself is free of charge. But we were uneasy at the time my wife conceived him. We were also uneasy when we got married. Fortunately, there were bomb victims in her family, too, so she was understanding. I worried at the time we got married that there would be opposition. Luckily, people were understanding, and the marriage went off without a hitch. When the children married, I worried secretly. Now we have two grandchildren.

  Asai asks about Kurihara Sadako.[2]

  Nakazawa: She and I appeared once together on NHK TV. Eight years or so ago. On an NHK Special. A dialog. The location was Honkawa Elementary School. We discussed the experience of the atomic bomb. In broad Hiroshima dialect, Kurihara said to me, “Nakazawa-san, good that you came back to Hiroshima”—that’s how we began.

  Asai: I thought Kurihara was a very honest Hiroshima thinker.

  Nakazawa: I too liked her. She wrote bitterly critical things. Like me, I thought. She wrote sharply against the emperor system, too. After all, our dispositions matched. But in Hiroshima she became isolated. If you say bitter things, organizations divide into left and right. Even though you’re stronger if everyone gets together. . . . Say something sharp, and people disagree, and label you. That’s not good. The peace movement has to be united. That’s why I never join political parties. It’s something I hate—that Japanese are so quick to apply labels. Immediately apply a label and say, “he’s that faction or that one,” and dismiss him. No broad-mindedness. If a job comes, I respond with an “okay.” But I never concern myself with political parties.

  Asai: How did you come to want to return to Hiroshima?

  Nakazawa: Up until ten years ago I stayed absolutely away from Hiroshima. Merely seeing the city of Hiroshima brings back memories. The past. Seeing the rivers, I see in my mind’s eye rivers of white bones. Or the good spots for catching the freshwater crayfish that grew fat on human flesh. Such memories come back, and when I walk about, I remember, “This happened, that happened.” I can’t bear to remember the smell of the corpses. I wanted to stay away from Hiroshima. I can’t express that stench in words. It brings back things I don’t want to remember. This frame of mind of mine is likely the same as for other bomb victims. My former teacher is here, and classmates gather for his birthdays. So I think, “Yes, Hiroshima’s okay.” I have friends here. Time has swept them away, those vivid memories
. So I’ve come to want to be buried in Hiroshima. I like the Inland Sea, so I’ll have them scatter my ashes. I don’t need a tombstone.

  Asai: Why can’t Hiroshima become like Auschwitz?

  Nakazawa: Japanese aren’t persistent about remembering the war: isn’t that the case? When at Auschwitz I see mounds of eyeglasses or human hair, I think, “What persistence!” There’s no such persistence among Japanese, and not only about Hiroshima. I wish the Japanese had what it takes to pass the story on. To erase history is to forget. I’d like there to be at least enough persistence to pass it on. I’d like to expect that of the Japanese. I do expect it of the next generation. I’ve given up on the older generation. I have hopes of the next generation: reading Barefoot Gen, they’re good enough to say, “What was that?” On that point I’m optimistic. I want them to put their imaginations to work; I absolutely want them to inherit it. I want to pass the baton to them. On this point, the trend in Japanese education today is terrifying. I’m afraid the Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition parties will never abandon the idea of educational reform.

  But defend Article 9 of the Constitution absolutely.[3] Because it came to us bought with blood and tears. People say it was imposed on Japan by the United States, but back then the people accepted it, and there’s nothing more splendid. To forget that and think it’s okay to change it because it was imposed—that’s a huge mistake. What the peace constitution cost in the pain of blood and tears! We simply must not get rid of it. That’s been my thinking about Article 9, from middle school on. Precisely because of it, Japan lives in peace. At the time of the promulgation of the constitution, I was in primary school, and when I was told that it transformed Japan into a country that no longer bears arms, will not have a military, will live in peace, I thought, “what a splendid constitution!” And I remembered Dad. Indeed, what you learn from your parents is huge. Parents have to teach. Not rely on schoolteachers. Teachers ask me how they should teach. What are they talking about? I say they should at least say, “On August 6 an atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.” How to convey that to students in more expanded form: I say that’s the teachers’ function. There are all sorts of teaching materials, so if they don’t do it, it’s negligence on their part.