Survival in adversity

   THIS WEBSITE SAYS WE HAVE TO REMEMBER THE PAST

My name is Seiko Ikeda. I am so happy to see all of you high school students. Thank all of you for coming. I am from Hiroshima. I was a victim of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima. I have come here to try to convince you that we do not need nuclear weapons.

This is something that happened in the morning of August 6, 1945, sixty two and a half years ago. The first atomic bomb in the world exploded in the sky 600 yards above Hiroshima. When that bomb exploded it created a fireball that was 200 yards wide. That fireball was millions of degrees in temperature – like the sun. The temperature beneath that fireball was 2000 to 3000 degrees centigrade.

A regular bomb comes down, hits the ground and explodes. If you are not in the blast area you can get away. An atomic bomb explodes up high and sends out its heat and radiation. No one can escape a bomb like that. It is estimated that 200,000 people were in Hiroshima on that day. The people in the immediate center of that bomb were instantly killed – many just evaporated away.

On that day 60,000 to 80,000 were killed. By the end of that year 140,000 to 150,000 were dead. Only about 25,000 were military. It wasn't just Japanese killed. There were career and professional people. There were some American prisoners of war. There were foreign students. In all about 20,000 killed were not Japanese. It is a completely indiscriminate weapon. It kills everyone in its range. An atomic bomb leaves energy in the form of heat, blasts and radiation. This radiation is the difference between an atomic bomb and a regular bomb.

At the time I was 13 years old and in the my last year of junior high school. We were all at our lunch break. I noticed there was a B 29 bomber flying very high in the sky. We looked up and held our breath. What in the world is this coming at us? There was a tremendous blast and then a giant fireball. After that, everything was black.

I was thrown about 10 or 15 yards from where I was standing. Living through that experience I realized that even the smallest bit of radiation is not acceptable. 200 miles from the center the radiation was still 150,000 times more than normal. I was thrown unconscious. When I came to it was a horrible site. I couldn't see that good. Many people had been covered with glass. There were heads with no bodies. There were hands stretched out for water or help. When one dies a natural death, they are serene and peaceful. But the faces of these people were grotesque because they had been burned to death.

When I first came to I was shocked, feeling sorry for them because of the way they looked. There were so many of them, so many that I lacked a sense of humanity. This could happen to anyone. On that day everyone was so hot they were pouring into the river to cool off. There were bodies lying in the river. At that point I got the strong desire to go home. I left my teacher and started home.

The picture here was at the epicenter and it was a little more than a mile from where I was. All of the buildings had been devastated and I had no landmarks telling me where I was or where I was going. The only thing which remained were the mountains. So, I just walked toward the mountains. All around me were collapsed houses with people trapped under them. They were crying out: Help! Help! I was a battered kid. All I could do was cover my ears and say: I am sorry! I am sorry!

When I got to the mountain, I crawled up and looked back at Hiroshima. The entire city was gone. The atomic bomb destroyed everything with its heat. For two miles in diameter everything was burned.  Thousands and thousands of people were trapped and burned alive. The entire city was one big sea of flames. Even buildings on the other side of the mountain had been knocked down.

On that day 6200 high school students were out on a project.. Some of them, like me, got to the other side of the mountain. We were all naked because our clothes had been burned off. One woman took a curtain and wrapped it around me so I would not be naked. I got to the highway. Soon a truck came along and picked me up and took me to a hospital about a mile away. At that time there were about 8000 students in Hiroshima. About 6000 of them were killed instantly..

When I got to the hospital, truck loads and truck loads of people had been brought there. There was no place to put us. Many of the people helping there knew little or nothing about medicine. The only thing they could do was put cooking oil on us. My clothes which had been burned had melted into my skin. They took scissors and tried to cut that clothing off. It felt like they were cutting right through my skin. At that point I relaxed. As soon as I relaxed I fell asleep. When I woke up my eyes were so swollen I could not see. I could only open my mouth a little bit.

When I woke up my father was there and he couldn't find me. He had been told by the hospital that I was there. But everyone was so burned he had no idea which one was me. He kept calling out “Seiko!” “Seiko!” Finally. I heard him and I cried out :”Daddy!” “Daddy!” “I am here!” It was only by my voice that he recognized me.

So he took me home. The next day I had a very high fever. I was throwing up. I had terrible diarrhea and my bones were extremely painful. The neighbors came by and told my parents: “It is a miracle she is alive! But she is not going to make it. You might as well start making arrangements for her funeral.” Even though they said this my parents never gave up and kept doing everything they could to help me.

Because so many people had been brought to the hospital there was no chance the doctor could get away and come to my house. My parents had to take care of me by themselves. Three days after the bombing a young girl my age came home. She had been away at the time of the bombing. She was perfectly fine, no burns, no major injuries. Everyone was so happy to see her come home so well.

I hovered on the stage of life and death for some time. After about a month my fever went down and I started to feel better. Just as soon as I started to get better the girl who came back in such good condition became so sick she could not get out of bed, She died. Her hair had begun to fall out when she combed it. Within a month she was completely bald. Her chest and entire body were swollen. She was bleeding from the nose, mouth and ears.

At the end of a month most of the people who had gone to the hospital had died. So the doctor who had taken care of me now had time to come to my home. When he came he told me of a young girl who kept telling her parents she did not want to die. She kept saying: “Mommy save me! I don't want to die. I didn't do anything wrong.” She kept saying that but within a few days she died.”  The doctor was exposed to so much radiation that in a short time he died of acute radiation poisoning.

After about four months I was feeling better and wanted to go see some friends. They were horrified when they saw me, probably because of the way I looked. I ran home crying. My mother tried to console me but she was crying. I decided I wanted to see what I looked like. I went through the entire house looking for a mirror. Finally in one drawer I found a small mirror. When I looked into the mirror I saw a face unlike anything I had ever seen before. Most of my face was scarlet red but on one side of my face was a big wad of scar tissue that was hard as a rock. I was in horror when I saw myself. Within about eight months I was healthy enough to go back to school. I was sent back to school. I had to go by train. When I got on the train I could see how people were horrified at seeing me. I began thinking seriously of finding some way to kill myself.

When I came home I found my father and some men talking seriously so I got close enough to hear what they were saying. Even though the war was now over they were afraid they would be attacked again. My father also talked about how happy he was that I was still alive. He talked about how grateful he was that his daughter was alive and could live a beautiful happy life. I understood how much my father loved me. When I heard that I realized I should not try to kill myself.

As I got older I wanted to at least look decent. So my mother arranged for have plastic surgery. They were able to fix up my mouth and other facial features. I never did get back to the way I looked originally. I don't have words to tell you how painful it was during that time but I was still alive. My pain was nothing compared to the people who were in the center of the blast and I was still alive. How many people suffered such cruel effects.

Very recently a man came to me and said: “You were in the same school with my younger sister. We heard that she had been badly burned. Our parents went out constantly searching for her but never found her. 52 years later she is still missing.

At that time there were totally maimed bodies everywhere. Trucks came along and picked up bodies and took them to an open space, piled them up, poured oil on them and burned them. Everyone of them was an irreplaceable person for someone.

It's been 52 years since the bombing but the bombing has never ended for me. Even right now people are dying because of things that happened to their bodies in the bombing. We the victims can never escape from the horrors of that radiation. So we are now going around Japan and around the world telling people this should never happen again. Over and over again, especially out of Japan, we find people doubting that such things ever happened. Whenever we have war people do crazy things. People killing other people is a very dangerous thing. Life is an extremely valuable thing. War and terrorism and nuclear weapons take away that precious life.

If we don't eliminate nuclear weapons, they will eliminate us. There is no winner in a nuclear war.  If we actually start throwing around nuclear weapons we will destroy the world.  We cannot have peace where there is hatred. We have to eliminate hatred and anger. We have to put behind us nationality, religion, anything which divides us. We have to put all our energies behind finding a way to create a truly peaceful world.

I request of you young people that you not forget courage, hard work and the ability to use your talents. When I talk about courage I am talking about the ability to stand up for what is right: saying yes to what is good and no to what you don't want. Hard work means you understand there is a job to do. Don't take that lightly. Put everything you can into making this a  truly peaceful world. When you come across something difficult, do not give up. Keep on working at what you really believe is right.

The 20th century was a century of war, violence, and environmental destruction. The ones who will have to clean up this mess are you who are living in the 21^st century. If you don't clean up this mess it could well be the last century of human life on this planet. I believe in your collective wisdom. I believe that in your minds and hearts you will find some way to do what is right.

Peace does not just come from anywhere. Peace has to be built – by you. Peace can only be built by each one of us being committed to building that peace. Please put your minds and hearts together so we don't have to worry about being annihilated or suffering radioactive smoke.

I have some problems in my body. I am 75 years old. But as long as I still have life I will go about telling people we have to do something to save our world. The heart of peace is for each of us to be able to understand and to share the suffering of others. If you do that you will have no desire to make life bad for anyone else.

 As I said I am 75 years old but as long as I live I will continue to communicate what really happened at Hiroshima and how horrifying nuclear weapons  really are. I pledge to you that I will continue to work and pray for peace. I hope that at least some of you will get out and begin to work to create a truly peaceful world.    Thank you.