This is the paper presented by Prof. Akira Nishimura (The University of Tokyo) at the Symposium "Trans-Border Approach to War Commemoration: East Asian and Balkan Cases" (October 23, 2024, at Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Sarajevo). 


“Hibakusha Masked by Borderline: Atomic Bomb Victims from Amami Archipelago” by Akira NISHIMURA (The University of Tokyo)

 

Introduction

Let me begin with my father's memories during and after World War II. He was born in 1939 and will turn eighty-five years old next month. He grew up on the outskirts of Nagasaki City and witnessed the explosion of the atomic bomb when he was five years old.

The second atomic bomb, after Hiroshima, was dropped at 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945, by a U.S. military aircraft on the Urakami district in the northern part of downtown Nagasaki, killing 75,000 people that year. My father witnessed that airburst scene with his grandmother at the well in front of their house, 12 km northwest of the hypocenter. Once, he told me that the sky over central Nagasaki was bright red. After a while, my grandfather and my uncle, who was ten years older than my father, went out to the ground zero areas to seek and bring their relatives and were exposed to radiation. According to my father's recollection, two of the relatives' bodies were laid in front of the Buddhist altar in their home the next day.

Ten years later, in 1955, after graduating from junior high school, my father was a member of a fishing fleet operating off the northern coast of Okinawa. Some boats were from Okinawa, and some were from mainland Japan, and the atmosphere was lively at night under the lights of the fishing fires. One day, his childhood friend on the same boat was seriously injured when his foot was caught in a roller hauling up a net. The nearest major port was Naha in Okinawa, but Okinawa at the time was under U.S. military rule and separated from mainland Japan, so Japanese ships were not allowed to enter the port. Then, their boat returned to the north and headed for a hospital on Amami Õshima. The Amami archipelago, which stretched between Okinawa and Kyushu Island, had been under U.S. military rule since the end of World War II. Still, as I will explain later, the islands had reverted to Japanese sovereignty in 1953 so they could enter the port of Amami Ōshima. His friend, however, passed away on board the ship on the way to the island. Soon after that shocking event, my father got off the boat and became a cook of Japanese cuisine.

I began my paper with these two episodes of my father's seventy-to-eighty-year-ago events because the connection between the Nagasaki atomic bombing and the Amami archipelago is the main subject of my presentation. These two places are located almost north-south across the sea and are about 500 km apart in a straight line. In terms of location from Sarajevo, it would be Gallipoli in Turkey in terms of direction, or rather, the Greek island of Kerkyra in terms of distance. It was a distance that would have taken their fishing boat several days to travel. Still, over the past 80 years, a borderline has appeared and disappeared between Nagasaki and the Amami Islands. This historical change has cast a deep shadow over the lives of the Amami  Hibakushas, namely the surviving victims of the atomic bombing. This paper is based on research conducted in the Amami Islands in 2010. It is a further discussion based on a paper I contributed to the book Cross-border Approach for Locality, a collection of papers in Japanese edited by my former colleagues at Kagoshima University.

 

1.     Brief History of Amami Archipelago

Before going into that story, let me briefly trace the history of the Amami Islands. The name of the islands appears in Japanese documents from the 7th century, and the islands were a transit point for ships bound for mainland China. The islanders traded with the Japanese mainland for shellfish products and pottery. For example, the Golden Hall at Chuson-ji temple, built in the 12th century in Hiraizumi in the Tohoku region, is now a World Cultural Heritage site, and the shiny mother-of-pearl inlay there is believed to be of Amami origin. The archipelago became part of the Ryukyu Dynasty when it was established in Okinawa in the first half of the 15th century. When the Edo shogunate was established in the early 17th century, the Shimazu clan, a feudal lord who ruled the Kagoshima domain in southern Kyushu, invaded Amami and Okinawa and used them as puppets to trade with China and forced Amami islanders to crop sugar cane. It is said that the sugar trade greatly supported the clan's finances and laid the foundation for the campaign against the Edo shogunate. 

In the late 19th century, the Amami Islands became part of Kagoshima Prefecture, not Okinawa Prefecture, although they had profound cultural and political ties with Ryukyu. In the 20th century, the Amami Islands became a substantial base for Japanese military operations in the southern seas, where fortresses were built, naval and army facilities were established, and military personnel were posted from the mainland. On the other hand, besides sugarcane cultivation, the islanders' primary industry is silk weaving, called Ōshima tsumugi. The characteristic feature of this fabric is the weaving of delicate patterns using threads dyed black or red with natural dyes, which was the work of mainly women on the islands.

In 1946, soon after the war, the Southern Islands south of 30 degrees north latitude, including the Amami archipelago and Okinawa, were removed from the Japanese mainland and placed under U.S. military rule. Passports are not required to travel between the Amami Islands and the Japanese mainland. Still, anyone who attempted to cross the border by boat without a passport was considered a "stowaway" at that time.

Unlike the main island of Okinawa, which had been rebuilt after the war as a base for the U.S. military and a staging post for the Korean and Vietnam wars, the people of the Amami Islands were largely neglected by the U.S. military and the U.S. government, leading to the deaths of some from starvation. In 1951, 139,000 people, or 99.8% of the population of the Amami Islands aged 14 and over, signed a petition to return the islands to their homeland, and a hunger strike was also held. As a result, these Islands were returned to Japan on December 25, 1953. In terms of Okinawa, it was returned to Japan in 1972, which means that Amamis were returned to Japan about 20 years earlier.

 

2.     Ōshima Women's Labor Volunteer Corps

At the beginning of 1944, when the Asian phase of World War II, also known as the Asia-Pacific War, was coming to an end, about 2,500 young Amami women who were weaving Ōshima Tamugi, a specialty of the Amami Islands, were mobilized to the Japanese mainland as the "Ōshima Women's Labor Volunteer Corps." Because of their manual skill, these women were dispatched to work with weapons and other precision equipment. About 1,200 of these women were mobilized to Nagasaki, one of the significant munition cities in Japan at the time, and the following year, on August 9, 1945, they were among those who experienced the atomic bombing of Nagasaki's Urakami district. The munitions factories were concentrated in the Urakami area, and many of them must have died immediately. Still, those who survived seem to have lived with the aftereffects of the radiation. I use the word "seem" here because it is difficult to grasp the whole picture.

Among the dead bodies on ground zero, many were too damaged to identify, and amid the chaotic situation, a systematic assessment of the damage was not made. As for the survivors, they suffered not only direct and physical damage, such as the aftereffects of injuries and the onset of diseases caused by exposure to radiation but also compounded damage. In addition to the fear of genetic effects on their offspring and the difficulty of maintaining their lives in the absence of social support, survivors had to hide the fact that they were Hibakusha due to social discrimination in marriage and employment. Under these circumstances, efforts were gradually made in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to provide relief for Hibakusha. In 1957, the Japanese government enacted the "Law Concerning Medical Care for Atomic Bomb Survivors" and began covering the medical expenses of Hibakusha by the government. In 1968, it also passed the "Law Concerning Special Measures for Hibakusha" and expanded welfare support, including health care allowances for Hibakusha.

However, more than ten years later, support began to be extended to Hibakushas from the Amami Islands. Why was the government out of touch with them for so long? In 1950, the first postwar national census was conducted, and a nationwide survey of A-bomb survivors was conducted. However, the Amami Islanders Hibakusha were excluded from the study because the islands had not yet returned to Japan. Some returned to their homes by smuggling, even though Amami was already considered outside Japan.

This paper will not delve further into this historical fact. That was summarized in a nonfiction novel titled “Atomic Bomb Maidens in Amami” by Fuyuko Kamisaka in 1987. Let me shift my discussion to trans-generational efforts on this trans-border event.

 

3.     "Not a Dream..."

In 1991, four years after the publication of Kamisaka's novel, the third-year students of Kaneku Junior High School on Amami Oshima island performed the peace play titled "Not a Dream...". Its story is roughly as follows: It is a bit long, but I would like to introduce it because of its interesting content.

The play begins with a scene from a school trip to Okinawa. Although the students were joking around with each other due to the trip's exuberance, the visit to the battle sites and memorial facilities of the Battle of Okinawa made them think about the tragedy of past wars. Some students, however, were glad that Amami, unlike Okinawa, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, had not become a battlefield.

The scene changes when the main character, a young boy, unknowingly travels back in time to Nagasaki just before the atomic bombing. His classmates and teachers have been changed to Amami-born female volunteer corps and supervisors. The protagonist feels uncomfortable with the warlike atmosphere and the way of thinking of the people around him, such as "fighting honorably for our country" and "living to kill the enemy." When he refutes them, he is regarded as a "dangerous thinker" and "crazy.” After such an exchange, he and the girls of the women's volunteer corps get to know each other better by talking about their hometown in Amami Island, but then the time of the atomic bombing arrives. After the moans, screams, and cries of the victims, such as "I want to go back to Amami," "Help me," and "Mother!” the alternate lyric of the island folk song was sung. I show the lyrics on the slide.

              Can we ever forget the year 1945

              Shall we be able to forget the atomic bomb

              Shall we be able to win to the atomic bomb

              With the point of a bamboo spear

              Can we win with such a thing?

 

In the latter half of the play, a narration goes there: “The protagonist saw a city burnt to the ground, and tens of thousands of lives discussing their dreams, futures, and love disappeared in an instant flash of light. The characters are now living in a peaceful period and dreaming of tomorrow. It seemed to him to be a long time ago and to have been nothing more than a dream. However, it was not a dream but a reality. The wars currently occurring in various parts of the world are also a reality. We must not turn our eyes away from these realities.” 

After the narration, a chorus of chants of "Stand up for peace!” finally, the main character exclaims, "Yes, ... it's not a dream! And the curtain closes.

The outline of the peace play "It's not a dream..." is as above. According to their homeroom teacher Hiroaki Sono, a preceding play based on Kamisaka's novel was conducted at a local high school the previous year, and he received the script and adapted it. Later, the students as well as their teachers and parents performed a commemorative play of the reversion of Amami to Japan at the 40th Anniversary in1993, strongly influenced by the success of "Not a Dream...". Owing to the publication of Kamisaka's novel, people in the islands got to regard the issue of the Hibakusha in Amami not as a private matter but as a public history to be shared by the local people and to hand on to the next generation. It is also significant to note that the theater production gives a narrative framework to the experiences and lives of the Hibakusha.

Many of the students who performed in the play talked less about the play's content and more about their accomplishment in completing it as the last performance of their junior high school days. One of them, however, said, "When I first read the script of the play, I learned for the first time that there was hibakusha in Amami as well. I was surprised to find out that those who were sent to Nagasaki as "women's volunteer corps" were about the same age as us. It also made me scared to think about what we would do if the same thing happened. Another said, “I was able to realize the suffering and sadness of the Amami seniors in this way by actually performing that play myself.”

As is the case with the main character in the play, by putting oneself in the shoes of the characters in the story rather than from one's point of view, a circuit was established in which one's sympathetic attitude toward the characters, in reality, was also established.

 

4.     Students encounter the real local Hibakushas

There is more reaction to the issue of the Hibakushas in Amami. In 2008, 17 years after the performance of the peace play "Not a Dream...", the younger students of the same Junior High School met the Hibakushas. This time, however, the encounter was not with the characters in the play but with the real hibakusha living in Amami.

The trigger for this meeting was a petition drive for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The 2008 student council officers of the Junior High adopted the slogan "Challenge," and they decided to take on one project. The student council advisor witnessed a "10,000 signature drive by high school students" in Kagoshima City, the prefectural capital, and told the students about it. Then, they decided to try it on their island.

The "10,000 High School Student Signature Drive" was started in 2001 by high school students in Nagasaki. They visited the European Headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, as "High School Ambassadors for Peace." Since its inception, the campaign has gradually gained popularity, and the circle of signatures has expanded to include high school students not only in Nagasaki but also throughout Japan and even abroad, including the Netherlands and South Korea. By the way, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations is to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. I guess the transnational activities of these high school students might have influenced the award more or less.

The student council called for signatures at a school assembly on a schooling day during the summer vacation of 2008 and obtained more than 200 signatures within the school. However, they decided to go beyond the school and call on the public at large, and they held a signature drive at the central shop avenue of Amami city on August 6, the memorial day of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and three days later, on the day of Nagasaki. In the end, 1,410 signatures were collected. 

Initially, the signatures collected were to be sent by mail to the executive committee headquarters in Nagasaki. However, stimulated by the unexpectedly strong response, two students delivered the signatures directly to Nagasaki two days later. At that time, they also participated in the signature drive in front of Nagasaki Station.

By the way, on August 9, 2008, just the same day that they took to the streets to collect signatures, the Amami A-bomb survivors' group held its last general meeting and dissolved. Twenty-seven years after its formation in 1981, the aging of its members, average age 83, and the decline in membership made it difficult to continue its existence. 

The following day, the local newspaper reported the dissolution of the council chapter and the students' signature drive. One of the students immediately suggested continuing the signature drive. Still, it was agreed that the signature drive alone was not sufficient to deal with the current situation in the area where the local Hibakusha group had been dissolved and that it was essential to pass on to future generations the reality of the atomic bombing, which is disappearing at this very moment.

The student who delivered the signatures to Nagasaki had heard that high school students in Nagasaki were collecting testimonies from the A-bombed areas and producing DVDs, which inspired the idea of a DVD project of testimonies. They interviewed five people living in Amami, mainly survivors of the women's volunteer corps. One of them is Sachie Toyoda, who appears as a central character in Kamisaka's novel.

The DVD "What I Want to Continue to Tell the Future - A Message from Amami," produced by the students, is a significant work of more than 80 minutes. That indicates that much time was spent on the interviews and editing. The interviews were conducted from August to November, and the students did all the editing and narration until the DVD was finally completed at the end of March 2009. In April, the DVD was featured in the Asahi Shimbun, a nationwide newspaper, and the Minami-Nippon Shimbun, a local Kagoshima newspaper, resulting in many requests from schools and peace-related organizations in and outside of the prefecture, as well as dozens of rentals at the local video rental stores. In May, the DVD was donated to the Nagasaki Peace Memorial Museum during a school excursion to the city. In August, it was also donated to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

The DVD begins with an explanation of the process that led to signing the petition and interviewing testimonies. It talks about how, following the dissolution of the survivors’ group, the students asked themselves, "One symbol of our wish for world peace will disappear; we cannot let this happen, and what can we do now as the younger generation? The DVD includes interviews with the five people mentioned above, but of particular interest for me is a scene in which Sachie Toyoda took the interviewers to the graves of her sisters and friends, who were victims of the atomic bombing as members of the women's volunteer corps, to visit their graves.

This DVD was produced to preserve the testimonies of those who experienced the atomic bombing for future generations. Still, more than that, it expresses the students' vivid understanding of the facts of the war that once existed through their encounters with and first-hand accounts of the atomic bomb survivors. The students' experiences were also the driving force behind completing this major work. In other words, the students accepted the "mission" of sending a message through their encounters with the Hibakusha.

At first, the students signed petitions calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons as a "present" issue. They used this as a gateway to encounter the war experiences of local people. They met local A-bomb survivors on the island, following a circuit just the opposite of that of the "Not a Dream..." peace play. In the DVD production, they also felt a sense of mission, a will to take action for the future.

Many war experiences, including those of the atomic bombings, are sometimes described as "hell on earth" because of their harshness, and it is said that "only those who have experienced them can understand what the realities were. Of course, it would be impossible for the later generation to understand what the victims of the war told us as they were in those days or to reach their very thoughts and feelings, given the completely different circumstances of the time and living environment. However, suppose the memories of the past in our communities today can be the seeds that prompt us to take action to open up the future. In that case, it is necessary to go beyond the boundary of "not understanding" and dare to "listen. The efforts of the Kaneku Junior High School students seem to be teaching us such a lesson.