Eighty Years After the Atomic Bomb Attacks, My Mother’s Stories Still Haunt Me

July/August 2025
By Masako Wada

I was one year and ten months old when Nagasaki was devastated by the atomic bomb. I was inside my house, located 1.8 miles away from the blast center. Thanks to the mountains surrounding the central part of Nagasaki City, which somewhat shielded my house from the direct impact of the bomb, I did not suffer any burns or injuries and have survived to this day. As I was only a baby then, I do not personally remember anything about that time, nor can I tell you firsthand of the indescribable tragedies that our senior hibakusha—as survivors of the bombings are known—witnessed and experienced on that day and in the aftermath. But I certainly was there, together with my grandfather and mother, who told me about those horrors over and over again.

It was a very hot day August 9, 1945. My mother, Shizuko Nagae, was preparing lunch out of the meager ingredients she had gathered. An air-raid warning that sounded in the morning had been lifted. I was playing alone in front of the house. She said to me, “Come in. It’s too hot outside,” so I went inside. It was a usual prelunch time in a quiet residential area.

Suddenly, she heard a tremendous sound. She did not immediately understand what happened. When she was able to focus, she found that a one-foot pile of dust and debris had accumulated inside the house, which was south of the blast center in Nagasaki’s Urakami district. The pile was composed of shattered windowpanes, sliding doors, and clay house walls. The lush green mountains surrounding the city had turned brown.

After a while, my mother saw a startling sight. People escaping the fire from Urakami, seeking water and medical help, streamed over Mount Kompira to the urban area where our house was located. From a distance, the people staggering down the mountain looked like a line of ants, but in fact, they were rows of burned and injured, chocolate-colored human beings. They wore little or no clothing, and their hair was bloodied and matted like horns.

In the space next to our house—a vacant lot created by prematurely demolishing houses to prevent the spread of fire during air raids—cremations took place day after day. The smell made it impossible for her to eat anything. The corpses of the victims were brought in, one after another, on box-shaped garbage carts. Survivors who collected bodies from the roadside grabbed the limbs and threw them into the garbage carts. It seemed so casual. Burned limbs were sticking out of the carts like dolls. People initially talked about how many or how few new bodies they encountered each day, but eventually they stopped feeling anything at all about what they witnessed. The bodies were burned like garbage. What is human dignity? Should human beings be treated like that? My mother used to tell me that every August after the war, memories of those ghastly images and the smell that accompanied them would come back to her.

August 15, the day the war ended, my mother was sent to a temporary relief station. She helped to medically treat people who had been taken in for burns and other injuries. The sight of wounded people lying body to body on the auditorium floor was beyond description. My mother was assigned to follow the doctor from patient to patient, carrying antiseptic solution, but some wounds were so severe that she passed out on the spot. Once she came to her senses, she was relegated to cleanup work. She had to use a broom to sweep away the maggots that were swarming all over the survivors’ festering wounds. The maggots were as big as her thumb. She had never seen maggots that big and in such large numbers and hoped she would never see them in the future.

Japanese people were not the only victims; there also were Koreans, Chinese, and Allied forces prisoners of war. These were people, regardless of nationality or race, who happened to be in Nagasaki on that fateful day, away from their homes. At the time of the bombing, the U.S. military also dropped a radio sensor machine by parachute to report on the conditions of the dropped bombs. “Didn’t the machine attached to the parachute tell the U.S. military anything other than about the atomic bomb?” my mother asked. “Didn’t it tell them about the lives of the people under that mushroom cloud, about their families, and above all, about the preciousness of life?”

U.S. Brig. Gen. Thomas Farrell, the deputy commanding general of the Manhattan Project, arrived in Japan shortly after the atomic bombing and told a press conference, effectively, that all those who were doomed to die had died, and there was no one suffering from radiation. As a result, all the temporary relief stations were closed.

In Japan, a defeated nation, reporting on the damage caused by the atomic bombing was severely restricted by the United States. Many people died without knowing why they were dying. By the end of December 1945, the number of dead within concentric circles from the hypocenter of the blast was estimated at 140,000 in Hiroshima and 90,000 in Nagasaki. Sixty-five percent of the victims were children, women, and the elderly; only 4 percent of them died while being cared for by someone. Many of the dead were burned like garbage without being identified by name or hometown. Those who were cremated by their families, and thus had been identified, may have been the fortunate ones.

Survivors were never informed of the causes of their wounds and suffering. They were tormented by survivors’ guilt, illness, and poverty, and had to give up many of their dreams. They also were subjected to discrimination and prejudice because of the lack of understanding in society. For nine years following the atomic bombings, survivors were abandoned by the Japanese government and the United States, with no medical care or assistance extended to them.

After the United States tested a hydrogen bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in 1954, “ashes of death” spread across a vast area and a Japanese fishing crew was exposed to the radioactive fallout. Their radioactive catch was called “A-bomb tuna.” Now aware of the dangers and horrors of radiation, Japanese citizens started a signature campaign calling for a total ban on nuclear weapons. The movement spread like wildfire across Japan, gathering more than 30 million signatures and leading to the first World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs. Hibakusha, who had been forced to live in silence and in hiding until then, came out in the open and let their voices be heard. Consequently, in 1956, 11 years after the atomic bombing, hibakusha founded Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations.

“Message to the World,” the founding declaration of Nihon Hidankyo, stated: “We have reassured our will to save humanity from its crisis through the lessons learned from our experiences, while at the same time saving ourselves.” The hibakusha’s physical and emotional wounds were not yet healed and they were still feeling as if putting these wounds into words would take them back to that traumatic moment in 1945 when the world was upended. But their pledge—that they do not want anyone else to go through the same cruel experience that they did—is very touching and inspiring.

Since its establishment 69 years ago, Nihon Hidankyo has been calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, which have brought about only inhumane consequences and still cause aftereffects, leaving scars on our lives, bodies, and minds. Furthermore, these weapons continue to cause anxiety in our children and grandchildren. Nuclear weapons impose indiscriminate, extensive damage by means of blasts, heat rays, and radioactivity, and their aftereffects persist for decades. If used again, they would inflict the same suffering experienced by the hibakusha on many other people around the world.

My mother died 14 years ago at age 89. She was in and out of hospital 28 times due to numerous illnesses, including stomach cancer and liver cancer. Before she died, I once recorded in writing what she witnessed, but she seemed quite dissatisfied with what she read. “It was nothing like that,” she said, letting her words trail off. She might have felt that no words or expressions could describe the hellish scenes and experiences she had witnessed.

Other senior hibakusha must feel as she did. I am always hesitant to share my mother’s experience with other people, as I know I can never fully describe what really happened. But now that so many years have passed and the average age of the survivors has reached 86, we younger hibakusha must carry on their work and speak out forcefully on their behalf.

With the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in 2017, a heavy and rusty door has begun to open, and we are finally seeing a ray of light illuminating a path to achieve our goal.

Hibakusha have testified on their experiences across the world despite the painful memories of those two days in 1945. We note the term “public conscience” in the TPNW preamble. Public conscience is essential for securing benefits for the public, the human race, and Mother Earth. Power is not justice. Nuclear weapons are an injustice that must be abolished by the humans who are responsible for having invented them. We must continue to urge the nuclear-armed states and their allies, including Japan, to sign and ratify the TPNW to save humanity from its crisis.

Because of the atomic bombings, we attach special significance to strongly urging the Japanese government to sign and ratify this treaty, which it still refuses to do. Japan has forsaken nuclear weapons, but the nuclear weapons arsenals of the United States, Russia, and other nuclear-armed states are said to be many times more powerful than the ones used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In today’s unstable world, the risk of nuclear weapons use is the highest since the end of the Cold War. What will happen to Earth, the climate, and the human race if we engage in nuclear exchanges? It is more urgent than ever to think seriously about nuclear weapons and the global crisis. As citizens, we must strengthen our demands to the governments. All states must sign and ratify the TPNW. They should know that nuclear weapons, humanity, and Earth cannot coexist.

Nihon Hidankyo was awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize based on certain criteria, namely that the laureate shall have done the most or the best work for “fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” That is exactly what Nihon Hidankyo has been doing since its founding.

As Norwegian Nobel Committee Chairman Jorgen Frydnes, who was born long after the war, stated at last year’s awards ceremony: “Nihon Hidankyo and the Hibakusha … have never wavered in their efforts to erect a worldwide moral and legal bulwark against the use of nuclear weapons. Their role in establishing the taboo is unique. Their personal stories humanize history, lifting the veil of forgetfulness and drawing us out of our daily routines. They bridge the gap between ‘those who were there’ and we others untouched by the violence of the past. They are living reminders of what is at stake.”

The committee evaluated the work of each hibakusha who, by sharing experiences and witness accounts, conveyed to people the inhuman consequences of nuclear weapons. The committee further emphasized the significance of this mission at a time of geopolitical tension, when the threshold for nuclear weapons use has been lowered.

Last August 5 at a meeting in Hiroshima, Izumi Nakamitsu, the UN high representative for disarmament affairs, told us that even in the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty preparatory committee meetings, statements that presuppose the eventual use of nuclear weapons, which had never been made before, are now openly heard. The threshold for the use of nuclear weapons indeed has been lowered.

I do not believe in security through the nuclear umbrella. With such a broken umbrella, I do not believe that the lives, property, and livelihoods of the people of Japan can be protected. When we met with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba January 8, 2025, he mentioned the construction of a nuclear shelter. But for whom? Does he really think that will save us?

Frydnes emphasized that younger generations are carrying forward the experiences and the message of the hibakusha. But it is necessary that civil society as a whole, not only younger generations, should raise their voices on behalf of the hibakusha.

As of March 2024, the number of surviving hibakusha was 106,000. Every year, about 6,000 to 10,000 hibakusha pass away. The day when there will be no more hibakusha is not far off. But before that happens, I fear that a new generation of hibakusha may be born. Some say that World War III could soon begin.

I believe that the Nobel Committee decided to award the prize to Nihan Hidankyo, recognizing that the existence of the hibakusha and their words, not nuclear weapons, have been a deterrent to nuclear war. I am happy that the term “Nihon Hidankyo” has become known in Japan and abroad. Receiving the award was not our goal, but it has provided a new boost for our mission.

The hibakusha are the ones who know the humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. We will continue to convey that reality. Please listen to us, please empathize with us. Find out what you can do and take action together with us. Nuclear weapons cannot coexist with human beings. They were created by humans; let us assume the responsibility to abolish them with the wisdom of public conscience.