(July 29, 1998, The Chugoku Shimbun)

Most of them were unpublished, survived despite the press code

The original handwritten manuscripts (165 pieces) to tell the experiences of the A-bombing were found at the Hiroshima Municipal Archives on 28 July 1998. Hiroshima City had a campaign to collect such manuscripts in 1950. Japan was under allied occupation then and the GHQ required censorship of all publications. These valuable pieces are 150 pages all together and survived such a difficult period. Most of them have never been introduced to the public. Since they were written only 5 years after the bombing, they clearly recorded the details of "that day" and expressed the sadness of authors who lost their family in the bombing before they realized what happened. The manuscripts heartily described the authors' keen desire for peace.

84 preschoolers and students wrote the 165 pieces at the time of the bombing. 81 college students and adults wrote the rest of them. As a matter of fact, the total of 165 pieces include the pieces written by pioneers of survivors' movement and peace education, Shojiro Shimamoto (deceased in '78), and Shizuko Ogata (deceased in '71).

Shimamoto who was at his residence in Naka-Ward at the time of bombing and had lost three children then, wrote in the manuscript, "It is not enough to have Industrial Promotion Hall (A-bomb Dome) as a relic of the bombing." He wrote this when citizens took first priority in rebuilding the city. It is amazing that he already had long views. He demanded to restore A-bombed buildings properly so that Hiroshima can tell the realities of the bombing to the world.

Back in 1950, the City's Social Education Department selected 18 pieces of manuscripts and published as a note, "Experiences of the Atomic Bombing" (134 pages). In 1965, they added an additional 11 pieces. A newspaper with a national circulation published this collection of essay. It still repeats publishing.

Although there is a remark in the note published in '65, "original", differences can been seen from the original manuscripts. They have been revised and corrections were made. The note said the date of the campaign was 1948 but actually it was the 1950 (June-July) according to the Department's file.

Yoshimitsu Kosakai (deceased 1986), who wrote the "Record of the A-bombing and Its Damage" and later became the Director of History of Hiroshima Editorial Bureau left three books compiled from the manuscripts. Fusae Yui (age 49) who worked with Kosakai at Social Education Department said, "Those manuscripts were compiled as a book under the judgement of Kosakai because he insisted that the precious record of Hiroshima shouldn't be scattered in pieces." At that time, there were no archives in Hiroshima and it wasn't unusual to abandon official documents.

All The Manuscripts To Be Open To The Public

Assistant Professor of Satoru Ubuki of Research Institute for Radiation Biology and Medicine, Hiroshima University said that the found note of the experiences of the A-bombing is very rare because it was compiled during allied occupation. It is extremely valuable that this many numbers of manuscripts were found together. The description was full of evidences and so true to life because it was by the hands of people who actually experienced the bombing. He demanded all the manuscripts to be open to the public.

Picture: Original manuscripts of the A-bomb experiences collected by the City 48 years ago. They are compiled as three books and kept in the copy section of the Hiroshima Municipal Archives.