Toshie Takada and the theater group "Natsu no Kai"

"Mother, I'm going to die soon. Please plant lots of flowers around my gravestone." "I want to drink all the water I like." The group of performers read aloud the writings of parents who had lost their children to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and children who had lost family members and teachers. They also read well-known poems such as "The Little Child" by Sankichi Toge and "We Shall Bring Forth New Life" by Sadako Kurihara. The group's performance runs 1 hour and 15 minutes. In 2010 this theater group, composed of 16 members, was honored with the Kiyoshi Tanimoto Peace Award.

Children today should never suffer the same horror
Continue conveying the "voices" of the survivors

Toshie Takada

Born in the city of Maebashi in 1935. She joined a theater group in 1954 and became a freelance actress in 1971. She is well known for portraying the mother in a popular drama about a girl named Chako. She also appeared in a popular drama about war titled "I Want to Be a Shellfish" and a drama about a teacher titled "Kimpachi." She works widely in film and on the stage. She lives in Tokyo.

The theater group is called "Natsu no Kai." Based in Tokyo, they offer performances in which they read out and present accounts of the A-bomb experience. They emphasize performing at schools and bringing up students to stand with them on the stage. Toshie Takada, 76, said, "I want young people who don't know about war to hear the 'voices' of the A-bomb survivors and I want them to take these issues to heart as their own challenge."

"Natsu no Kai" was reborn with 18 actresses in 2008 after the original theater group, which had performed readings of A-bomb accounts since 1985, was disbanded.

It was Toshie Takada, who has taken part in the performances since 1985, that called for the group to resume their presentations. She thought, "With the number of people who experienced the war dwindling, we have to share that experience more in the future. Somehow I want to convey that experience." Others with the same idea then banded together to reform the group.

In their performances, the women read aloud the writings made by survivors, such as expressions of anger and sorrow about family members who perished in the bombings, the will of children to overcome their despair and go on living, and the bonds between parents and children.

Ms. Takada's hometown of Maebashi, a city in Gunma Prefecture, suffered serious damage in an air raid that took place on August 5, 1945. She was 10 years old at the time and fire from the attack completely destroyed her family's home. She fled halfway up the side of a mountain and looked back to see the town engulfed in flames. She vividly remembers the smell of things burning and the sight of bodies being carried. With her own experience reinforcing the accounts of the survivors, she said with conviction, "I don't want children in Japan, or anywhere else in the world, to have to experience what we did."

When she visited Hiroshima in the 1980s for a performance, one survivor was critical, saying, "The reality wasn't like that." However, recently she was given encouragement by another survivor, who said: "My body is growing weak and it's getting harder for me to speak about my experience. I hope you will continue sharing our stories and handing them down." She felt glad that her efforts were at last being accepted.

To date, "Natsu no Kai" has given 87 performances. "We aren't acting," Ms. Takada said. "We serve as the voices of people who wrote about their experiences. Along with their experiences, I want to convey their feelings." On stage, children take part by reading some of the writings, too. Ms. Takada explained, "When we read these thoughts aloud, we can experience the feelings of the writers as if they were our own. By listening to their friends' read, listeners are struck by the content in a way that makes it come alive."

Ms. Takada called on students to "Learn about what happened in Japan during the war, and turn your attention to conflicts that continue in the world today. Peace isn't something that carries on naturally; it's something that we have to build together." (Sakiko Masuda, Staff Writer)