The Bomb continues to kill fifteen years after (WIDF, 1960)

=== [PDF page 1] === The Bomb continues to kill fifteen years after Fifteen years have Passed since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were turned into an inferno in minutes, besmeared with blood, filled with hundreds of thousands of burnt corpses and the groans of dying and wounded people. That was the real picture of a war and if a war breaks out again, the picture will be still worse. The vigorous campaign against this criminal annihilation has been initiated by the Japanese people and conducted by the peace loving people throughout the world during the past 15 years. Indeed, 15 years have not been long enough to compensate for all that was lost by the dropping of atomic bombs. The Japanese Government, despite the growing opposition of millions of the Japanese people, signed and recently ratified in the Lower House, the Japan-USA military pact. By this act Japan will be used @s a base at the disposal of the American militarists. The Japanese people, regarding the day of the ratification-May 19th, 1960, as a day oy national humiliation, are more than ever determined to continue their struggle by all possible means until the pact itself is abolished and Japan established as a peace-loving country. On the 5th April, 1960, Miss Hiroko Kajiyama died of acute lymphatic leukemia at the age of seventeen. Miss Kajiyama suffered from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima 15 years ago, at the time of the explosion she was at home, 1.5 kilometres from the explosion centre. We publish below the letter given to the Japanese delegation to the International Assembly of Women in Copenhagen by Mrs. Kajiyama, mother of the dead girl. “Papa! Mamma! I am very afflicted.” I can never forget August 6, 1945. The B 29 suddenly appeared over Hiro- 10 shima, and disappeared again into the sky. At the moment of a warm wind being felt on my cheek the city of Hiroshima became a hell on earth and then could not be seen again. I sheltered with my old mother, carrying my 20 months old baby, Hiroko through corpses lying down like stones, or like logs. Our dear old house burned, and I had nothing to do but stand still in the wide burned field in utter amazement. First of all we stayed at our relative’s house in the country. I was very happy as we were all there: my daughter, Hiroko, my husband, who was demobilized, and myself. It is said that time flies. We had a happy 15 years. Hiroko became a 2nd year student in a senior high school, My husband and I talked about her growth, which was like seeing a swelling flower bud. But on March 18th, the beginning of a term examination, she said to me “I become very tired.” Then her face had been pale, so I thought that she had caught : cold I sent for a regular doctor, but he could not diagnose exactly. Hiroko suffered painfully from a high fever and became weaker day by day. So in a hurry we called at the civil hospital and she received a medical examination. As the result of the examination, it was diagnosed as leukemia, for the figure of red blood corpuscles had decreased suddenly. | Was much surprised at it. The dark world suddenly appeared before my eyes, I felt as if I had been pushed down into a bottomless ravine. “She received no injury at that time, but now-but now,” I said to myself. I believed that she would surely recover if we nursed her hard, and we always did so. “I am very afflicted-afflicted, Papa! mamma!,” said Hiroko from morning to evening, we were struck to the heart with her grief. Blood leaking out from the gums, spouting from her nose! She could not drink even a drop of water, though we let her drink a cup of water at least. We had nothing to do but rub her back broken heartedly. At last she passed away, fighting the pain for a week by blood-transfusions and injections. Hiroko! She went down to the shades breaking into a smile. I can never give her up, however hard I may try. I always-always remember her with the miserable memory. Today, nuclear weapons are tested by the nations. I desire, as a mother, that we may make the world peaceful and that such horrible events never appear again before us.