広島原爆シリーズ：死（破壊）

広島市に３歳から２５歳まで住んでいました。父方が第二次世界大戦前に移り住み、叔父が原爆被爆死しています。小学校時代には被爆体験をした教師から８月６日の様子を聞きました。当時はケロイド（原爆による火傷後の皮膚の肥厚と引きつり）が残り、爆風で飛んできたガラス片や針が、体内に残っている教師が教壇に立っておられたのです。

戦後７４年経過した今でも、被爆による放射能の悪影響による病気と戦う人々がいます。叔母の一人が骨髄異形成症（MDS）に侵されていました。MDSは被爆中心地に近いほど発症率の高い、白血病の前状態です。貧血になり感染症にかかりやすく、白血病に転化し亡くなりました。

これら放射能の影響が長く続くことが知られているにもかかわらず、核兵器が国際紛争の抑止力という名の下に、脅しとして使われていることに、不安と恐怖と、悲しみを感じます。

当時の状況を資料からのみならず、肉親の感情を通して体験し、その現場に渦巻く空気を表現したいと模索中です。

Hiroshima: the city and the citizens were destroyed by the atomic bomb

Death (destruction)

I lived in Hiroshima from 3 to 25 years old. Father’s family moved to

Hiroshima from Nagasaki before the second World War. One of my uncle was killed by the A-bomb.

In my elementary school, there were several teachers who survived the A-bomb. They told us the day the A-bomb flashed. Some of them had pieces of broken glasses and needles under their keloid skins.

It has 75 years past after the first ever A-bomb disaster. But there are still people who are struggling with the after effects of the radiation. One of my aunts suffered and died from anemia and infection due to the after effects. I am very sad and angry to know that there still exist many nuclear weapons all over and moreover they are believed to be most powerful deterrent.

I try to express my fear and anxiety towards nuclear weapons and wars by my works, which I am able to experience through the histories of the some of my families. I am trying to create some works, which will be able to convey the turmoil of the day August the sixth in 1945 in Hiroshima.

肉親の体験

敬文（としふみ）：

原爆被爆死、享年１４歳、１９４５年８月８日、修道中学２年生

建物疎開作業中に原爆の閃光を浴び、全身火傷。顔の判別はできなかったそうです。

儀六（ぎろく）：当時４８歳

亡くなった叔父と同じ場所で疎開作業に従事していた同級生の運ばれた救護所を探し回りました。やっとの事で叔父と思しき人を見つけ、焼け残った祖父手製のベルトのバックルを手掛かりに、声をかけ、うなずいたので叔父と確認したそうです。

広島は太田川河口に広がる三角州を埋め立ててできた町で、４つの小山（江波山、比治山、黄金山、宇品山）を除くと、平らな土地です。太田川は７本の支流に分かれて市内を流れ、多くの橋がかかっています。

祖父は建物がまだ火を上げてくすぶり、まだ破壊された建物の残骸が残る中を、１４歳の少年を一人担いで、川を徒歩で渡り帰宅しました。

ハマ（はま）：当時４５歳

連絡手段もない当時、近隣の人の親族も焼かれて亡くなるのを見ながら、帰りを待ちました。食料も光源もない暗闇の中、まだ近所でも火がくすぶっていたでしょう。

後に祖母は「敬文は塩を舐めさせてくれと言った」と話したことがありました。当時甘味が口に入るなど考えられもしない状況だったと言いました。

叔母たち（澄子と淑子）：

病院に勤務していたので、多くの傷病者を手当てしたはずですが、原爆の日のことを一言も語ってくれませんでした。

淑子：骨髄異形成症に伴う白血病転化により、９０歳で死去。骨髄異形成症は爆心により近い場所で被爆した人に、より多く発症しており、原爆後遺症と考えられている。

My families’ experiences

My father’s family started their life in Nagasaki where may grandfather worked as a ship designer and an architect. My father was the first child who was followed by 3 girls and 2 boys. The families except my father and the 3’d boy were experienced the A-bomb. My father served in the war in south east Asia, and the 3’d boy was adopted by the relatives and lived in Saga prefecture.

Toshifumi: the second boy and killed at 14 years old by the bomb. He and his classmates were serving to demolish flammable buildings in the city on that day. He got flush burn on the whole body, so that his face was unrecognizable. His father hunted the city for him, and finally recognized him by his unburned waistband buckle, which was handmade by his father.

Giroku: Toshifumi’s father, 48years old (at the bombed day)

He found his burnt and dying son. He carried his son alone and walked home through the city, which has 7 rivers to cross and the bridges were fallen off, and where many building were still burning and a lot of debris were scattered.

Hama: the mother, 45 years old

She was worried and waited anxiously. There was no way to make contact in those days. At the end of the day, she met her dying son. He passed away two days later. Once she told me that he asked her to give him not a pinch of sugar to lick, but some salt. There was no sugar to give him in those days, she told.

Aunts, Sumiko and Yoshiko

They were working at the hospital 2.5 km away from the center of the bomb explosion. They cared many wounded persons. They refused to tell me about what they saw nor how they felt on that day. They said it was too much to speak about the disasters.

Yoshiko: died at the age of 90 due to MDS

MDS is for medulo-dysplastic -syndrome or osteomedulodysplasia, of which the rate of onset is high in the person with higher radiation. Therefore she was killed by the aftereffect of the A-bomb radiation.