@t3,16 @^@f07@t1@cThe Bomb @f00@t8THE HIBAKUSHA @t4In this article, there are several quotations that may not be properly translated. I tried, however, to keep as near contact as possible to the sources in order to save the sense of them. Up to today, there is material in archives of the USA kept secret about the real effect of the bomb. Only a few pictures were allowed to be published and also movies are quite rare - except for those, that are not allowed to be shown. Directly after the explosions in Hiroshima and @^ Nagasaki there was even less information and it took a lot of years to move the USA-government to present direct material, showing at least parts of the full truth. In 1977 the first international symposium about the the destructive effect of the A-bomb took place. Here for the first time also the numbers of people, dying and the living circumstances of the HIBAKUSHA (the people, surviving the explosions) had been discussed. Official estimations came to the results that at least 200.000 people died directly while the explosion in Hiroshima, through the heatwave, the pressure and @# @t3,16 @^@f00@t4the following firestorm or later because of radioactivity (leukemia) and illnesses like scorbut, chronic diarrhoea (poisoned water and food). It is quite impossible to get to more exact figures, because sometimes even whole families have been killed without somebody missing them. It would be fatal to call the A-bomb just a conventional bomb with extremly higher destructive powers, because a "normal" bomb effects sudden punctual destruction and maybe in worst cases some fires. The A-bombs, however, that have been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki still kill people and animals through leukemia, still mutates genes inside the human DNA and still keeps the rate of death-born children in that region on an extremly high level... Now let us have a look on the living @^circumstances of the Hibakusha: While the symposium of 1977, 470 Hibakusha - being under medical observation or treatment - have been closely observed by an international team of medics. 57% of them were in a distance of 2km or less of the epicentre when the bomb exploded. 51 people were not present in Hiroshima/Nagasaki while the explosion, but came into the contaminated area for helping. @# @t3,16 @^@f00@t4SIXTY-TWO (62!) separate diseases and harms were collected, here a small extract: - They were easily and severly infected by quite harmful viruses. - Astmathic outbreaks. - Eczema on arms, legs and head. - Total exhaustion even after quite easy work and often reasonless tiredness. - Strong, longlasting headaches. - Depressions, unstable consciousness, aggressions, panical outbreaks. - Uncontrollable twitches of hands and torso. - Diarrhoe (an illness in which the bowels are emptied too often/too liquid) - Jaundice (dangerous illness, turning the skin yellow) - Unregular heartbeating - Swelling of mucous membranes (wet surfaces of certain inner parts of @^ the body) ... and of course the high number of people, suffering from leukemia or other kinds of cancer. Also the social aspect of the bomb is a tragic one for the Hibakusha. Just look on the immensive number of families, taken to pieces. Old and sick, women and children who often stayed alone in a desperate world. Thousands of children got orphans over night. In average, 2/3 of a family died. Imagine mothers searching for their kids, dying in the streets of Hiroshima. All these poor families, living in the outskirts of Hiroshima/Nagasaki, whose fathers, sons and husbands went to work in the city on the 6.August... Here some examples of women, loosing their husbands and her desparate search to eventually find him dead or dying on the dusty pavement under the red sun: @# @t3,16 @^@f00@t4"All he wore was burned. The only thing he wore was his shirt and his underwear [...] his left leg was totally burned. His face was swelled and one didn't know where his eyes were. Also his arms and legs were swelled. His skin hanged around in stripes like cellophane and pus crept out of it." [..] At the morning of the 10.August my man drawed his terminal breath. He suffered since the 6. and peace didn't came back on his burned, swelled face anymore. It remained a mask of pain." @t7MONZEN TSURUYU@t4 (then aged 41), mother of eight children. "At the 3. and 4. day I've looked at a lot of death people at the banks of the Motoyasugawa. [...] I've looked at thousands of them. I just thought of one thing: Finding my husband. Therefore I felt no fear. [... Then,] @^I went through Yoshijima. A train was full of burned people. I;ve looked at all of them. But my husband wasn't underneath them. In one of the big watertubs of the fire-brigade there were several dead schoolgirls laying. A woman stood aside and cried aloud:'My daughter is in there, too.' Several children were sitting on the pavement and whined:'Mother, mother', or 'water, water.' They were all black of burns, and I weren't able to help them. Now, when remembering: I was a devil." @t7RYOSO FUJI@t4 (then aged 36), mother of two children. @# @t3,16 @^@f00@t4Also the whole society changed a lot, because not only relatives died, but also big parts of friends and neighbours. Former friendly relationships to others disappeared, because everybody had enough to cope with himself and his family to search for new friends. Not to mention the paining feelings of guiltiness, because of (e.g.) seeing people die in the firestorm without being able to help, brought longlasting apathetic resignation with them, preventing new social contacts. Still, there are 330.000 remaining in Japan, 60% of them ill or bodily handicaped. Every year, more than 2500 of them are added to the number of victims of the bomb... Also, the general social status of the Hibakusha is quite bad, because they did not belong any longer to the Japanese society. They were looked @^upon as dangerous, because of their contermination. Also, they were seggregated, because nobody really was able or even wanted to understand their problemes. Result: The Hibakushan began to hide themselves from the public and with the 'help' of the government, Hibakushan ghettos developed. Now, all you big mouthes out there, saying it was right to invent and drop the bombs. All you, stating war is a legitimate way to solve problemes. How do you like, what you have just read? I hope, I have managed to change your minds a bit - or would you like to see your family burned or suffering for years and years like @t7SUMITERU TANIGUCHI@t4, a sixteen year old, whose back was awfully burned after being hit by the heatwave, standing in about 1800 metres distance from the epicentre. He @# @t3,16 @^@f00@t4fought for one year and nine months, laying on his front, for his young life in a small dirty hospital. In his pain and agony he pleaded for his dead. His wounds have never closed fully... So, let us listen to what the Hibakusha tell us. This quotation is from @t7NISHIMOTO SETSUKO@t4 (then aged 45), mother of eight children. She lost her husband on the sixth of August and was forced to feed and grow up her children on her own. Think of her words, mates: "The youth of today thinks, war is @^interesting. War isn't interesting at all. War is stupid. The youth doesn't think about people dying at war. They don't know how crue war is. There are young people driving around in vans singing warsongs. They've never expierienced the cruelty of war and think war war is something interesting, something great. I keep telling my children and grand-children how it was like at war. @t6THERE MUSTN'T BE ANY WARS ANYMORE.@t4" @t8>>> @t7RokDaZone @t8<<< @@