Hiroshima’s ‘Memory Keepers’ Inherit the Stories of A-Bomb Survivors
As the generation that experienced the world’s first atomic attack fades away, the city is training younger volunteers to share the experiences of nuclear survivors.
Visitors to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum view a panoramic photograph of the aftermath of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima in 2020.
Photographer: Carl Court/Getty Images
Ten-year-old Mutsuhiko Segoshi was reaching out to accept a bowl of sweet potatoes from his mother when he saw a white flash of light. He remembers the look on his mother’s face — “pale, like a wax figure” — in the moments before the shockwave came and his house collapsed. At first, Segoshi thought it was the work of monsters.
The detonation of the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan, at 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945 destroyed Segoshi’s home, which was located in a rural hamlet two kilometers from the hypocenter. His mother was seriously injured by debris — she’d used her body to shelter his six-month-old brother. A middle brother, four years old, was outside when the bomb went off, but was shielded from the blast by a straw mat that had been hanging up to dry. The neighbor girl with whom he had been talking a moment earlier was unsheltered, and died three days later from burns. After the bombing, Segoshi and his family were caught in a radioactive “black rain” and saw scores of people severely burned in the explosion and ensuing firestorms, which killed an estimated 140,000 people. For weeks after the bombing, Segoshi’s family slept in the ruins of their collapsed home.