By Peter Masheter,
Yoshinao Shimamoto, a 61-year-old living in Kobe, always knew his parents had been exposed to the effects of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in the final stages of World War II on Aug. 6, 1945, but he never had the chance to discuss it with them in detail.
It was only after his mother died and his now 92-year-old father moved to a care facility that Shimamoto discovered his dad's application for atomic bomb survivor status at their family home in the western Japan city, complete with a detailed description of his experiences and the effect the weapon had on him.
"It was my first time finding a lot of this out," Shimamoto said. Aware of his identity as a child of two people who survived the bombing, he decided to find a way to share his father's story. In Japan, atomic bomb survivors are known as hibakusha.
"It's a testimony that shows he lived through that time, and I want to do my best by him," he said.
The document is now the foundation of Shimamoto's studies as he trains to become a Hibakusha Family Member Legacy Successor, which he began in July.
The initiative, launched in fiscal 2022 by the Hiroshima city government, comes as the number of living survivors who can tell their stories continues to shrink. It allows relatives to pass on their experiences -- provided they are living and still able to communicate.
Those who finish the program, which is part of the city's peace promotion aims, go on to give talks at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, local schools and government events.
Through a series of lectures and discussions with their relatives, those enrolled in the project produce a roughly 45-minute-long script. The final draft is checked for approval by the relatives and fact-checked by the city government, with trainees also undergoing significant practice in delivering its content.
Although the program is supposed to take two years to complete, with time running short, the first seven family legacy successors completed it in just one year this April, with another 65 in training as of July.
The program runs alongside a similar legacy successor initiative for nonrelatives, which since fiscal 2012 has operated a mentoring scheme that has trained hundreds in the art of passing on survivors' stories.
Testimonial activism by survivors is central to peace advocacy efforts in Hiroshima. Notably, it featured in the Group of Seven major economies' summit in the city in May, when leaders met 85-year-old survivor Keiko Ogura during their visit to the museum.
But with the few remaining survivors reaching their twilight years, such initiatives have only grown in importance as people race against the clock to document first-hand knowledge and experience of the bombing.
At the end of March, the average age of recognized survivors exceeded 85, and their total number -- 113,649 people -- fell by 5,286, marking a continued annual downward trend.
Mitsuru Nishida, who heads the city government's section for atomic bomb legacy successors, referenced the figures to emphasize that "handing down the experiences of survivors and their views on peace into the future is becoming more and more important."
The number of survivors telling their stories under the Hiroshima government's initiatives, too, has waned from a 2015 peak of 49 people to just 33 by May this year. Conversely, there were 195 legacy successors and seven family legacy successors on the programs.
Hiroshi Shimizu, an 81-year-old survivor who currently mentors around 20 people by telling his story with a focus on the history of fellow hibakushas' lives in the 10 years after the bombing, called the family system a "good thing."
Recalling the effect the bombing had on those who survived, he said that "many survivors, like my older brother, avoided telling their children the stories because they're too painful. But with their grandchildren, it often just comes out when they start talking about the past."
Kento Ogata, the youngest family legacy successor on the program at 32 years old, is a survivor's grandson. His grandfather, 94-year-old Shozo Matsubara, was 16 when he became exposed to radiation from the repeated expeditions he made into Hiroshima in the week following the bombing in search of his aunt.
"For the last 20 years or so we never discussed it, it felt like a difficult thing to talk about," said Ogata, who had spoken to his grandfather about his experiences only once before for a school project when he was 9.
Ogata recalled being afraid to press his grandfather further on the topic after seeing his usually cheerful expression harden when recounting his memories.
In telling Matsubara's story, Ogata describes the horrors his grandfather witnessed, including corpses piled high cooking "like sardines" as they were cremated, and people so disfigured by the bombing that it was hard to distinguish their gender.
Alongside recalling the horrors that his grandfather saw, Ogata also emphasizes Matsubara's wish for peace.
But his desire to learn about his grandfather's story for himself was even greater than his wish to share it with others.
"The biggest thing for me is that it was an opportunity to learn more about my grandfather. More than wanting to spread his story, I want to ensure it doesn't disappear," he said.
Aware of the near future when no hibakusha will remain, and amid numerous legacy successors being forced to give up their studies mid-training due to survivors dying of old age, the government altered its rules in July to allow people to continue their training even beyond the death of their mentors.
The change also applies retroactively to those who were forced to abandon the program following a death.
The case of family legacy successor Takanori Mizuno, 65, underlines the sense of urgency among many in the city as time runs out. Mizuno told his mother's story for the first time in June, just before her death at the age of 90 in early July.
"I was told she had cancer about a year ago, so I knew I had to become a family successor in one year," he said. With his mother in care and visits restricted due to the coronavirus pandemic, the city government made concessions for them, allowing Mizuno to complete his training by letting him interview his mother over the phone.
After years of telling the stories of other hibakusha, Mizuno, whose family included nine survivors, said it had been his wish to honor his mother's story once in her lifetime.
"Most of the people training to become family successors, their parents are in their 90s. They might be healthy today, but you don't know what will happen tomorrow, so there's a tension," he said.
And while many hoping to learn survivors' stories are aware of time passing, Mizuno said those concerns were emotionally charged for relatives. "It's your family, you feel it with your heart, not your head," he said.
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