Monday, August 6, 2007

Hiroshima 1986 - Frame 35A

Another Hiroshima anniversary photo. Here, the old man (see post below) describes the fireball and mushroom cloud he saw on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. His 14-year-old son, Kenji, died in the conflagration. The man was one the oldest living hibakusha, which means those who received the bomb. He had never before spoken about the events of that morning, and was particularly suspicious of an American reporter. When he asked, through an interpreter, why he should talk to me, I pulled out my billfold and showed him photographs of my children -- Julie, who was 10, and Abby, who was a baby. My third daughter, Megan, would not be born for another four years.