Aug 4, 2018 3 min read

“Fat Man,” the nickname of the second of the only atomic bombs ever dropped in war, exploded over the Japanese city of Nagasaki next week (August 9) in 1945. Together with “Little Boy,” the atomic bomb that destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima three days earlier, the bomb convinced Japanese Emperor Hirohito that the war against the Allies was unwinnable, and wanting to avoid further death and injury, he quickly agreed to Japan’s surrender.

Speaking of which, the two bombs’ death toll was 130,000 to 150,000 people, including those who died instantly and those who died in the weeks and months to come of radiation sickness, of vital organs shutting down, and of various cancers, including leukemia.

And then there were those who, by many measures, had the misfortune of surviving these atomic blasts. They were called the Hibakusha, which means “explosion-affected people,” and horror stories of their ordeal included one woman who tried to shield her eyes from the blast by putting her hands over them, only to discover that the skin of her face had melted into her hands. Sightings of people with eyeballs hanging from their sockets were common, and countless people lost arms, legs and other body parts, to the extent that even though the blasts had incinerated their clothing, and they were completely naked, it was impossible to tell their gender.

As a result, the vast majority of these survivors shut themselves off from society, fearing they would be reviled and shunned, which was often the case for those few who did reveal themselves in public. Children ran from their sight, screaming as if they had seen a monster. Young survivors who attended school were bullied, or just as often recoiled from because of the mistaken, or often falsely claimed, belief they were still radioactive and could contaminate others.

In addition, marriage and children were not possible for many of them, both because they were incapable of procreating, and because potential mates were afraid of passing genetic diseases onto their offspring.

If there is any silver lining to their story it is that, over time, many of the Hibakusha overcame their fear and embarrassment, rejoined society, and began to spread the word of the horror of this kind of war, of which they were, quite literally, living proof. They spoke at schools, peace conferences and disarmament rallies, which both educated large numbers of people about the terror and folly of such destruction, and gave their own lives new meaning.

One message these survivors have constantly spread is that if you thought what atomic bombs did to us in 1945 was horrible, think of what a nuclear war would do to the human race today.

Bruce G. Kauffmann’s email address is bruce@historylessons.net.