1st Quarterly, 2005 No.135
Uragami Struggle Against War, Nuclear Arms and Discrimination
by Yoshikazu Nakamura (BLL Nagasaki)
I was born twice. The first time was on October 4, 1942, and second was on August 9, 1945. I was born in Uragami-cho, a Buraku community in Nagasaki Prefecture. People in the town were poor, but very compassionate and caring. I was healthily raised in this town.
My second birth was on August 9, 1945, when I was two years and ten months old. My father had gone to war. In the morning, my mother went to a fishing village called Mogi, where her mother, my grandmother, lived. She went out because my grandmother told her, "We just got some vegetables. Feed them to your starving children." At home were my 10-year-old elder brother, my nine-month-old younger brother, and myself.
According to my uncle, when the A-bomb was dropped over Uragami, I was singing a song beside my younger brother who was taking a nap inside. My uncle worked in our house making leather shoes. My younger brother sometimes cried and disturbed his work. So my uncle yelled at me, "Yoshikazu, sing outside, otherwise you will wake him up." At that very moment there was a flash followed by a huge explosion that resounded and trembled the earth like a great earthquake. The trembling caused all of the houses in our Buraku to collapse.
The explosion threw me like a small piece of paper. My uncle said that I had been buried under rubble with only my head visible above ground.
My younger brother was also buried under the collapsed house. My uncle, whose back was burned by the hot air, heard his crying. With the help of some other people, he tried to locate my brother. While looking for my brother, he stumbled over and rescued me. I was almost dead. I was not breathing and had no discernable heartbeat. Although they could hear my younger brother crying, they had to give up as a fire blazed up next door.
Later, my uncle told me, "It took much time to rescue you. Your brother died in the fire next door." I was repeatedly told that if they had not rescued me, who they thought dead, they could have rescued my brother. After all, I survived and my brother died.
After carrying me to an air-raid shelter, they placed me in line of dead bodies of adults and children. I was to be cremated at dawn the next morning. Before that, however, a team of nurses from Nagasaki University Hospital came to the air-raid shelter to give shots to everybody in it. As one injection was left over, a nurse approached to give it to me amongst the dead bodies lying in the shelter. My mother and uncle told the nurse, "He is already dead," but she gave me a shot in my arm anyway.
While people asked, "What is she doing? Why is she acting so strangely?" my uncle noticed my fingertips quivering. They immediately started giving me mouth-to-mouth and CPR to bring me back to life. My heart finally resumed beating.
Lost Memories
When I woke up on the fourth morning from a three-night coma, I had completely lost my memories, including the language skills I had just started to acquire. I did not even remember my mother. My physical and mental development had collapsed. I was unable even to crawl. I was once again a newborn baby. The A bomb had taken all my memories away.
I had a severe head injury, in which maggots bred. As I could not walk, my brother carried me on his shoulders to find treatment. But, the hospital would not stitch the wound in my head. We went to several hospitals for treatment, but nobody allowed us even to enter. We may have been refused for a fear of possible "X-ray spreading." My elder brother who carried me later died.
After the A-bomb, our family moved to Mogi to take refuge in our relatives' house. Then, after my father returned from the war, we moved into a leased house in Oura, where my two younger sisters were born. My father died in poverty and stress when I was a first-grade primary school student. In the early days at my primary school, I was called "Kappa" (an imaginary river-dwelling creature) since I had little hair on my head. When I entered third grade, my hair started to grow. My teacher said, "Kappa are not supposed to have hair." During my time in 5th and 6th grades, I was called by the nickname, "A-bomb." I really did not like it.
During grade four, I started to work in a small workshop near our house to support my family. I worked after school. My earnings barely allowed me to feed my family. Nothing was left to spend on other expenses. Neighbors gave us used clothes. I was not able to concentrate on my studies at school or at home. My teacher always punished me because I did not do my homework. I hardly played with my classmates as I had to work after school.
Annual Buddhist Ceremony
I believe I need to keep telling of the anger of my younger and elder brothers and many other Buraku brothers and sisters who all died in the blast of the A-bomb.
After the A-bomb, the houses of Uragami Buraku were all ruin and rubble. As families in our Buraku were not landowners, most of them were obliged to move to other places. Also, the Nagasaki city authorities reclaimed part of our common cemetery to construct a 10-meter-wide road, wiping out Uragami Buraku.
The government of Nagasaki Prefecture continuously told the national government, "No Buraku exist in our prefecture." Around that time, a local BLL was organized in Nagasaki.
In 1970, when Nagasaki Prefecture and Nagasaki City held an event to celebrate the fourth centennial of Nagasaki Port, they distributed lunch boxes to attendants wrapped in paper that contained an old map of Nagasaki. The map contained the discriminatory descriptions of Buraku, eta and hinin (extreme filth and non-human). Mr. Isomoto, who later became the first president of the Nagasaki Prefectural Association of the BLL, went to the city office to lodge a protest with the municipal and prefectural authorities. In response, the city authorities said, "We used the map unintentionally, but there are no Buraku in Nagasaki today." They also said to him, "You are the secretary of the Nagasaki District of Labor Unions. You cannot say you are Burakumin, can you?" Mr Isomoto became upset at the discriminatory and provocative attitude of the city officials and declared, "I am Burakumin." In the end, Nagasaki Prefecture admitted the existence of Buraku within the prefecture. In April 1976, the Buraku liberation movement was initiated in Nagasaki prefecture with the formation of BLL Nagasaki Branch. The blood of the people of Uragami Buraku did not dry up.
We set up a Hometown Friendship Society to nurture friendship among those who had lived in Uragami town until its destruction by the A-bomb. We made a roster of those who were from Uragami town, and solicited donations to develop and maintain the Society. We built a memorial for Uragami A-bomb victims in the partially remaining cemetery. On August 9 every year, we hold a Buddhist ceremony to commemorate them.
I believe that our angry voices as A-bomb victims are heard throughout the world. To pass peace on to future generations, we are determined to continue our commitment to the struggle against war, nuclear arms and discrimination.
<This is an excerpt from the 26th Buraku Liberation All Kyushu Study Rally>