Hiroshima 557shares this faith with Miss Sasaki, whose long stay at
the Red Cross Hospital depresses her. Kleinsorge’s
words give her hope that all is not lost. After his
visit, Dr. Sasaki notices that “she seemed quickly to
draw to physical strength” from Kleinsorge’s words;
soon after she is discharged from the hospital.
Since Miss Sasaki is not a Christian, Father
Kleinsorge’s religion may seem, to her, like an
unlikely resource for hope. But hope often comes
from unexpected channels. An unlikely source for all
the Hiroshimans comes from Japan’s now powerless
leader, Emperor Showa. When he announces on the
radio that Japan has surrendered to the Allies, thus
ending the war, Mrs. Nakamura, like most Japanese
citizens, is stunned. The common people have never
heard his voice before. They consider their emperor
to be more than human: He is a sacred symbol
and the embodiment of Japan. The emperor’s mes-
sage uplifts the disheartened Japanese and gives
them hope for their country’s future. Tanimoto
later explains in a letter to an American friend
that people believe that to surrender is to make a
“whole-hearted sacrifice for the everlasting peace of
the world”: hope, in other words, for a better future.
With this hope for a better world, the Hiroshi-
mans almost immediately begin to rebuild their city.
Dr. Fujii, whose entire medical clinic fell into a river
during the bombing, builds a new clinic. It becomes
more successful than his original one. Kleinsorge
rebuilds his mission and Tanimoto rebuilds his
church. Rebuilding is an important way for the
survivors to maintain the hope that all was not lost
on August 6, 1945. Medical clinics and churches
are among the institutions that provide some of the
necessary infrastructure and hope the community
needs to move on from the tragedy.
By rebuilding their city, the Hiroshimans show
faith in their future. They also hope for a future in
which peace reigns. Many survivors want to use their
experiences to promote peace. But peace is more
easily visualized than achieved. Tanimoto works
toward establishing a center for world peace. He
receives support from organizations in the United
States, but encounters resistance in Hiroshima.
Moreover, although the destruction caused by the
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should be
enough impetus for countries to stop manufactur-
ing bombs, such is not the case, as Hersey makes
clear. Scattered throughout “The Aftermath” are
italicized sentences indicating when another coun-
try acquires the knowledge to develop a bomb. The
resistance Tanimoto encounters for his peace center
and against the continued development of bombs is
not an indication that the peace movement is fail-
ing, however. They are indications that the struggle
for world peace is complex and difficult. Hope and
activity for peace must not be abandoned but con-
stantly renewed with increased vigor and awareness.
Elizabeth CornellSuFFerinG in Hiroshima
John Hersey’s book, Hiroshima, describes the human
suffering caused by the atomic bomb, through
details that may otherwise have been lost to history.
The six survivors profiled in the book all have suf-
fering in common but, as Hersey movingly shows,
each experience of suffering is unique.
For example, most who survive the bomb-
ing suffer immediate and severe injuries. But the
Reverend Mr. Kiyoshi Tanimoto is not injured; his
suffering stems from the guilt of not being injured
and seeing the deep suffering that surrounds him.
“Excuse me for having no burden like yours” he
pleads to the burned and lacerated people he passes
as he makes his way into the recently shocked and
bomb-blasted city. The human suffering is on a
scale unlike anything he has ever encountered.
Tanimoto sees people whose burnt skin bears the
shapes of the flowers printed on their kimonos.
When he assists a woman onto a rescue boat, the
skin falls off her hand in “glovelike pieces.” The
wounded and dying grieve him so much that when,
by pure chance, he finally encounters his missing
wife and son, “Tanimoto was now so emotionally
worn out that nothing could surprise him” and he
does not even embrace them.
Miss Toshinki Sasaki, an office clerk, does suf-
fer physical injury. In the attack, a ceiling beam
and a heavy shelf of books land on her. Her left leg
is twisted and broken. After being rescued many
hours later, she is taken outside and given shelter
from the rain underneath a large sheet of corrugated
iron. She suffers in this bare space for over two days
with a “woman with a whole breast sheared off and