There are some events in history that, despite the horrible nature, need to be discussed. It is important for people to remember those tragedies so that moving forward, they do not happen again.
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened over 80 years ago. I that time the impact of what happened has diminished. When I hear about countries testing nuclear weapons and threatening war, I can’t help but wonder if people forgot about how terrible the aftermath of the atom bombs were.
Ghosts of Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino is a book that will be made into a movie by James Cameron.
Before I go on, here is the Goodreads synopsis:
For all humanity, it was, literally and figuratively, childhood’s end.
No one recognized the flashes of bright light that filled the sky. Survivors described colors they couldn’t name. The blast wave that followed seemed to strike with no sound. In that silence came the dawn of atomic death for two hundred thousand souls.
On August 6, 1945, twenty-nine-year-old naval engineer Tsutomu Yamaguchi was on the last day of a business trip, looking forward to returning home to his wife and infant son, when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. He survived the atomic blast and got on a train to Nagasaki, only to be bombed again.
Jacob Beser, a Manhattan Project engineer, looked down on Hiroshima and saw the ground boiling. He refused to look at Nagasaki at all. Years afterward, he referred to what he witnessed as “the most bizarre and spectacular two events in the history of man’s inhumanity to man.”
From that first millionth of a second, people began to die in previously unimaginable ways. Near Hiroshima’s hypocenter, teeth were scattered on the ground, speckles of incandescent blood were converted to carbon steel, a child’s marbles melted to blobs of molten glass.
From the bombs were born radioactive substances that mimicked calcium in growing bones and which, ten years after, filled entire hospitals with a shocking nuclear weapons, more than anything else, were child-killers.
Based on years of forensic archaeology combined with interviews of more than two hundred survivors and their families, Ghosts of Hiroshima is a you-are-there account of ordinary human beings thrust into extraordinary events, during which our modern civilization entered its most challenging phase—a nuclear adolescence that, unless we are very wise and learn from our past, we may not.
I have read a few books on Hiroshima, including John Hersey’s classic. That book opened my eyes to the horrors of nuclear bombs and what they could do. This book takes it a few steps further by examining the effects of the bombs long after they happened.
One daughter of a Hiroshima survivor spoke out in 2024 when Russia and Iran threatened nuclear war. She said, “My family, the sad thing is, they were a so, so very happy family. Wars take everything away from people. Safety. Peace. Sanity. Family.” Tsutomu Yamaguchi (who survived both bombings) spoke to a large group at the United Nations around 2006. The group included high school students. He said to the group:
“Each of you, though you may only be a single human being – each of you can, on your own, help us to start understanding each other. That’s all it takes: small steps. That’s all you have to remember. Send simple acts of kindness outward, from person to person. Send forth kindness like a contagious disease.”
As I read that, I remind myself that if we all would show a little kindness to each other, the world would be a better place. God forbid we ever have to witness the devastation and horrors of what happened so many years ago.
5 out of 5 stars.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 