Photo: Paula Groff

Elizabethtown College welcomed Shigeko Sasamori, a survivor of the 1945 atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, Japan, to speak Saturday, Nov. 3 as the keynote speaker of the Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies (MARAAS) Conference.

The session was held in Gibble Auditorium, and associate professor of Japanese and Asian studies Dr. Nobuaki Takahashi introduced Sasamori in her native language, Japanese.

Senior and Etownian staff writer Victoria Edwards gave a version of the introduction translated into English for the audience to understand.

Takahashi and Edwards gave Sasamori’s background: Sasamori was born in Hiroshima, and at the age of 13 years old, she was exposed to the radiation from the atomic bomb when it was dropped over Hiroshima in 1945.

Sasamori sought surgery in America as part of the Hiroshima Maidens initiative, which Sasamori later explained to be a group of 25 girls who went to America to receive reconstructive surgery for their injuries.

When Sasamori was first given the floor to address the students, faculty and conference attendees, she told the audience that in being with her today, everyone in attendance became her good friend.

Takahashi wanted to keep the presentation spontaneous and without a strict structure, so he posed a few questions to Sasamori: what were favorite childhood memories, and what was she doing in the summer of 1945 when the atomic bomb dropped?

“Just relax and listen to Grandma,” Sasamori said before she told her story.

Sasamori, in describing her favorite childhood memories of watching the Saturday night news and going out with her family to eat, gave an overview of Hiroshima before the bombing with a series of maps.

In showing the maps, she was able to describe the series of events and where she went during the bombing.

During World War II, Japanese junior high and high school students spent their afternoons cleaning up outside. Aug. 6, 1945, when Sasamori was in junior high school cleaning the streets outside, she heard the sound of a plane flying overhead in the blue sky.

She looked up to see the plane, and from the plane she saw something silver fall. Sasamori described feeling a huge gust of wind hit her seconds later, knocking her back, and she fell unconscious.

When she awoke, Sasamori said that she could only see black, and she could not hear or feel anything. She originally thought that a firebomb dropped over Hiroshima.

Eventually her vision returned, and Sasamori followed the people she saw walking towards the river. She described the horrors she saw, of people being red, black and pink from blood and burns.

Sasamori grew emotional as she recalled seeing a mother trying to nurse her baby as she walked through the city.

“Just like yesterday, I can remember,” Sasamori said, voice quivering.

She spoke of how her mother managed to find her despite Sasamori’s skin being burned from the radiation she was exposed to upon looking up at the atomic bomb as it was dropped.

She also spoke of how her father had to clean the black, charred skin from her face and could only use cooking oil to treat the infections she had since they had no access to medicine.

“Every time I talk of this, I get emotional,” Sasamori said. Later, she added, “Hiroshima City was hell.”

After she finished her story, Sasamori spoke of war and peace. She advocated for everyone to band together to stop governments from pursuing war, and that a loud enough and large enough collection of people could stop war from happening.

She grew teary when she saw a young boy in the audience, saying that she does not want young children like that boy to experience war.

During the question and answer session, an audience member spoke to Sasamori, apologizing on behalf of Americans for the horrors they inflicted on the Japanese and on Sasamori by dropping the atomic bomb.

Sasamori insisted that he does not need to apologize, since he was not the one who committed the act of dropping the bomb, and what is most important is now and the future.

“We have to learn no more war, no more bombs,” Sasamori said. She stated numerous times how she believed everyone has a good heart, whether they show it often or not.

Sasamori’s speech was part of the MARAAS conference held over the weekend of Nov. 2 through Nov. 4. Professor of history and department chair Dr. David Kenley was the co-president of this year’s conference. MARAAS holds a conference once a year in the mid-Atlantic region, and Etown was chosen as the 2018 host for the 47th conference.

“Schools like University of Pennsylvania, Princeton and George Washington have hosted it in the past, so it’s a real honor for Elizabethtown College to get the opportunity to do so,” Kenley said.

The events held on campus for scholars visiting from the mid-Atlantic region, across the country and internationally were also open to students throughout the weekend, and a few Etown students even presented in panels during the conference. The theme of this year’s conference was “Peace in Asia: Past, Present and Possible,” which Kenley said fit nicely with Etown’s Brethren heritage.

“I think this provides a great opportunity for our students to see a great scholarship done by academics around the country,” Kenley said.

“And it gives them an opportunity to hear great speakers like Ms. Sasamori.”