An is so horrific all accounts tend to be quintessential. M.G. Sheftall鈥檚 鈥淗iroshima: The Last Witnesses,鈥� a carefully and respectfully researched oral history, is no different.
Although the individuals who recount their tales vary, from engineers to schoolgirls, their message is the same: In the words of one survivor, Kohei Oiwa, 鈥淚f there is a hell, he thought to himself, certainly it must be just like this.鈥�
Oiwa, a junior high school student in 1945, is told to help stack bodies. Charred flesh crumpled in his grip so he held only bones. His is one of many rendered by Sheftall in his blow-by-blow retelling.
The storytelling leads up to Aug. 6, 1945, circles around and around that moment, then describes what it left afterward, weaving in and out of witness accounts.
The experience is tantamount to recalling a giant nightmare so painful it鈥檚 hard to read in one sitting.
Sheftall, an American who has lived in Japan since 1987, interviewed dozens of survivors, known as 鈥渉ibakusha,鈥� primarily in Japan but also in Taiwan and Korea. Of his book鈥檚 545 pages, more than 50 pages are taken up by references and notes.
鈥淚 would describe not only the bombings themselves 鈥� something countless authors have done quite effectively before me 鈥� but also the world those survived had known before the bombs, and the New Japan they helped to rebuild from the rubble and ashes of the old,鈥� he wrote in the acknowledgments.
It鈥檚 that story heard, over and over again, from those who lived to tell it, although many more died, tens of thousands, in a flash.
Oiwa, who was 2.1 kilometers (1.3 miles) from Japan's Ground Zero, was in his futon bed 鈥渨hen everything suddenly turned white.鈥�
For a reporter assigned to Japan, with her fair share of hibakusha interviews, parts of the book meant to explain the cultural backdrops seemed a bit lengthy and painstakingly detailed.
But this reporter was also reminded of how the story of Hiroshima is at risk of being forgotten. The hibakusha are now over 90 in age.
Sheftall devotes a whole chapter on debunking the idea of being 鈥渧aporized.鈥� The heat and destruction from Little Boy and Fat Man did not make for 鈥渨aving a magic wand over people, and then, presto change-o, watching them disappear with a nice, clean painless 鈥榩oof,鈥欌�� he wrote.
Some people鈥檚 faces were literally gone. Others had eyeballs knocked out, dangling from their sockets. Charred black figures wandered through a flattened city, begging for water, 鈥淢izu 鈥� mizu,鈥� the title of one of the book鈥檚 chapters.
Illnesses from radiation poisoning followed for years. They felt guilt and shame for not having died.
His book tells their stories, in all their ruthless violence and gory pathos, but, most important, as a cautionary tale about the perils of nuclear warfare.
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Yuri Kageyama is on X:
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AP book reviews:
Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press
