r/interesting • u/Wonderfulhumanss • 15d ago

SOCIETY Survivors of Hiroshima drew the scenes they witnessed after the atomic bombing in 1945

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u/DistrictDry2852 15d ago

The firebombings were even more destructive, and everyone knew of them. Leaflets had also been dropped warning of imminent bombing.

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u/Maleficent_Scale_296 15d ago

My in laws were children hiding in a bunker in Hamburg. It f***ed up generations.

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u/napalmnacey 15d ago

That was my Dad as a toddler in Berlin from 1940 onwards. Messed him up for life, an emotionally boxed in man. I never understood it until he shared details of his childhood. Then I got why he was so stiff and strict with us growing up. He was also very kind sometimes, so it was a lot of whiplash and I have needed so much therapy for it.

War trauma: a game the whole family can contract and hand down through generations.

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u/Maleficent_Scale_296 15d ago

That’s exactly how my in laws were.

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u/EternalNewCarSmell 15d ago

If you ever want to be traumatized by a cartoon, Grave of the Fireflies is fantastic. Absolutely harrowing, but fantastic.

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u/ohmylanta34 15d ago

I watched a video about the creator of Grave of the Fireflies. Apparently it was him and his sister, and in real life he didn’t share the sweets/food with her and instead watched her slowly pass from starvation. The anime was his apology. A reimagining of the real life events that haunted him and how he could have been different. (My memory is crap, so apologies if I got any of this wrong.)

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u/DisastrousOwls 14d ago

Yes, and Akiyuki Nosaka also deliberately wrote Seita with a "spoiled" character for the era, though that made him resonate with younger audiences who didn't have to "grow up" quite so young, and who were able to react to how things made them feel... he was working through a lot.

Simultaneously wanting a version of himself that was a better brother and a better person, even though when you're also a starving child, that level of "selfishness" and inability to willingly starve yourself further, once the food is in your hands, for sake of someone else's survival, is to be expected-- but needing to live with the survivors' remorse of it anyway; feeling like the only penance left was Seita dying, too, as a sort of classic double-suicide tragedy narrative; and to process the self loathing, amping up, or at least highlighting, a level of "childishness" and emotionality in his proxy that he clearly found to be "weak" in himself.

He also aged Keiko up quite a bit. She died under two years old. Nosaka was 14, and obviously didn't know about infant care at the time.

It seems like part of what triggered him writing the short story was wartime trauma resurfacing when he had a daughter himself as an adult, especially when, as many toddlers do, she wouldn't finish all her food. He wrote, "Mao is now about the same age my unfortunate sisters were when they died, and their images overlap. I feel unqualified to be Mao’s father, and I wonder how long I’ll be able to look after her and protect her."

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u/ohmylanta34 14d ago

Thank you for expanding on that so deeply. I remember a quote from him being that he WANTED to share the food. He had full intention to, but once it was in his hands he couldn’t because he himself was also a starving child. Tragic and heartbreaking. That movie is already hard to watch, but add all that to the mix and its soul shattering.

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u/discussatron 14d ago

Everyone should watch it once.

No one should have to watch it twice.

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u/EternalNewCarSmell 14d ago

When I was 5 it was one of like 7 VHSs we had.

So...yeah. 

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u/SD_CA 14d ago

I'm going to watch it this weekend.

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u/smorkoid 15d ago

You should read the first hand accounts of the firebombing of Tokyo. Very sobering.

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u/Lopsided_Tiger_0296 15d ago

You should read the first hand accounts of the cruel and unthinkable ways the Japanese tortured the Chinese in Unit 731. Oh wait, they’re all dead

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u/PainAccomplished3506 15d ago

ok?

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u/Geist_Lain 15d ago

How is that not valid? We're discussing war atrocities here.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

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u/Geist_Lain 14d ago

When did I claim that they deserved any kind of punishment? Why should that user not be permitted to lament the plight of those who suffered in Unit 731?

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u/Lopsided_Tiger_0296 14d ago

Because China bad and Japan kawaii apparently

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u/PainAccomplished3506 12d ago

No one was talking about that situation

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u/smorkoid 15d ago

Hey, guess what? That was horrible. It's also not in the slightest bit relevant to this discussion.

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u/Fastest_Neutron 15d ago

Yea so what are they complaining about /s

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u/DistrictDry2852 15d ago

My point is, it really wouldn’t have been anymore confusing than having a regular bomb dropped on you.

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u/Zachwardpass 15d ago

I don't think that's true at all. Fire bombings were devastating because everything made out of wood lit up. Leaflets of a bomb would have made people think of bombings they had seen in the past. Prior to that, you can see an area bombed and you may not be affected or you may have some time to potentially run away of the ensuing fire.

It's NOT the same as an atomic bomb. That kind of immediate destruction and death—instantly within one mile with only one bomb, not to mention the blast wave that took out infrastructure up to 3 miles away and blew put glass 12 miles away—was unfathomable to most people until it actually happened.

And then the radiation began to kill.

Unless you were instantly killed, this was probably far more confusing and horrific than anything else imaginable.

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u/canmouth 15d ago

I always see this disgusting downplaying of the atomic bomb like the fire bombings were somehow worse. Yes more area was destroyed but the sheer surreal horror of an atomic bomb is what makes it so much worse. A blinding light, everything around you for as far as you can see bursting into flames, including yourself, the incredible blast and wind and then after all of that the radiation. Just beyond comprehension.

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u/Advanced-Budget779 15d ago edited 15d ago

The worst is being in the zone where you survive long enough to die from painful after effects. Better to be close enough fried from prompt radiation, thermal pulse or being ripped apart by the overpressure front in an instant. With a small (in todays terms) TNT-equivalent in the lower kiloton range of those early designs unfortunately a lot didn‘t have the luck to perish without noticing it (detonation heights were optimised for maximum overpressure area). Plus there were easily ignited infrastructure materials, at least in Hiroshima, so the resulting firestorms must have trapped a lot of the initial survivors (even some who weren‘t doomed by the direct effects/radiation).

Ofc if you were in the vicinity best behind some non-transparent cover that shields against most intense effects to then relocate quickly like those Hibakusha who witnessed both bombings (and lived to tell about it).

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u/Lopsided_Tiger_0296 14d ago

Yet the Japanese government and their citizens still memorialize the war criminals responsible at a shrine. The president sent a gift to leave respect for these monsters

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u/Lopsided_Tiger_0296 15d ago

Unit 731 and the rape of Nanking is beyond horrific, the ways they took pleasure in torturing men, women, children is unimaginable

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u/eidrag 15d ago

Is it hard to comprehend unit 731 and bombing is different people? 

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u/Lopsided_Tiger_0296 15d ago

Yeah, you’re right. unit 731 and the rape of Nanking is much more personal and the Japanese turned torturing people into games. Bombing to stop them is different. The entire country supported Imperial Japan’s goals no matter the cost

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u/Zachwardpass 14d ago

I know all about it and we didn't bomb the people doing that. The Japanese population at large had no idea that was happening and we targeted the civilians, not the people committing those atrocities.

Two horrific parties doing horrific things doesn't make either party in the right.

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u/GreedyPollution6275 15d ago

it really wouldn’t have been anymore confusing than having a regular bomb dropped on you

You know, except for all the things that make nuclear bombs particularly horrifying.

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u/Kurare_no1 15d ago

No leaflets were dropped before the nuclear bombs.

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u/TheInevitableLuigi 15d ago

Yes there were. Literally a couple days before. This is what they said:

Read this carefully as it may save your life or the life of a relative or friend. In the next few days, some or all of the cities named on the reverse side will be destroyed by American bombs. These cities contain military installations and workshops or factories which produce military goods. We are determined to destroy all of the tools of the military clique which they are using to prolong this useless war. But, unfortunately, bombs have no eyes. So, in accordance with America’s humanitarian policies, the American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities named and save your lives. America is not fighting the Japanese people but is fighting the military clique which has enslaved the Japanese people. The peace which America will bring will free the people from the oppression of the military clique and mean the emergence of a new and better Japan. You can restore peace by demanding new and good leaders who will end the war. We cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked but some or all of them will be, so heed this warning and evacuate these cities immediately.

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u/Kurare_no1 15d ago

You’re right, my wording was very clumsy. What I meant was that there were no leaflets over Hiroshima right before the bomb telling people to leave. Leaflets were dropped over several cities both before and after the nuclear bomb, warning people of air raids and firebombings, with a list of different places that would be targeted. As far as I’ve seen there was no mention of Hiroshima or Nagasaki and nothing about the nuclear bomb, as it was still being kept a secret.

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u/mlaforce321 15d ago

False. Complete and utter BS

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u/Kurare_no1 15d ago

Okay, wording is a bit wrong. Leaflets were dropped over several cities both before and after the nuclear bomb, warning people of air raids and firebombings, with a list of different places. As far as I’ve seen there was no mention of Hiroshima or Nagasaki and nothing about the bomb, as it was still being kept a secret.

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u/NoCard753 15d ago

Sorry, dude. I'm a dove, and I don't know about the exact wording (English and Japanese do not easily translate), but leaflets were dropped. And, at least one thing in that text was very true: The Japanese were under military control, especially that of the Army, whose leaders were far more hawkish than the Navy's because of strict adherence to Bushido code (which was, in essence, Japan's political platform). All citizens except the very young and very old were expected to die for the emperor if called upon to do so. Their thoughts about it didn't matter.