Surviving Hiroshima

ANITA PHILLIPS
Recorder Staff
4/28/2011

Reprinted courtesy of the Recorder, Greenfield MA

GREENFIELD -- Takaaki Morikawa still remembers, 65 years later, the screaming and groaning he heard when at 6 years old he lay critically ill in a hospital, while 5.4 miles away an atomic bomb hit Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945.

"There was a sudden sparkle with dazzling white and a big bang with a blast," said Morikawa, 71, on Wednesday, two days before he will speak about his experience at Greenfield Community College.

Even though the hospital building survived, Morikawa recalls a lot of broken glass and being engulfed in radioactive "black rain," a term used by survivors for nuclear fallout or radioactive dust that fell from the sky after the explosion, contaminating food, the ground and water.

He said shortly after the bomb hit, the hospital was overrun by horribly mutilated victims.

Morikawa will speak in Sloan Theater at the college on Friday from noon to 1:30 p.m., where he will give a presentation about Hiro-shima, past and present, and will show the short film, "The Lost Generation." It is free and open to the public.

Abbie Jenks and Taakaki Morikawa

He will also discuss the nature of the atomic bomb and its tragic effects, as well as "black rain" and the effects of internal exposure to radiation. He will lay out his impressions of the threat of nuclear weaponry on the planet and discuss what he sees as the path to world peace.

"Plenty of my relatives died that day and after," said Morikawa. "I would like people to learn what happened that day. I want them to know who dropped the bomb and who the bomb was dropped on. People need to be well informed."

Morikawa was born in Hiroshima in 1939. Five months before the atomic bomb was dropped, he went into the hospital to have surgery and later developed pneumonia and became critically ill.

Recently, Morikawa, who is married with three daughters, learned that he has a tumor on his right lung, but is not sure if it is related to radiation he was exposed to more than six decades ago.

He is president of the Friendship Force Hiroshima and a member of Hiroshima Peace Exchange Association, Black Rain Victims Association in Saeki Ward.

The event at GCC is being organized by the Peace, Justice and Environmental Studies program there, Traprock Center for Peace and Justice and the Vet-to-Vet program at RECOVER on Federal Street.

Morikawa is giving a number of presentations throughout the area as part of the Berkshire Community College Peace Studies outreach program, Never Again Campaign ( www.berkshirecc.edu/neveragaincampaign ).