The following is a transcript of thee eye-witness testimony of A-bomb survivor - Ms Yoshiko Kajimoto, a survivor of the A-bomb that US forces dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

皆様こんにちは。私は梶本淑子と申します。今日は、私の被爆体験を皆様にお聞きいただくことができ光栄です。／

Hello everyone. It is my great pleasure to share my experience with you, albeit briefly.

私は１９３１年に生まれ、今年９１才です。被爆の時は１４才で中学３年生でした。場所は爆心地より２．３㎞北で学徒動員として飛行機のプロペラ部品を造る作業中に被爆しました。　あの頃の中学生は、労働力として国の命令でみんな働いていました。／

I was born in 1931 and I am now ninety-one years old. When the atomic bomb was dropped, I was 14 years old and in my third year of middle school. I was in a factory 2.3km north from the hypocenter, working to make propeller parts for fighter planes. All of the junior high students at that time were mobilized, that is, we were ordered to work for the war.

８月６日、朝から太陽が照りつけ、暑い暑い日でした。８時１５分、警報が出ていないので作業は始まっていました。窓にパーッと真っ青い光が流れ、爆弾だと思いました。　／

August 6, 1945, came in very hot with the sun shining very brightly. There was no air-raid alert, so we got to our posts at the fateful moment of 8:15 a.m. All of a sudden, a blue light blazed through the windows. I thought, “We’re bombed!”

すぐ両手で目と耳を押さえ機械の下にもぐり込みました。瞬間、地球が爆発したと思うような大音響と共に土地がふき上がり、私の体が浮き上がった所まで覚えていますが、二階建の工場の下敷きになり気絶してしまいました。　／

I covered my eyes and ears with my fingers and dove under the machine table. I heard an earth-splitting roar and watched the dirt floor of the factory explode into the air. The two-story wooden factory collapsed and I was on the bottom floor. I lost consciousness.

「お母さん助けて」「先生助けて」の友達の呼び声で気が付きました。真っ暗い中で何が起きたのか分かりませんでした。動くのは頭と両手だけ、肩から足の先まで材木の下敷きでした。　／

Some time later, what brought me back to consciousness were the sounds of my classmates calling for their mothers, crying, “Mother, teacher, save me! Help me!”I didn’t understand what was going on under pitch-black surroundings. I found that I could move my arms and head a little, but not my lower body. I realized that I was completely trapped under all kinds of rubble.

右の腕がズキズキ痛み、「私は生きてるんだ」と思いました。砂ぼこりが少し落ち着くと、友達の足が目の前にあり、私の下敷きになっていることが分かりました。何度も声をかけ、足を揺さぶるとやっと気が付いてくれました。私は「早く出ないと火事になるよ」と叫びました。　／

A sharp pain in my right arm told me that I must be alive. When the dust cleared a bit after a while, I saw my friend’s leg in front of me. I was on top of her body. I called her and jiggled her leg over and over again. That brought my friend back to consciousness. I told her we had to get out of there or we would be caught in fire.

二人で必死で体をゆすってもびくともしません。今火事になったらどこから焼かれるんだろう、頭からか、手か、足か、どんなに熱いだろうと思った時、本当に怖く、長い長い時間に感じました。　／

We were desperate to get out, but our bodies wouldn’t move an inch. Then, I started to think, “What happens if I can’t get out of here and the fire comes? Where will I start burning from? From the head down, or from the feet up? How hot will it be? How much will I suffer?” I felt it lasted forever.

夢中でゆすっていると友達の体が動きましたが、私の右足が材木にはさまって動きません。引き出した時、モンペが破れ、足が傷つき、大量の血が出ました。　／

We kept wriggling and wriggling, and suddenly, somehow, my friend’s body moved and there was some open space below us. But when I tried to get down, I realized my right leg was still tightly trapped, so I pulled with all my might and finally freed my leg. My workpants were torn and blood was spewing from a gash in my shin.

それから瓦礫の中をもぐって建物から出ました。出て見たヒロシマは何もなくあれ程暑かった太陽がありません。見える所がすべてグレーの状態でした。不思議なほど静かで、臭いは、魚が腐った異様な臭いがしていました。　／

We finally got out from the rubble. What we were looking at was dark, gloomy, sunless wasteland. Hiroshima wasn’t even there. There was absolutely no place for the sun. There was an eerie silence and a terrible stench, like rotten fish.

出てきた友達は、頭から血を流している者、手や足から血が吹き出ている者、腕の肉がちぎれ、骨が出ている者、足の肉が取れ、皮でぶら下がっている者、皆、半狂乱でした。　工場の中に残っていた友達も何とか助け出しましたが、出て来た人は骨折・打撲で立つことができず、座るか寝転んで痛い痛いと泣いていました。　　／

All the girls who had managed to get out suffered some kind of severe injury. Some of us bleeding from the head, the legs or the arms. The flesh had been torn from their arms and legs very deep so you could see their white bones. We were all frantic. We somehow rescued our friends inside the factory, but because their bones were broken or they had deep bruises, they couldn’t do anything except sit or lie where they were. They were just crying, “It hurts, it hurts!”

その頃、中心部からお化けのような人達がやって来ます。髪をふり乱し、真っ裸で男か女か分からない人、腕の皮がめくれ、爪の所で止まっているのをぶら下げてくる人、中学生の男の子が自分のちぎれた腕を持ってよたよた歩いてきます。　死んだ赤ちゃんを抱えたお母さんが何か分からない事を叫びながら、同じ所をぐるぐる回っています。気が狂っているのです。　／

Then, we began to see people fleeing toward us from the city center. They all looked like ghosts or demons. Their hair was standing on end. Many of them were completely naked because their clothes had burned off. Even so, they were so burned that we couldn’t even tell if they were male or female. We saw some whose skin had peeled cleanly off their shoulders and arms down to their fingers. The one I can never forget is a junior-high age boy who came alone holding his completely severed arm with his other arm. Neither can I forget the mother who was clutching her charred dead baby and walking in circles. She had completely taken leave of her senses.

みんな、「水を頂戴、水、水」と水を欲しがりますが「脱水症状になっている人に水を飲ませるとショックで死んでしまうから飲ませてはいけない」と早い時間に命令が出ましたので水をあげることができず、本当に可哀相でした。　「水をあげられなかった」という後悔の思いがあるために、今平和公園には噴水や池などにたくさんの水が蓄えてあります。　／

All the victims were desperate for water, crying “Water, water, give me water.” But everybody had been told that you cannot give burned victims water or the shock of it will kill them. So we didn’t give them water, but I deeply regret it now. Because of all these desperate feelings around water and our deep regret, the Peace Memorial Park was designed to have plenty of water, with a lot of water fountains and ponds.

近くの家から火が出たので、歩けない友達を担架にのせて、ピストン輸送で運びました。その時、街の中は死体で一杯でした。死体は踏まないように歩きますが、ヌルヌルとした皮を踏んだことを今でもはっきりと憶えています。　／

About that time, the collapsed buildings around us were starting to catch fire. We had to leave there as soon as possible, so we took multiple trips back and forth carrying our injured classmates on stretchers to a safer area. At that time, the city was full of dead bodies. I tried my best to avoid them, but I do remember stepping on people’s skin. The slippery, slimy feeling is unforgettable to me.

道には目の飛び出ている人、内臓の流れている人、頭がなかったり、足がなかったり、肉片がころがっていたり、生臭い血の臭い等、地獄のありさまです。　誰にもあんな所を見せたくないし、私もあんな死に方をしたくないと思います。　／

While I was walking, I couldn’t help seeing eyeballs popped out of faces, internal organs rolling out of ruptured stomachs, the body with no head or no legs. There were blood-smeared fleshes. The stench was incredible. It was hell on earth. I would never want you to see anything like what I saw that day, and I would never want to die the way those people died.

次の日から死体の焼却が始まります。　原爆で焼かれた体が太陽の熱で腐っていき、ウジ虫がいっぱい湧いて、人が腐る臭いは、それはそれは臭かったです。　空き地に穴を掘り、死体を並べて一斉にガソリンをかけて焼きます。広島中に真っ白い煙が立ちのぼり、火葬場になり、墓場になっていきました。　その中を、三日間、友人を運びました。　／

The next day, they started cremating the bodies. The bodies burned by the A-bomb started to fester and decompose very quickly because of the heat of August. That brought the flies, which laid maggots. I have no words to express the terrible smell. Digging the long hole in open space, they piled up bodies, just poured gasoline over the whole pile, and cremated. White smoke drifted up from the entire city of Hiroshima. It was like the whole city had become a crematorium. For three days under such harsh conditions, we carried our injured friends on stretchers back and forth.

三日目の午後許可が出て、友人と家に帰る途中、父と出会いました。父はその日から避難所を探し歩き、女学生の死体をめくって探してくれましたがみつからず、もう死んでいると思ったそうです。私と出会えて、「よう生きとった。よう生きとった」と、友人と私を抱きしめ、泣いてくれました。あの時の父の力強さ、優しさは生涯忘れることはありません。この父が、一年半後、残留放射能の影響で血を吐き、あっという間に亡くなりました。私を探しに来てくれたからです。　／

In the afternoon of the third day, we were allowed to go home. A friend and I were walking toward our neighborhood when we ran into my father. Since the time the bomb dropped, my father had been looking for me, visiting shelters and turning over corpses in the ruins. He thought I could not be alive. Then when he saw me alive, he hugged us and broke down. “You made it! You made it!” I will never forget the strength and the warmth of my father then. However, a year and a half later, he vomited blood and died. It was because of high levels of radiation he absorbed while searching for me.

放射能は一旦体に入ると出ることがなく、７７年経った今も、被爆者は白血病やガンで苦しんでいます。　私は１９９９年胃ガンのために手術をしました。多くの友達もガンで亡くなっています。　／

Once it gets into your body, radiation never leaves. Even now, 77 years later, the survivors suffer from cancers and leukemia. I was operated on for stomach cancer in 1999. Many of my friends have died of cancer.

私の怪我のその後のことですが、腕の傷は化膿し、うじ虫が湧いていました。祖母が泣きながら割りばしで一つ一つウジ虫を取ってくれました。原爆投下から２ヶ月後、傷口からガラスの破片が７個出ました。足はパンパンに腫れ、当分動くことができませんでした。　それでも私は生きることができました。／

After I got home, my injured arm got seriously infected and got maggots. My grandmother took the maggots out one by one using chopsticks. Two months later, seven pieces of glass were extracted from the wounds on my arm. My legs stayed hugely swollen for weeks and I couldn’t move. Even so, I was lucky. I lived.

あの一発の原爆で１４万人の人が亡くなりました。私にとって大切な父や友人、そしてたくさんの人が、何も訴えることもできず、無念の死を遂げました。　この思いを一人でも多くの人に伝えることが私の務めだと思っています。今、世界に１２，７００発の核が存在しています。この核が全て廃絶された時こそ、原爆で亡くなった人が浮かばれます。　／

It is estimated that 140,000 people died due to that bombing by the end of that year. My dear father, friends and countless others died in agony with no chance to speak their thoughts. I would like to communicate the message of these voiceless voices to as many people as possible. Today, we still have about 12,700 nuclear warheads possessed by nine countries. I believe that when all these nuclear weapons are eliminated, the souls of the atomic bomb victims can finally rest in peace.

一人の力は小さくても、平和を求める多くの人の力と亡くなった人の魂によって必ず核兵器は廃絶出来ると確信しています。そのため、微力ながら、日夜証言に励んでおります。／

One person’s strength may be meager, but with the collective power of all who seek peace bolstered by the spirit of the departed hibakusha, I know we can rid this world of nuclear weapons. However modest my contribution, for as long as I can, I will continue to tell my story.

ご静聴ありがとうございました。　／

 Thank you for listening.