HIROSHIMA -- "What rings in the depths of my ears 30 years on is ... the voices of people crushed under big trees, scorched alive from the tips of their feet, writhing in agony, shrieking in pain. The cries of people's last moments before death, which are impossible to hear without sobbing. Alas! The atomic bomb is terrifying. The atomic bomb is hateful."

These words were written in tiny letters alongside a drawing of the ruins of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, the day the U.S. military dropped the world's first atomic bomb used in warfare on the city. The sketch is one of 13 so-called "A-bomb drawings" by A-bomb survivors, or hibakusha, which have been sent to Oslo, Norway, to be displayed at the Nobel Peace Center's exhibit "A Message to Humanity." The exhibit will introduce the achievements of the A-bomb survivors, as well as the hibakusha grassroots group Nihon Hidankyo, which won this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

The Mainichi Shimbun sat down with two children of the deceased artists, who said that while the drawings contain painful memories their parents wanted to erase, they also serve as powerful testimonies with a message that resonates with people worldwide.

The drawing above was made by Kazuhiro Ishizu, who survived the atomic bombing at the age of 37 and passed away in 1997, aged 89. He is said to have created the drawing when he was 66 years old. Around the same time, he donated six drawings depicting the horrific scenes shortly after the atomic bombing, which are now kept at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in the city's Naka Ward.

"My father barely spoke of the A-bomb. Only a couple years after that he told me about giving away the pictures." So recalls Ishizu's eldest son Yasuhiko, 85, who lives in Hiroshima.

After World War II, Ishizu worked as the factory director of a pharmaceutical firm run by the family. Yasuhiko remembers his father as someone who was quiet and never criticized others.

On his 61st birthday, he received an oil painting kit as a gift from his family, and he has devoted himself to creating artwork since. Though he liked to paint landscapes, he apparently learned of the 1974 project in which public broadcaster NHK called on Hiroshima citizens to draw their A-bomb memories, and created the six pieces then.

"My father must have wanted to bare and pour his heart out into the drawing, to vent things he couldn't even share with his family," says Yasuhiko.

Yasuhiko remembers his father talking about his experience of the atomic bombing just once. His father was in his mid-60s, which is around the time he drew the A-bomb illustrations. The family was gathered in the living room on Aug. 15, the anniversary of Japan's surrender and the end of the Pacific War. As images of a commemoration ceremony appeared on the TV screen, Ishizu whispered, "I can still remember the voices begging for help, pleading for water."

From this point onward, Ishizu began to talk about the day of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima bit by bit, and Yasuhiko learned of the details of his father's experience for the first time.

On Aug. 6, 1945, Ishizu was on the southern side of where Hiroshima Station stands today. He was crushed under buildings that collapsed in the bomb blast, and as flames approached him, he thought it was fortunate that his wife and four children were not with him. He was desperate to escape, and could not think about helping others along the way.

Yasuhiko says, "I think my father didn't talk about it for the longest time because he felt guilty. He must have kept quiet because it was too painful."

Ishizu's drawing features buildings destroyed in the blast and flames blowing up fiercely, alongside people with burns all over their bodies collapsed on the ground.

After Ishizu passed away, his landscape painting of Itsukushima Shrine on the island of Miyajima, Hiroshima Prefecture, which had been displayed at a nearby community center, was returned to the family's home. Yasuhiko was astonished to find a hidden painting on the reverse side of the work.

The Atomic Bomb Dome, the only structure left standing in the area where the A-bomb exploded, was drawn with red and yellow beams of light flashing from the center. The dome is enveloped in low, black clouds, and surrounded in ominous flames. It was a work that seemed to capture the intensity and brutality of the atomic bombing he experienced himself.

Though he didn't say much about the A-bomb, Ishizu's memory contained in his drawing will reach the world, in the upcoming Nobel Peace Prize exhibit. Yasuhiko hopes that it will become a force to help prevent war, saying, "I think my father would've been happy to see his message of how cruel and pointless war is being spread to the world."

Another hibakusha artist, Yoko Suga, who passed away at the age of 80 in 2011, was 14 years old when the bomb hit. At the time she was only around 1 kilometer away from the hypocenter, and barely survived. She depicted what she saw that day at a riverbed. Many people who reached the river were diving into the water to flee from fires triggered by the bomb.

At the bottom of the drawing is a description of a particular middle schooler who stayed engraved in her memory. The student was in the river, clinging onto a willow branch, and their eyes and mouth were swollen and disfigured.

"They sank their face into the river, and took a big gulp of water. The same moment I thought they let out a big breath, their hand slipped away from the branch, and they drowned, swept away ... without being able to say goodbye to mom or dad," she wrote.

Suga's 69-year-old son Takafumi, a resident of Hiroshima, learned of the existence of the drawing not from his mother but from a friend who found it on display at the Peace Memorial Museum. Suga had liked to create watercolor paintings of landscapes, and around 20 of them were left at the home. However, it is likely that her work depicting the atomic bombing was a unique piece.

"For my mother, it must have been a big burden to remember the past. I don't think she wanted to paint it ever again," said Takafumi.

After World War II, Suga worked as an administrative clerk at a construction company, and married a colleague and the couple gave birth to Takafumi. She fell ill often, and developed lung cancer and breast cancer in her 50s, and was bedridden in her final years.

Takafumi says that in recent years, he has more opportunities to think about his mother's A-bomb drawings. When he sees news about the wars and conflicts going on in the world, it makes him wonder whether his mother went through a similar experience.

"I want the emotions that ooze out from the drawing to help the cause of abolishing nuclear weapons from the world," he said. "I think that's what my mom would have wanted, too."

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The full collection of "A-bomb drawings" donated by Hiroshima citizens who survived the 1945 atomic bombing can be seen on the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum's webpage https://hpmm-db.jp/picture_en/ ;

Digital images of 13 drawings of the approximately 5,000-piece collection were selected by the Nobel Peace Center staff in charge of this year's exhibit "A Message to Humanity." Postcard size printouts of the drawings will be placed at an "interactive table," where visitors can pick them up and read partial translations of the descriptions and anecdotes contained in the drawings. They will be on display at the center in Oslo, Norway, for about one year starting from Dec. 11, 2024.

(Japanese original by Kana Nemoto and Deockwoo An, Hiroshima Bureau)

(This is Part 2 of a 2-part series.)