“All I Could Do Was Shed Tears”

“I am a 93-year-old woman. I was just 14 when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. By then, I lived about 35 km away from Hiroshima. It was around 8 o’clock that we heard a large bang similar to the sound of a huge explosion. I immediately rushed outside barefoot, as I had the impression a bomb had been dropped on the house next door. I saw huge masses of clouds towering silently in the sky from the other side of the mountain. I did not understand what was happening at that time, and it kept me worried. Later in the evening, many people came back to the village by train, and it filtered through that Hiroshima had been destroyed by a big bomb. My elder sisters, Sumiko and Midori, lived in Hiroshima. So, when my mother heard the news, she insinuated that my sisters might have been killed.
The next day, my mother and I went to Hiroshima to look for my sisters. We had to get off the train at a train station near Hiroshima because the Hiroshima train station had been burned to ashes. When walking through the station, a smell like burnt flesh filled the place. There was also a rotten smell in the air. The scent was so strong that I could not even open my eyes. I finally managed to open my eyes, but what I saw was a completely destroyed Hiroshima city. Hiroshima seemed to have disappeared. There was nothing but burned ruins and smoke. We went to the center of Hiroshima. I saw horrible scenes: seriously wounded people. Their skins were peeling off due to the burns and hanging down at the tips of their fingers. Their hair was falling out, their clothes tattered and burnt. My s...