被爆者

On August 6 and August 9, 1945, two atomic bombs vaporized 210,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those who survived are called "hibakusha"–people exposed to the bomb–and there are an estimated 200,000 living today.

Last night I watched the HBO documentary White Light Black Rain about the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The documentary is almost exclusively told through people who lived through the bombings.

The horrors the survivors described are beyond comprehension. The descriptions they give with their stories (accompanied by illustrations and photographs) blew my mind and touched me very deeply. I cried as I watched it and I cried as an American.
The unjustifiable bombings on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki are something that Americans carry on their backs: One of the many atrocities that we are collectively guilty of.
Americans became so distraught and angry and vengeful at the targetting of civilians by al Qaeda on 11Sept2001 (whether or not the World Trade Center was actually a civilian center/target is disputable). Think of the targetting and killing of civilians in two city centers on a level far far beyond that committed by the USA (and no it wasn't to prevent significant US troop deaths)!
The carnage the initial bombing caused is truly beyond comprehension as is the following period of sickness and death and then the lifetime of complications resulting in surviving it.

I specifically avoided reiterating any of the experiences the survivors described. I will leave it up to you to here about mothers' corpses turning to dust, skin loosely hanging from limbs, being eaten by maggots, suicide, and discrimination from the mouths of those who survived in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.