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The Yomiuri Shimbun Akinobu Tooyama, right, and his mother Mutsuko watch a video of Mutsuko speaking about her brother Huroyuki, who died shortly after the Hiroshima atomic bomb blast, in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi Prefecture.
By Daiki Komatsu / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
17:45 JST, August 6, 2024
Akinobu Tooyama attended the peace memorial ceremony on Tuesday in Hiroshima for the first time to commemorate his late uncle, Hiroyuki Kosen, who died because of the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima 79 years ago.
Tooyama, 56, is a Buddhist monk and lives in Yamanashi Prefecture.
Mutsuko Tooyama, Akinobu’s 82-year-old mother, was Hiroyuki’s sister. She was 3 years old when she was exposed to the atomic bomb. This year, she told Akinobu to attend the peace memorial ceremony instead of her. “You should go this time because I can’t endure the extreme summer heat,” she said.
They both want to tell Hiroyuki’s story to the next generation.
Courtesy of Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims Hiroyuki Kosen
Hiroyuki, who was then 12 years old and a first-year student at a middle school in Hiroshima, was exposed to the atomic bomb only about 500 meters from the hypocenter.
He was working as a mobilized student at the time and suffered severe burns and lost his eyesight. A neighbor found him screaming “please take me home,” and carried him on a stretcher to his home, a temple on the outskirts of the city.
When Hiroyuki’s mother Masako gave him canned peaches, he said, “Delicious.” He died shortly after.
Until her death 15 years ago, Masako seldom talked to her family about the bombing, and she had put away photos of him somewhere she did not disclose.
Mutsuko was at the temple when the bomb exploded and was unhurt. However, she has no memory of the moment. Nevertheless, she decided to give her testimony about her brother in 1995, the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. “There was no one else but me who can tell the story of my brother to prove he really existed,” she said.
Fortunately, an account by Masako about her son’s final days, as told in an interview with a TV station in Hiroshima, had survived in book form.
Mutsuko repeatedly read the book and would speak at schools in Yamanashi Prefecture, where she had moved after getting married.
She has continued to give testimonies even after suffering a subarachnoid hemorrhage in 2014, but recently her strength has lessened and her voice has become weak
Akinobu did not know what his uncle looked like until 2013, when he visited Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims during a family trip to Hiroshima.
When he saw a board indicating that the memorial hall registered pictures of A-bomb victims, he thought that since his uncle’s name was a bit unusual, he might be able to find a photo of Hiroyuki.
Akinobu searched the name on the touch screen and then a picture of Hiroyuki, a young face of a boy wearing a school cap, appeared. It is not clear by whom and under what circumstances the photo was registered. Still, Akinobu was deeply moved by the realization that his uncle had actually lived and his life had ended at the age of 12 in Hiroshima.
When Mutsuko asked Akinobu to attend the ceremony, he agreed without hesitation, believing that now it is his time to tell the story. Akinobu, with the help of friends, is making videos of his mother giving her testimony to preserve her story while she is still able to speak.
