Film Depicts Experience of Japanese Student Who Befriended International Students in Aftermath of Atomic Bombing

By Daiki Komatsu / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

14:41 JST, December 7, 2024

HIROSHIMA — In addition to the Japanese victims, the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima by the United States also struck several government-sponsored students from Southeast Asia who were attending a university in the city. Six of those students, called the “southern special students,” befriended a 19-year-old Japanese student who also survived the attack. They supported each other and made it through the week after the bombing together.

Now a short film has been made about their experiences. It was shown for the first time at the Hiroshima International Film Festival on Nov. 23 in hopes of teaching future generations about the tragedy of the atomic bombing and the bonds that people nurtured during the hardships they faced in its aftermath.

Meiko Kurihara, now 98, was a second-year student at what is now Hiroshima Jogakuin University. When the atomic bomb exploded at 8:15 a.m. on Aug. 6, she was working as a mobilized student, making gun parts at a factory about five kilometers from the hypocenter.

Kurihara’s mother and younger sister had already evacuated from the city and therefore escaped direct harm. However, she became unable to locate her father, who worked as an eye doctor, after the bomb was dropped. On the day after the attack, she walked around Hiroshima alone, looking for him.

Kurihara dropped by the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital, as she thought her father might be receiving treatment there. She found it so packed with injured people that there was almost no space to walk. Kurihara checked the faces of dead bodies and badly burned people there, but she was not able to find her father.

Her house, which stood near the hypocenter, was burned down, leaving her at a total loss with nowhere to go. Then, in front of the hospital, she encountered six students from what are now the countries of Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. They had been studying at Hiroshima University of Literature and Science, now Hiroshima University.

From brief interactions to lifelong memories

Kurihara quickly made friends with the six, who were about the same age as she was. They spoke to her kindly, in fluent Japanese, saying such things as, “Meiko, you don’t need to be scared anymore. We’ll be alright.”

Kurihara and the foreign students shared their meager food and slept out in the open together on the campus of the university while she continued to look for her father.

At night, the foreign students played the violin and sang Southeast Asian folk songs, including “Rasa Sayang” and “Bengawan Solo,” and Kurihara sang hymns and children’s songs like “Sakura Sakura” in return to express her gratitude.

Eight days after the bombing, the six left Hiroshima to return to their home countries. Kurihara shook their hands and parted from them in tears.

Later, Kurihara found her father had died in a building collapse. Even so, she was emotionally supported by her memories with the students, such as looking up at the starry sky from the roof of the university building as they all laughed, talked and sang together.

“They came here from foreign countries and experienced the atomic bombing, but they never said anything bad about Japan,” Kurihara said. “In fact, they actually encouraged me. The memories are so good that I’m still able to sing the folk songs.”

Kurihara carefully preserved the photos the students gave her when they parted and the letters and postcards she got from them afterward. Whenever she faced difficulties, such as when she was suffering from A-bomb sickness, she would look at these mementos, which always encouraged her to live.

All of the six students went on to play important roles in various fields after returning home, including Pengiran Yusof, the first prime minister of Brunei, who died in 2016 at the age of 94.

A movie to tell her story

Kurihara got married in 1950 and had a daughter. She did not publicly talk about her experience for a long time because she was afraid of the prejudice and discrimination that hibakusha atomic bomb survivors suffered.

However, Kurihara changed her mind after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Wanting to “share my experiences as one of the few hibakusha who interacted with the foreign students,” she wrote a book two years later, revealing her experience of the atomic bombing for the first time. She also began visiting her old school and other places to speak about what happened to her.

Kurihara donated the letters and photos from the students to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in 2019. As her physical condition deteriorated, she increasingly felt concerned about how long she would be able to continue personally passing on her memories to younger people.

At that time, she learned that her daughter had created a kamishibai picture-story show based on what Kurihara had told her about the atomic bombing. Kurihara talked about this to a citizens’ group that produces and screens Hiroshima-themed movies. The group started a project this year to make a film based on the kamishibai.

The film, titled “Meiko,” is 40 minutes long and consists of different segments such as an animation of a foreign student playing the violin and an interview with Kurihara. The video was completed in August and shown with English subtitles at the Hiroshima International Film Festival.

Kurihara can no longer speak publicly, as she has been using a wheelchair since she had hip surgery three years ago and currently lives in a nursing home for atomic bomb survivors in the city. Therefore, she hopes that the film will convey her message instead.

“People around the world are now paying attention to hibakusha thanks to the Nobel Peace Prize,” she said, referring to Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations), which has been chosen as this year’s laureate.

“I hope that people will learn from the film that atomic bombs are a concern not only for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but for all of humanity,” she added.

Efforts to preserve the students’ memories

The southern special students were the first foreign exchange students in Japan to be sponsored by the government. During the final days of the Pacific War, with the aim of fostering future pro-Japan leaders in Southeast Asia, Japan invited a total of 205 students, who were selected among children of prominent families in the region.

Of the 205, nine were studying at Hiroshima University of Literature and Science at the time of the bombing. Two of them were killed, six students survived and one escaped the attack completely because he was in a hospital in the suburbs on the day of the attack. The seven students later returned to their home countries.

Abdul Razak returned to Malaysia and made efforts to promote Japanese language education in his country. He also wrote a book about his experience of the atomic bombing in Malay, which was later translated into Japanese.

There have been moves intended to help pass on the experiences of the students to future generations. For example, a picture book about Syed Omar, one of the two students who died in the atomic bombing, was published in 2019.

The seven students who survived the attack have all since died, according to Yuji Hirano of Hiroshima University.

“There are only a limited number of hibakusha who know about those students,” he said. “I hope people will learn about them through various means and share their stories with others in the future.”