A THOUSAND CANS, A FEW DOZEN BOXES
Mitchell, Greg
A Thousand Cans, a Few Dozen Boxes This is what became of one-quarter of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 BY GREG MITCHELL PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROBERT DEL TREDICI In the northwestern corner of the Peace...
...Factory workers put down their tools...
...Most of Hiroshima is open for business on August 6. Every year, on the evening of August 6 in Hiroshima, the Paper Lantern Ceremony is conducted on the branches of the Ota River...
...Now, in the middle of the river, the lanterns are strung out like neon pearls, as far as the eye can see...
...From all corners of the city the ashes were collected...
...Each canister contains the ashes of a person killed by the atomic bomb...
...People hurry past it even during the day without so much as a sideways glance...
...It begins when men and women dressed in black carry water to the cenotaph in wooden buckets, water drawn from Hiroshima's seven rivers where so many perished seeking relief...
...In Hiroshima, most conversation ceases...
...Many were cremated on makeshift altars at a temple that once stood near the present site of the Mound, one-half mile from the hypocenter of the bomb blast...
...No one steps over the low fence that surrounds the Memorial Mound to get a closer look...
...Visitors are usually not allowed through the gate or the door, but occasionally the city of Hiroshima, which manages the Mound, honors a request from a foreign journalist...
...Unlike most mounds, this one is hollow, and within it rests perhaps the greatest concentration of human residue in the world...
...Every year local newspapers publish the list of names written on the cans, and every year several canisters are finally claimed and transferred to family burial sites...
...A Thousand Cans, a Few Dozen Boxes This is what became of one-quarter of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 BY GREG MITCHELL PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROBERT DEL TREDICI In the northwestern corner of the Peace Park in Hiroshima, amid a quiet grove of trees, the earth suddenly swells...
...The Ota, where many had hoped to be saved, was an undulating mass grave...
...The ashes of those cremated elsewhere in the city were brought to a temporary storage site at the temple...
...The ceiling is low, the light fluorescent...
...After this moment has passed, the peace ceremony quickly deteriorates into a series of speeches by politicians...
...Half of Hiroshima gathers in the park or along the bridges to observe thousands of souls being consoled...
...The inscription reads 'Rest in peace, for the mistake shall never be repeated.' smoke from a funeral pyre, is almost suffocating...
...The focus of attention in Hiroshima each August 6 is the city's most hallowed memorial, a small monument in the Peace Park shaped like a saddle...
...The Ota River is absolutely still...
...Masami Ohara, a city official...
...Along the opposite shore, high-rise apartments shimmer...
...The cremations were done by rescue workers who rarely knew the identity of the bodies they were burning...
...At this hour on that day the Enola Gay was well on its way, this T-shaped bridge its target...
...In the Peace Park, dozens of students conduct a die-in...
...On one side of the Mound the wooden fence has a gate, and down five steps from the gate is a door...
...In 1946, the surviving citizens of Hiroshima began contributing funds to build a temporary vault at this site...
...If, in an instant, all of the residents of Ventura, California, or Niagara Falls, New York, were reduced to ashes, and those ashes were carried away to one repository, this is all the room the remains would require...
...The flickering of the candles suggests the impermanence of life...
...What other ancient city has no old buildings, not a single old tree...
...Out of these materials, they construct paper lanterns no more than a foot high...
...Most of those who died in Hiroshima were cremated as quickly as possible, partly to prevent an epidemic of disease, partly in keeping with Japanese burial customs...
...At the peace ceremony a silent prayer begins but it is not quite silent: A centuries-old bell tolls deeply, like a distant rumble...
...The boxes are stacked, rather unceremoniously, from floor to ceiling...
...They are all mixed together," says Ohara, "and will never be separated or identified...
...Streetcars stop and children pause and bow their heads...
...Inside the Mound a small altar bearing a statue of the goddess Kannon greets the visitor...
...The pine crates are marked with the names of the sites where the human dust and bits of bone were found—a factory or school, perhaps, or a neighborhood crematory...
...But beyond that, the ashes are anonymous...
...For a couple of dollars, they purchase sheets of red, yellow, green, or blue paper, wooden sticks, and plastic tubes...
...Even these ultramodern structures call attention to what happened on August 6, 1945...
...Then they place a thin, white candle in the lantern, light it, and carry it down one of the stairways leading to the river...
...Nearby on the Aioi Bridge, automobile traffic is sparse...
...It is not a spot to visit in the evening or after dark...
...Then the names of the victims who have died in the past year are presented at the cenotaph, where they will be lodged in the underground vault...
...The Memorial Mound has an eerie kind of beauty: a lump of earth (not quite lush) topped by a small monument...
...Before the clock ticked again, thousands had been slain, and the dying had only begun...
...At this hour on that day just over forty years ago, countless bodies were floating lifelessly in this river...
...Thousands of Japanese citizens who lost family or friends in the atomic bombing come to the northern end of the Peace Park...
...The list is now well over 100,000 names long...
...The name of the victim is written on one side of the lantern, and a candle is placed inside...
...Other visitors head for home or for work...
...The ceremony, often conducted in sweltering heat, is virtually the same every year...
...Hiroshima is no longer rebuilding, just building...
...Stacked neatly on the shelves, like cans of soup in a supermarket, are small white porcelain canisters with Japanese names inscribed on them...
...But what of the remains behind the curtains...
...One has to stoop to stand...
...The names on the lanterns represent individuals who, at fifteen minutes past eight on the morning of August 6, 1945, were full of life and at 8:16 were dead or dying...
...Teen-age boys launch the lanterns in the Ota River, where countless bodies floated lifelessly forty-three years ago...
...Many in Hiroshima who could not reach the rivers died thirsty—begging for water...
...Tourists do not dawdle here...
...They are said to contain the ashes of 70,000 unidentified bomb victims...
...On one side of the lantern, they write the name of the person they are honoring...
...Some visit the dozens of beautiful monuments in the Peace Park, which are shrouded in incense and laden with paper cranes folded by schoolchildren...
...The white cans have resided here for decades, unclaimed by family members or friends...
...Joggers command the road...
...Once again this yeai the roll will be about 4,000 lines long...
...Buried in a vault under its graceful concrete arches are names of those killed immediately by the atomic bomb, and of those who have since died of related injuries or illness...
...cicadas screech in the trees overhead...
...Among those watching this ritual in Hiroshima are survivors of the atomic bombing who know that paper lanterns bearing their names will be floating on this river some day...
...Teenage boys take the lanterns, wade a few yards into the water, and launch them on their way...
...In 1955, the Memorial Mound was completed...
...others sit on their beds, hands folded, faces down...
...Every year, more than 40,000 people-including about 1,000 visitors from abroad—attend the city's official peace ceremony, which takes place early in the morning on the broad lawn between the cenotaph and the Peace Memorial Museum...
...Il is a living memorial to the dead and the dying...
...Most of the unclaimed cans will remain at the Mound forever, now that so many years have passed...
...There are more than 1,000 cans in all, explains Greg Mitchell is the former editor of Nuclear Times magazine...
...The smell of incense, so evocative of the sweet Every year, some 4,000 names are added to this granite coffin containing the roll of the Hiroshima dead...
...The water will comfort the victims' souls, it is believed...
...This elegant monument has a life of its own...
...At 8:15, in thousands of homes across Japan, the bereaved kneel in front of family altars...
...The cans are bright white, like the flash in the sky over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m...
...Clouds of incense hang in the air...
...Night has fallen and thousands of gaily-colored lanterns, with flames flickering, gently bob on the river in the dark, carried by the tide past the Peace Park to the sea...
...Hiroshima was the world's first sixty-second massacre, and the city can even mark the moment it met its fate: 8:15 a.m...
...on August 6,1945...
...Behind the curtains on either side of the altar rest several dozen plain pine boxes, the size of caskets...
...Under a mound, behind two curtains, inside a few pine boxes: This is what became of one-quarter of the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945...
...This is his fourth annual article on the atomic bombings for The Progressive...
...In many cases, all of the victims' relatives and friends were killed by the bomb...
...At its finish the crowd disperses...
...The Paper Lantern Ceremony honors family or friends who perishec in the atomic bombing...
...It is not much of a mound—only about ten feet high and fifty feet across...
...Unclaimed, they at least have the dignity of a private urn, an identification, a life (if one were to look into it) before death...
...To the right and left, the walls are lined with pine shelving...
...They are a chilling sight...
...At the Red Cross Hospital, survivors of the bombing whc can get out of bed stand and face in the direction of the cenotaph...
...Some victims were efficiently turned to ash by the atomic bomb itself, death and cremation occurring in the same instant...
...It is known simply as "the cenotaph...
...At dawn every August 6, Buddhist, Shinto, and Roman Catholic priests conduct a solemn memorial service just outside the Mound...
Vol. 52 • August 1988 • No. 8
