Hiroshima Survivor Talks About His Experience (VIDEO)

While diplomats from around the world attended ceremonies marking the 65th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing today, many of those who lived through the experience preferred to mark the occasion in more subdued, solitary ways.

That's the case for survivor Masashiro Kunishige, who was picking wheat alongside a group of his classmates when the bomb hit. Though seriously injured, he miraculously survived, but in 65 years, he has never spoken publicly about his experience.

"I used to be filled with bitterness and wanted retribution," he says. "Then I realized the best way is to rid the world of nuclear weapons." He cites President Obama's pledge to clear the world of its atomic stockpile as a "turning point" for him and other survivors.

Watch video of Kunishige's interview here:

Comments

[DCDave]

07:40 PM on 08/11/2010

I am sorry that the Japanese made dropping the bomb on them necessary.

[Belina Fayze]

09:45 PM on 08/08/2010

What's the point of remembering this when the world hasn't changed? So by American people's logic should Hiroshima be considered Christian Extremism, Considering the fact that when a "Muslim" person does something bad it's the religion that gets blamed. If you can justify what happened to Japanese citizens in Hiroshima then you're sick in the head and I almost feel sorry for you but not really. How do people not link the similarities between all the wars of the past century. Innocent civilians are always the ones to suffer, cultures are blamed, if any country on Earth wants to not be America's b*tch. I'm sure people will give me a million reasons why it was okay for this to have occurred because your not Japanese and can easily accept the pathetic excuses you're fed about why this act of terrorism was a good thing to do. Terrorism is terrorism no matter who does it and what their "religion" or culture is.

[mike72]

12:56 AM on 08/09/2010

We were at war with Japan which started the war which caused the death of over 30 million Asians and Americans, plus trillion dollars worth of damage! Get this simple fact INTO your brain. When at war, all things go, including incinarate bombs in Tokyo that killed one million and nuclear bombs in Hiroshima that killed 70K.

Don't try to muddle through the simple facts with high horse moral rationals. It might sound all good to you to forgive or forget but it is actually not helping when the next war comes. You just have to make sure that the wars are SO painful that next genration Japanese WILL NOT even attempt to have another thought of war cross their collective minds.

As for Americans waging wars all around the world, I have no excuse and it should be stopped. But that is not a political justifciation of looking at the old Japan as the "victims" of US. It was not. It started the war, killed 30 million Asians and Americans and received the consequence of their crime. In fact that punishment they received are puny compared to the atrocity they have committed.

Don't let the Japanese morpha into "victims" of WW II. For you are doing a disservice to millions of people who fought against them and brought the world to a relatively more safeer and rational place.

[MisterCee]

06:49 PM on 08/08/2010

I feel bad that any Japanese had to go through this horror and had to suffer the effects of the bombing; but that being said, they did start WWII. Germany was also involved in testing 'wonder weapons" and it just so happens that America developed one first. Many historians estimate that it would have cost at least a million American lives to defeat Japan. Japan had a plan to kill as many servicemen and demoralize the American people. Plus, they wanted to "save face" and they did not believe in giving up or surrendering and that is why they treated their POW's terribly. Like I said, I feel for Japan that they had to suffer through this, but I'm glad it ended the war.

Google Operation Ketsu-Go and there will be a lot of material you can read about the defense of their home islands. It's an interesting and fascinating read.

[mike72]

07:12 PM on 08/08/2010

I don't feel bad for the Japanese at all. ALL ITS CITIZENS WERE CRAZT FOR THE IDEA OF JAPANESE DOMINATION OF THE WORLD. There is virtually no resistence or questioning within Japan for what the Japanese government wanted from them and they gave their 100% to help the warring machine.

With all excues, they deserved for what they were part of, ATCTIVE PART OF, to be precise. Sometimes simple justice of cause and effect is suffient. Anything else trying to re-write history or re-interpret history will only unfocus the simple right and wrong and reduce our guard for yet another Japanese invasions in several generations.

[Alessandro Ambrossio]

01:51 PM on 08/10/2010

If the allies where really interested in going after the people who were responsible, they would have dropped it on the emperor's palace in Tokyo. The innocent civilians weren't part of the military think tank that started the war of aggression. Yes they needed to be stopped. But don't say the civilians deserved it. If the bombs going to be dropped, and you want to drop it on those responsible, then do it. Leave the innocents out of it. Don't throw back that they(Japanese) killed innocents, so it didn't matter if we did. That makes us no better than who we are fighting to stop. What would be the point of eliminating them, what would we be saving the world from?

[Balzac]

05:55 PM on 08/08/2010

Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are resolute in their efforts to spare us all from what they suffered. Long may they live, as each one of them is a venerable elder and unquestionable messenger of what the whole world needs to listen to.

[mike72]

09:40 PM on 08/08/2010

Say that the surviving families of the 30 million Asians and Americans who were killed by the Japanese war machine. Don't forget, each and every one of the Japanese, including children and women, were actively invovled in the invasion of Asia and were actively contributing the Japanese war machine.

Take Hiroshima and Nagasaki for example, both of them were the MAJOR weaponry manufactoring bases during war time. And that was the main reason they were chosen for the nuclear bomb. It was not a far fetch that these survivors were most likely working on making bullets when the bombs dropped.

[Balzac]

07:27 PM on 08/09/2010

You should be ashamed. I'm embarrassed by the attitudes of Americans like you towards Japan.

[Alessandro Ambrossio]

01:54 PM on 08/10/2010

women and children? How can you say every citizen was responsible? So you would have advocated killing the entire Japanese population(genocide).

[TheyCalledMeSandN]

10:45 AM on 08/08/2010

thank you AlJazeera for making this man heard, US networks don't cover stories that remind us of a history we rather pretend doesn't exist.

[mike72]

12:24 PM on 08/08/2010

In attempting to frame US into the devil of the War II as a reflection of the current events, AJ has practically engate in "correctional history" to systematically igore how events happened in the past: where over 30 million Asians and Americans were killed by Japaneses and where those two cities were the major base of weapon manufactorying to suppor those killing.

History is should not be forgotten or re-written to serve current events. Forgiveness is not for Japan to give but for them to realize everything has dire and deadly consequence.

[Progressneeded]

12:41 PM on 08/08/2010

Hello pot, how is the kettle? Rewriting history is an American pastime.

[mike72]

01:12 PM on 08/08/2010

Quite so. But that does not justify that attempt of Japanese morphing themselves into the "victims" of WW II.

At least not when my memory is just fresh and alive. Maybe after couple generations later, Japan might successfully re-write history. By then the world might turn into furtile soil for yet another Japanese invasion.

[jcabowers]

08:13 PM on 08/07/2010

Such an ability to forgive is affirming for all of us. We all should try to emulate this man.

[mike72]

08:54 AM on 08/08/2010

Well depends on how you look at it. His forgiveness is based on the fact that he and his countrymen initiated the war and faced the consequence.

They killed over 30 million Asians and Amercians. That is the context in which they would consider and take the position of "forgiveness"

Ain't gonig to work for me. Everything has its consequence. Forgiveness is not for them to give out. It is the world who suffereed from Japanese atrocity to give to Japan, if they actually deserve it with actions of remorse.

[dteg]

11:34 AM on 08/08/2010

It sounds like you still have a long way to go in the forgiveness category. Life gets better when you release the hate.

[mike72]

12:20 PM on 08/08/2010

Of course. But the Japanese ain't the ones giving out "forgiveness". At least on in my life time when memory has not been easily overwritten by "correctional history" yet.

[ThinkCreeps]

06:23 PM on 08/07/2010

And to the annually-touted unique victimhood of Hiroshima, add the quiet memory of the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians in other cities who died by fire in the preceding twelve months of strategic bombing, and of the brutalized civilians of the countries occupied by japan, and of the aircrew, sailors and troops who never returned to their families while setting things straight.

[Kevin Atlanta]

12:55 PM on 08/07/2010

The "promise" of President Barrack Hussein Obama is rapidly becoming resoundingly hallow because the acts of the Goldman Sachs White House of Bush-Lite policy is exposed.

This President who desired, at one time, to be a "transformational" President continues to demonstrate that his only concern is the Corporate Masters income as the people of America who elected him continue to be raped by the embezzlement and fraud from Wall Street, Banksters, war profiteers and the Industrial, Military, Congressional Complex doing the bidding of the Corporate Fascists who've purchased the system with legitimized bribery.

[doo raa]

03:13 PM on 08/07/2010

well, it took eight to twelve long years of Republican rule to get us here. now you want to be fixed in a little under two years? i think you might be watching a little too many sit-coms. things that went this bad for so long don't just get fixed over night, especially when you take into account the frighteningly high amount of filibusters in the congress and so forth.

but here's the biggie: how about you stay on topic and not turn something into just another thing for you to pick our President about. show a little respect please, if not for your president, then how about the memory of what this day commemorates. just a little respect, please?

[Progressneeded]

12:43 PM on 08/08/2010

I think he wants to at least see one promise kept in its entirety without caving to the dark forces. Not mush to ask for after two years.

[Toothbrush]

11:12 AM on 08/07/2010

Dropping the bombs was utterly barbaric and violent, a barbarism and violence the Japanese all but asked for and well deserved. An innocent schoolboy doesn't deserve to suffer the effects of atomic bombing, but such things necessarily happen in war, especially in a total war situation like WWII.

[CarlIII]

04:58 PM on 08/07/2010

Fanned you for that Toothbrush. The veterans of WWII are dying off at a rate of 12 thousand a month now. Arlington cemetary will be full by 2018. These are the men and women who understand what "Total War" means. I've watched today as countless under educated well meaning people put down the USA for developing and using the A bomb. A friend of mine's father worked on the "Manhatten Project ". He said his father was proud he contibuted to the ending the war with Japan. He also deeply regretted that it was used. He justified what they did because it was "Total War". WWII was the most "Total War " of all time. The Axis powers started it. 10s of millions were butchered before the USA got attacked by Japan. I object to the notion that we were some how evil and monsterous. Such talk is absolute bull$hit. Millions of Japanese lives were saved.

[jcabowers]

08:15 PM on 08/07/2010

The weapon was arguably evil and monstrous. I'll let historians decide on the rightness or wrongness of its use 65 years ago. My wish is that it never be used again.

[asteven]

11:04 AM on 08/07/2010

Maybe it's why we have peace on earth today (sort to speak...). People know how much damage an atomic bomb can do. Japan was an experiment on human beings. The second bomb wasn't necessary but it served the purpose of testing both an Uranium based and a Plutonium based bomb, right??

[Izomagritte369]

10:39 PM on 08/07/2010

"peace on earth"? - not even sort of. Here on earth it's all war all the time. What planet do you live on?

[naschkatze]

11:50 PM on 08/07/2010

Back in the eighties when CNN was the big thing, I saw John Glenn on one of the shows saying that people were dying piecemeal all over the world in smaller, primarily under-reported wars and civil wars. This is still going on today. It may not be death by atom bombs, but I wonder if the cumulative tally does not equal a WWIII.

[harriettubman]

10:32 AM on 08/07/2010

How can you feel retribution when it was YOUR country who hit first? Go figure. War is not pretty and when you don't start it you must end it.

[RealityZone]

11:20 AM on 08/07/2010

Because he was a child and didn't bomb Pearl Harbor. Make sense?

[maim]

05:40 PM on 08/07/2010

But his country did. His parents should have taken on Hideki Tojo and his ilk and have overthrown the regime. Makes sense?

[Izomagritte369]

10:40 PM on 08/07/2010

"when you don't start it you must end it" . Now that's some twisted "logic".

[Toothbrush]

03:26 PM on 08/08/2010

Yep, you're right, the US was in the wrong during WWII for defending itself. Hopefully someone will break into your house to murder you and you will refrain from defend yourself and we will be spared further commentary.

[demguys]

09:14 AM on 08/07/2010

sorry--last two words should read "for everyone."

[demguys]

09:13 AM on 08/07/2010

This guy was a child, not a soldier. Children process aggression differently. As a child victim of war, it would certainly seem unfair that he and his family had to suffer. War is bad, all around, or everyone.

[Hard2kill]

10:10 AM on 08/07/2010

My father was 16 years old when Japanese occupied the Philippines. Japanese soldiers raped and killed his 2 sisters and father. He was tortured because he was suspected a Guerrilla... Hundreds of housands of Filipino families and millions of children suffered from the hands of Japanase soldiers and this man is thinking of retribution?

[DebbyM]

10:31 AM on 08/07/2010

Don't you see? Everyone thinks "retribution!!!!" and that is why the world still doesn't have peace even with all the known history. If you get punched on your way to work tomorrow, your first thoughts will be getting even. Are you less of a person because you thought of it? Because it crossed your mind? No, you are human and we all do it. But it is our acting upon that fleeting thought that really demonstrates what kind of person we are. This man looked long and hard at what happened when he was a child and he learned from that. Your user name demonstrates what you've learned in your life. His example is the one we should hold fast too.

[harriettubman]

10:33 AM on 08/07/2010

That's how it usually works. Forget about what their country did. Look at what the other country did.

[Kao Dara]

04:52 AM on 08/07/2010

that is correct for him to talk about those to the USA government because it was their mistake.

[Norak]

12:21 AM on 08/07/2010

Truman reportedly wrestled with the decision to use the A-bomb but did not regret it in later life. Good thing he's not alive today to see the horror he unleashed on the planet. It ended the war with Japan but it sure didn't save any lives -- unless you only count American lives.

[MarcEdward]

12:11 PM on 08/07/2010

Your statement is silly.
Lets do some math.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq left 4% of the population dead. During WW2 their population was around 70 million. If we ONLY killed 4% of their population that would be almost 3 million people.
The bombs SAVED Japanese lives.

[jcabowers]

08:17 PM on 08/07/2010

Was it the only choice? Was it the best choice?

[Norak]

01:14 AM on 08/08/2010

Between Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a quarter of a million lives lost. A new weapon unleashed on civilization.

We're not comparing wars of today with a war of 60 years ago.

Not for nothing did Truman wrestle with the decision to use a force never before leased on humanity. Japanese lives are as important to the Japanese as American lives are to Americans, Dead is dead.