Lessons of Nagasaki are kept alive

As a second-generation survivor of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in World War II, Masago Asai of Hono­­lulu is one of only three members of her extended family who have survived cancer. The rest have succumbed to the disease, one of the most prominent after-effects of radiation poisoning, she said.

Her mother "miraculously survived" when the bomb, dropped Aug. 9, 1945, on Naga­saki, demolished her school, a half-mile from the hypocenter of the explosion, Asai said. The 14-year-old managed to crawl out of the building, her head bleeding from flying glass shards. Seeing the destruction, her mother believed everyone was dead, including her parents, and she fled to safer ground on foot and by train, Asai added. In the end, her instinct to run from danger probably attributed to her being the healthiest survivor of the bomb Asai knows today, she said.

Now vice president of CompuTant and DataNet Pacific, Asai is at heart a peace activist on a mission to convince the world what victims of the atom bomb know: "It is harmful! You’ve got to stop making it! … There is no time to fight. Clean up things (the environment) before you even think about bombing somebody else."

"It is much more urgent an issue that people realize," and Asai knows that the victims’ entreaties have been ineffective thus far, with so many countries armed with nuclear weapons.

Asai, who was honored as a "Hero of Forgiveness" in 2006, delivered her message at the 24th AnnualHiro­shimaCommemoration and Peace Service Ceremony on Wednesdayat Izumo Tai­sha­kyo Mission. But she has long envisioned an event to be held Oct. 18 to 26, called "A-bombs Exhibit for Peace" at her temple, Palolo Hongwanji. As a longtime member of the interfaith Hawaii Conference of the Religions for Peace, she is organizing the exhibit so students in particular can attend it via school excursions to encourage the individual inner peace that must occur before global peace is possible, she said.

On Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb on Hiro­shima, wiping out 90 percent of the Japa­nese city and immediately killing 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would die later of radiation exposure. A second bomb on Aug. 9 killed 40,000 people in Naga­saki. Japan surrendered unconditionally Aug. 15, citing the devastating power of "a new and most cruel bomb." But it brought a quick end to the war and spared the lives of perhaps tens of thousands of U.S. troops by precluding the need for a land invasion of Japan.

Asai, who left Naga­saki about 30 years ago, said: "Radiation is harmful to everybody no matter where they live. It cannot be touched, smelled, tasted or seen — it has no color but it’s there! And we can’t remove it from the earth because it’s already contaminated. Some facilities and nuclear weapons are aging, and they’re leaking into the air, soil or water."

"Victims can only tell how terrible it was, and they don’t want anyone to suffer the same way they have. So please think about avoiding it and preventing it. They know they are dying but they don’t have any grudge. Our children will be the ones to suffer" if the world hasn’t learned its lesson, Asai said.

Asai said her grandparents, who survived the bombing, searched through the rubble of Naga­saki for her mother for weeks, exposing themselves to radioactive contamination. They died of cancer at a young age, and Asai’s mother was burdened for decades by the guilt of being the cause of it, Asai recalled, her voice breaking — "I could feel it as a child." Her mother is still alive after a bout with cancer in 2005, and Asai was struck a year later. The only other family member who didn’t die of the disease was a distant relative who did not live in Naga­saki.

Asai’s mother always told her and her siblings, "Never have resentment over the sinner but the sin itself. The war itself is the cause of all these things. We never had a grudge or resentment against America or people in America. We would rather want to know how we can create a world without all the ugly things of humankind. … We have to learn how to be more mature, peaceful, selfless human beings."

"It doesn’t make sense" to hold onto grudges just because of what happened to one’s ancestors, she said. "We as human beings can change the future, not the past."