VI: The Orphaned
In the instant of the explosion, great numbers of children were orphaned or separated from their families August 8th, Hijiyama Elementary School became a shelter for lost children, principally very small ones ... children in diapers, badly burned and severely injured children. By the 20th there were some sixty, and later as many as 155 at one time. They were cared for by four or five teachers and members of the local women's club.
Writes Yoshie Tomasu, elementary teacher, "At night I would weep to hear a child waking with the cry, 'Mama, I want to go to the toilet.' Before I could take him along the dark hall and back, another would waken and cry, and then another and another. Being diarrhetic, many could not wait, but soiled themselves on the way. Others soiled their beds without awakening.
"The next morning, we would hurriedly wash the blankets and mosquito nets, viscous with bloody excrement, dry them in the sun and use them again that night." These children, like kittens losing all nine lives but still surviving, could not forget their terror of the wicked flames. "Early one morning one child cried out, 'Fire, fire !' and then another, "The kitchen's burning! The others became panic stricken and ran here and there screaming, 'Fire, fire !' but it was only the flame under the rice kettle."
Daily to this camp came anxious people searching for their children. While there were a few tearfully joyful reunions, the many children for whom no relative came could only look on enviously. The little ones who had absorbed massive doses of radiation lost their hair, and through continuous diarrhea grew thinner day by day until finally they died. Many never learned their own names. One after another they were cremated in a corner of the school yard, and military dogs gone wild would rummage among the bodies waiting for the next burning.
Orphanages
On December 23, Gishin Yamashita, a Buddhist priest, opened the Hiroshima War Orphans' Home in Itsukaichi. 86 children were admitted, 59 of whom were wartime evacuees whose parents had died in the bomb. The remaining 27 were survivors from the Hijiyama school shelter. During April of the following year, some children from this orphanage went out to search the ruins for the remains of their own homes, forming small groups according to their neighborhoods. There were now some people living in the city, but rubble covered everything and here and there water spouted from broken pipes.
"My place was so many houses from here — Oh, here it is!" one shouted joyfully. With the teacher's help he dug around in the debris and found his father's partially-burned sleeping kimono and some charred human bones. These he put into a box brought for the purpose, and laying flowers on the ashes of his home, he prayed.
Some of the children ran away from the orphan's home and were never found again. For little ones who had lost all family there could be no tranquility of spirit. Every evening, to cheer them, the teachers sang and played games, but always after the brief period of brightness they sank back into silence, leaving their teachers sore heart. Of the 27 exposed tots, only five survived.
Other shelters in Hiroshima included the Shinsei Gaku en, Roppo Gakuen and the Hiroshima Shudoin. The dedicated people who have directed these homes have given lov. ing care to orphans even up to the present time.
In front of Hiroshima Station a great many small war orphans were encamped. During the day they eked out a hand-to-mouth existence by shining shoes for the occupation troops and by other small jobs, always in competition with adults. It was a touching sight, one to which Yoshimaru Mori, a prefectural officer, could not remain indifferent, and he determined to devote himself to the task of educating such war orphans. In September of 1946, with only a small grant from the government, he opened an orphanage, Ninoshima Gakuen, on Ninoshima Island.
It was a difficult life for the 34 homeless children, for with Mr. Mori's help they raised their own vegetables, caught their own fish and made salt. Finally, on April 2, 1948 the shelter was licensed as a children's home and in April two years later, Hiroshima City elementary and intermediate schools were set up within the institution.
Some more fortunate waifs were adopted by generous people and brought up under favorable circumstances. However, it is reported that many innocents were deceived by imposters and lost all they had inherited of land or property. Such people might be compared to the maggots that squirmed in the gaping wounds of the dying and dead.