Obama Will Make Historic Visit to Hiroshima

According to a New York Times article a small delegation from South Korea plans to gather around a monument dedicated to the Korean victims of Hiroshima at the time of President Obama's visit to the city later this week.

While most of the 220,000 people killed by the atomic bombs that the United States dropped on Japan, were Japanese civilians, 40,000 to 50,000 of the dead were Koreans. They had been taken to Hiroshima or Nagasaki against their will as forced laborers, or had settled there as war refugees.

Those fortunate enough to survive the bomb and later return to South Korea after the war were then shunned and denied medical care. They were victims of an attack by the United States, South Korea’s most important ally, and for decades after the war, criticism of the United States was taboo. The official view at that time was that the nuclear attacks were necessary to liberate Korea. Acknowledging the needs of the victims of the bombings became taboo.

While many of Japan's Asian neighbors debate the propriety of Mr. Obama's upcoming trip these South Koreans feel that they are the population most deserving of an apology.

Many of the South Korean survivors are concerned Mr. Obama’s visit to Hiroshima will reinforce Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to present Japan as a victim in World War II, covering up its role as the aggressor that started the Pacific conflict and committed atrocities across Asia.


“If there is anyone he must apologize to, isn’t it the innocent non-Japanese victims like the Koreans?” said Lee Su-yong, 88, whose parents took her to Hiroshima in search of food when she was 7. “We Koreans didn’t start the war. Most of us were there because the Japanese forced us to be there.”

Lee Su-yong is still haunted by the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath.
"The rivers were floating with bodies, because so many people with burn injuries jumped in there,” she recalled. “They gathered bodies by the cartload and burned them every day.”

"On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, the bomb struck as Ms. Lee was just arriving for work. The roof of the bank building caved in, injuring her leg. The sky turned dark as it filled with ash, she recalled, and people roamed the streets with molten skin dangling from their outstretched arms."

Ms. Lee has suffered from a number of illness including tuberculosis, cancer and thyroid illness with she attributes to her radiation exposure.

קישורים:
Korean Survivors of Atomic Bombs Renew Fight for Recognition, and Apology

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