Hiroshima's proud tree

In 1945, an Atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima city.
At that time, people were saying that there is no way all the greenery would grow back, in Hiroshima, for at least 75 years.

There is a true story about The Chinese Bottle Tree.
The tree was 1300m away from the epicenter, and seared by the blasts of hot air at the time of the explosion. It had terrible damage so people thought that the tree would never recover.
But the following year, to everyone's surprise, the tree brought forth many leaves, and as green as always.

And I am growing two of the Chinese Bottle Tree seeds in my garden now.
One lady stayed at Hiroshima Hana Hostel the other day and gave me 5 seeds in a lovely package. She is involved in the project to hand Chinese bottle tree seeds to people from all over the world.

I am so proud and excited to grow these seeds!!

They are 2 months old now.















The leaves look HEART shaped :) So pretty!
I would like to hand these tree down through generations with the story of The Chinese Bottle Tree in 1945.
I am really hoping that they will thrive in my garden.

The Chinese Bottle tree is producing offspring and continue telling its story to people who visit the peace memorial park.

There is one more plant which has heart shaped leaves!
















The Olive trees!
It has come to fruit, which surprised me as its such a small tree.
It has 7 olives at the moment. I can not wait to harvest them in autumn.

Ｉｔ is so much fun growing plants and see them every day!

Voices of the survivors of A-bomb

Hi there, I'm Mamoru, a staff member of Hana hostel. Today I'd like to tell you a sad story, but it's something what we - people in Hiroshima - need to tell you.

I was born and grew up in Hiroshima. My grand mother is one of the survivors of the A-bomb in Hiroshima in 1945. Her sister was killed by the bomb, even now her ashes have not been found. My grand mother was always crying whenever she talks about that.

I'm the 3rd A-bombed generation.

Since my parents were a two-earner couple, my grand mother reared me, tenderly, until I was 6 years old. I had heard some stories from her of how terrible the injures from the bomb were and how she survived them like a nursery song.

Now she is 90 years old and still living, but she can't tell the stories of A-bomb anymore, she developed dementa 5 years ago. She forgets everything - even her name - and now she spends her days in peace and quiet in an asylum.

Only a few people are living to tell the tales of the horrible A-bomb now.

Recently I have read an article in a local newspaper. That was about "Voices of the survivors of A-bomb is now in web site". I found that this is what I should up load in this blog to show history of Hiroshima.

The web site is VOSHN.com (Voices of the survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki).







In this website, you can listen 9 voices of survivors with English subtitles, and can watch 18 movies of survivors. In the movies survivors tell stories in English by themselves.

This website was created by Itou Akihiko who died at age 75 last March. He compiled over 1000 voices of survivors traveling with a 13kg sound recording machine and to over 21 prefectures from Aomori to Okinawa for 8 years starting in 1971. I think this website is made from his devotion to leave messages for posterity.

I wish you could feel something about history of Hiroshima from this website.

[Voices of the survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki]
VOSHN.com