Kikuko Otake, 84, will share her story of surviving the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and its aftermath. Here's when - and why.
Kikuko (Kiko) Otake was only 5 years old during the World War II atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan on Aug. 6 and on Aug. 9 of 1945.
For years afterward, she kept the horrific memory of those days and its aftermath to her herself.
But the world knew.
The American bomb that struck Hiroshima quickly killed some 80,000 people, with tens of thousands more who would die later of radiation exposure. The bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki three days later killed 40,000. Together, they forced Japan’s Emperor Hirohito to announce his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II, citing the catastrophic power of “a new and most cruel bomb.”
President Harry Truman and other leaders saw the bomb’s potential as bringing the World War to a quick end.
But the trauma would live on for survivors such as Otake.
The blasts took Otake’s father and numerous relatives, which left her mother on her own to raise three young children.
“Nobody can understand this kind of life,” she said.
Otake’s 2003 book, “Masako’s Story: Surviving the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima,” tells the story of her mother, Masako, and her family.
Otake will share her story on Friday, Aug. 9, at a downtown L.A. event commemorating the 79th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, hosted by grassroots coalition Back from the Brink, Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, Teens4Disarmament, and Students for Nuclear Disarmament.
Born in Osaka, Otake and her family moved to Hiroshima only months before the bombings. She stayed in Hiroshima until 1968, when she moved to the United States.
Otake recalls life before the bombings, saying her childhood was filled with memories of war.
“I never attended nursery school or kindergarten because there were air raids every day,” she said. “Before, during, and after the bombing we didn’t have much to eat. We had a very poor and miserable life.”
Otake said many of her cousins were also fatherless due to many of her male relatives perishing during the bombing.
It was, she added, an “abnormal” experience, as she started first grade the year following the bombing.
“I’ve never known what a normal family [feels] like,” she said. “With parents at home, and the father is working and the mother stays at home. In my memory, I didn’t have a father and my mother was always working.”
As she grew older, scars of the war remained and Otake was often reminded of the damage that persisted.
“People didn’t look like people,” she said, referring to what she witnessed after the bombing. “They looked like zombies.”
According to Otake, her elementary school district had an orphanage for war orphans, most of them atomic bomb survivors.
Otake said her memory of the time was a bit broken, as she had a head injury and lost a large amount of blood. She recalled everyone being in a state of shock.
“[There were] so many scorched bodies and dead people.” she said. “I [remember] seeing skeletons, seeing burns,” she said.
According to Otake, her family and other survivors never spoke about the bombing.
“My mother refused to attend memorial ceremonies, she never visited peace museums, she didn’t even want to remember,” she said.
Otake’s mother also refused to see anything related to the bombing, something Otake attributes to atomic bomb survivors suffering from an extreme form of PTSD.
Later in life, Otake was encouraged by a local organization to share her story.
She eventually wrote her book, publishing it in Japanese. She translated an English version herself after being encouraged to publish her book in the US.
Otake’s children learned of their mother’s story through her book. Previously, she never shared this part of her life with them.
“I wanted to, in my book, explain in graphic detail the human casualties,” she said. “I wanted to let the world know how people died, how horrible and how immoral the atomic bomb was.”
One fact that Otake believes should be more known is that the Hiroshima bombing caused human exposure to nearly 7,000 degrees Farenheit.
For Otake, the stories of survivors and the tragic aftermath was never spotlighted. She mentioned Christopher Nolan’s 2023 film “Oppenheimer,” which focuses on the creator of the atomic bomb but not on the lives it destroyed.
Otake added that she was not ashamed of being an atomic bomb survivor. Rather, she wanted to tell her story so people would know of her family’s history and perseverance.
After Japan lost the war and the U.S. occupied the country, there were press regulations, according to Otake.
Otake said Japanese publications were not allowed to mention how people died, how they suffered and the realities of the damage. She recalled seeing pictures of destroyed buildings but none of the human corpses.
“They didn’t know how horrible everything was,” she said.
Otake’s journey to the United States originated through her husband, who pursued a higher education at Caltech.
Otake received her master’s degree from Cal State L.A. – where she later taught Japanese. She also taught at Cal State Northridge and Pasadena City College.
Now a naturalized U.S. citizen, Anaheim resident, and a retired professor, Otake said she and her family are happy in the United States.
On Aug. 9, Otake will speak with Maylene Hughes, the organizer of the event and leader of Back from the Brink’s Southern California hub.
BftB is a national grassroots coalition that works to abolish nuclear weapons, bring communities together and advocate for a safer world.
Hughes, a representative of the anti-nuclear weapons youth movement, encourages people to attend the event, to witness a space that “brings forward the voices of those who are actually affected by nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons testing, and the low income communities and impacted communities that power plants are situated in.”
“These are real people that suffered, lost their families, are still suffering from radiation exposure and PTSD,” said Hughes. “They could be our neighbors, our family friends, and I just want to be able to bring our community together to bear witness to these stories. Hopefully, we can take the steps forward to have a world free of nuclear weapons.”
The event will take place on August 9 from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at 200 N. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles. For more information, visit https://www.psr-la.org/.
