Bomb Victims Research Articles

Landscape design in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park: Transition of the design by Kenzo Tange

AbstractThis paper aims to shed light on the transition and characteristics of the landscape design of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park by Kenzo Tange. We examined the proposals he made during two periods (1949‐1955 and 1970‐1973) and clarified the transition of his treatment of the principal axis oriented north and south through the park. We also attempted to show that the contrast between southern and northern parts of the central hourglass‐shaped stretch was designed to both commemorate the victims of the atomic bomb and promote peace.

Heritable effects in offspring associated with harmful exposure to parents (Literature review)

A review of literature data regarding the heritable effects in offspring due to parents’ contact with mutagenic risk factors is presented. Studies on various factors of adverse effects on the hereditary apparatus, including chemical, infectious, physical and biological, are considered. The influence of smoking and parents’ age on the occurrence of de novo mutations is shown. Particular attention is paid to the review of publications on the role of the radiation factor in the genesis of hereditary disorders in offspring. Development stages of radiation genetics, the evolution of conception about radiation harm are described. The results of experimental, cytogenetic, molecular genetic, epidemiological studies analyzing the contribution of parental exposure to inherited pathology in progeny are presented. Special attention is paid to the “untargeted” effects of radiation and studies which prove the possibility of transgenerative transmission of genome instability are presented. The special contribution of studies on the cohort of atomic bomb victims offspring in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which is considered as the main scientific platform for radiation risk assessment, is noted. There are articles about the offspring of persons who underwent therapeutic exposure, who had professional contact with ionizing radiation, who were exposed to radiation as a result of the Chernobyl accident, nuclear weapons tests at the Semipalatinsk test site, chronic radiation in the radioactively contaminated territory of the Techa river, areas with naturally increased radioactivity. As a result, it was noted that, despite numerous confirmations of radiation-induced effects in offspring obtained within experimental and molecular genetic studies, the results of epidemiological studies remain controversial. Possible reasons for these discrepancies are considered. An idea of views evolution regarding heritable effects in the international system of radiation safety is given. A new approach of the International Commission on Radiological Protection to heritable effects is described; the dynamics of tissue weighting factors for gonads in the assessment of effective radiation dose is shown. Methods for evaluating heritable effects are presented: the direct method and the doubling dose method. Attention is focused on the uncertainties that remain in the modern assessment of radiation genetic damage. The necessity of further study of radiation-induced heritable effects is shown. The perspective directions of studying the heritable effects are considered. The possibility of the analysis of heritable effects is described using the example of a cohort of the Mayak Production Association workers’ offspring – the country’s first nuclear industry enterprise.

Redress for Victims of the NATO Bombing of the Radio Television of Serbia: The Example of Monuments

The year 2019 marked the 20th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) intervention in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and the end of the Kosovo War. I take this as an opportunity to reflect on the role, importance and impact of the NATO bombing victims’ redress. This article unwraps the process of policymaking aimed at the redress for victims of the NATO bombing, exploring how policymakers formulated policies and, among other issues, what role the families of the Radio Television of Serbia employees who died in the NATO bombing have in the formulation of these policies.

Hidden Memory and Memorials The Monument in Memory of the Korean Victims of the Atomic Bomb and the Remembrance of Korean Victims

During World War II, Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Due to this atrocity, around 140,000 human beings lost their lives. Almost 20% of them were Koreans. It resulted in the sudden capitulation of Japan and caused the so called higaisha ishiki (awareness of being a victim) among Japanese society. Unfortunately, the question of Korean atomic blast victims has been forgotten and the Monument raised in Memory of the Korean Victims of the Atomic Bomb was placed in the peripheries of the Park. The aim of this paper is to analyze Hiroshima Memorial Park monuments, as locations that serve as political tools, with special emphasis on the issue of the Monument in Memory of Korean Victims of the A-bomb, which characterizes Japanese politics of remembrance towards Korea.

피폭된 신체와 고통: 한국인 원폭피해자를 중심으로

인간의 역사상 최초로 피폭을 경험하고 신체적·사회적 고통을 당했지만, 한국사회에서 오랫동안 그 존재를 부정당하고 침묵을 구조적으로 강요받아온 집단이 있다. 원폭을 통해 식민지에서 해방된 신화가 존재하는 한국에는 원폭피해자의 경험과 고통은 비가시적 영역에 국한되어 있었고, 그들은 정체를 드러내지 않아야 유리했기 때문에 침묵이 생존전략으로 구조화되었다. 인류역사상 최초로 핵의 위험이 개인의 신체 내부로 침투하여, 무화시켜낼 수 없는 무기력함을 마주해야 했던 존재들이다. 원폭피해자들의 몸에는 1945년 8월이 고스란히 새겨져 있고, 원폭피해자 2세, 3세들도 예외일 수가 없다. 식민지 조선에서 생존을 위해 일본으로 이주, 1945년의 히로시마 그리고 나가사키에서의 피폭 경험, 원폭 투하 이후 조선으로의 귀환, 피폭의 주체로서 귀환한 조선에서 ‘국민’이 되는 과정 등과 같은 특수한 조건이 주조한 한국인 원폭피해자의 사회적·물리적 신체의 고통은 지극히 사회적일 수밖에 없다. 이 연구는 역사적으로 특수한 조건들이 만들어 낸 사회적·물리적 신체의 고통을 경험한 한국인 원폭피해자들의 증언을 통해 이들의 고통을 사회화시키고, 시민사회와의 공감의 영역을 확장하는데 도움을 주고자 기획되었다.

Remaking Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Local Commemorations of Atomic Bombings in the United States

ABSTRACT In the United States, the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are often considered necessary to have ended its war against Japan. On the other hand, there are also American people who commemorate the victims of the atomic bombings. This article examines how and why people in the United States commemorate the A-bomb victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After explaining the official US narratives, this article explores as case studies three local commemorations in the United States: the vigil for Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Ashland, Oregon; the annual interfaith ceremony for A-bomb victims in New York City; and the lantern ceremony in the San Francisco Bay Area. While they are different in many ways, they share a common feature: “localization” of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki experience to disseminate it in the United States. Through looking into the local commemorative events, this article elucidates their efforts and the dilemma of making the Hiroshima-Nagasaki experience of suffering more familiar to people in the United States.

Care of victims of suicide bombing

Suicide bombers often target crowds. This commentary discusses the additional features required in a medical response beyond conventional mass casualty care, including forensic documentation, preservation of evidence, suspect tissue identification and viral status, victim counselling and postexposure prophylaxis. We propose a pathway for care of victims of a suicide bomb, adapting elements from protocols for child abuse, sexual assault and needle-stick exposure.

Obama’s Pivot to Asia and Its Failed Japan-South Korea Historical Reconciliation

Since the 1980s, Japan’s war memory has strained its relations with South Korea and China, to a less degree, the USA. Two of the thorniest issues are the comfort women and the US atomic bombing of Japan. Before the Obama administration announced its policy pivot to Asia in 2011, both Japanese and American leaders were reluctant to make amends for the past acts of their countries. However, in 2015, the Japanese conservative Prime Minister Abe reached an agreement with South Korea that “finally and irreversibly” resolved the comfort women issue, thus achieving a historic reconciliation between the two countries. In 2016, then President Obama visited Hiroshima to commemorate the atomic bomb victims. Then, in December 2016, the comfort women issue resurfaced in Japan and South Korea relations, indicating a failure of the reconciliation. Why did the USA change its policy on historical issues involving Japan? Why did Abe and the South Korean President Park Geun-hye settle the comfort women issue? Why did Obama visit Hiroshima? Why did the reconciliation fail? In this article, I propose a rational choice theory to answer these questions. Applying the proposed theory and relying on available evidence, I argue that the settlement of the comfort women issue and Obama’s visit to Hiroshima are important components of Obama’s pivot to Asia to balance China’s rise. The reconciliation failed mainly because it did not resolve the historical justice issue promoted by the human rights norms. I discuss some implications for reconciliation in Northeast Asia.

The Use of Deixis in Julia Gillard’s Speech on Commemoration of Bali Bombing Victims in Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park, Bali

This paper is entitled The Use of Deixis in Julia Gillard’s Speech on Commemoration of Bali Bombing Victims in Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park, Bali. This research is aimed at analyzing the deixis used in the speech text by the Australia’s Prime Minister, Julia Gillard using Levinson’s theory. In conducting research, this study used qualitative method in which the study describes the types of deixis in which the data were taken from the Australian Minister website. Then identifying and classifying the deixis used in the speech text. The last step was analyzing the data supported by the concept of Levinson. From all the data analysis taken from the speech text delivered by Julia Gillard, this study found the types of deixis such as person deixis, time deixis, place deixis, discourse deixis, and social deixis. This study also found some deixis in one sentence which help the speaker and the audience understand the utterance better. This study suggests the students in the future to use the other part such as analyzing an interview, conference, novels, and the like. Finally, such a big hope for this study could be useful to sharpen the reader in understanding deixis.

한국인 원폭피해자들의 기억공간화를 위한 합천원폭자료관 전시구성과 개선방안

한국인 원폭피해자들의 기억공간화를 위한 합천원폭자료관 전시구성과 개선방안

‘A Blemish on the History of the Twentieth century’? Legends and Fabrications Surrounding the Mass Cremations in the Wake of the Dresden Air Raids, February 1945

Whereas the myths that emerged in the wake of the Dresden bombings in February 1945 have undergone scholarly scrutiny, no comprehensive analysis has yet been undertaken of how the mass cremations of the bombing victims on the Altmarkt, Dresden’s old market square, have been remembered in post-war Germany. Scholars have associated the stacking of corpses onto funeral pyres with Jews burned in the Middle Ages and with the burning of Jewish victims at the Treblinka killing centre. This conflation of atrocities, which has contributed to the myth-making surrounding Dresden’s destruction, has its basis in the misappropriation of historical sources.

The archipelagic thought of Asia is One (1973) and the documentary film collective NDU

ABSTRACTThis essay explores the work of the legendary Japanese documentary film collective Nihon Documentarist Union (NDU) through their writings and their provocative film Asia is One (1973). It interprets NDU’s uncompromising approach to the aesthetics and politics of documentary film as a variation of archipelagic thought – emphasizing flows, interactions, and hybridity over fixed personal and national boundaries. Asia is One maps the radically heterogeneous space of Okinawa just around the time of its ‘reversion’ to Japan. By engaging with former labourers from the horrific wartime coal mines – many of which were born in other parts of East Asia – as well as migrant workers, fishermen, Taiwanese smugglers and Atayal villagers in Taiwan NDU redefines the region as deeply, sometimes disturbingly, but also promisingly networked. Shooting films on Korean victims of the atomic bombs in Busan, or in later incarnations travelling to Micronesia or Palestine, NDU searched for a new kind of cosmopolitanism through an emphasis on ‘fluidity’ and ‘place’. Highly influential in their time, NDU was nearly erased from Japanese documentary history. This essay aims to build on recent attempts in Japan to re-introduce their work and to understand their redefinition of documentary film and of the geopolitical imagination.

Autoradiographic analysis of internal plutonium radiation exposure in Nagasaki atomic bomb victims

BackgroundRadiation doses received by Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors has been evaluated from data related only to external exposure because there was no reliable evidence for internal exposure in atomic bomb victims. However, we assumed that the contribution of internal exposure cannot be ruled out. MethodsAutoradiography was carried out with the 70-year old paraffin-embedded specimens taken from Nagasaki atomic bomb victims who died within 5 months after the bombing. After exposure to photo emulsion for 6 months alpha-tracks were revealed in the specimens. We confirmed the alpha-tracks were emitted from deposited plutonium (Pu) in reference to the track length of the 8.787 MeV alpha-particle of thorium series from Polonium-212. Radioactivity concentration of Pu was obtained by counting alpha-tracks. The absorbed dose of each cell nucleus penetrated by an alpha-particle was estimated by calculating the absorbed energy from the particle. ResultsUsing old paraffin embedded sections processed about 70 years ago, we demonstrated for the first time that conditions in the aftermath of the bombing led to internal exposure to alpha-particles emitted from Pu, the fissile material of the Nagasaki atomic bomb. Dose rate of internal exposure was higher in the victims exposed outdoors than those indoors. Radioactivity concentration was relatively uniform among organs examined in a victim. ConclusionPu was deposited in the bodies of the Nagasaki A-bomb victims presumably via various routes. Organ dose from Pu of the Nagasaki A-bomb victims studied was during their surviving period, which is lower compared with external exposure. However, the impact to the individual cell nucleus by a single alpha-particle might not be negligible, It would be meaningful; to analyze the relationship of the impact of internal exposure at the cellular level and organ dose. The 70-year old pathological specimens utilized in our study are an invaluable source for understanding internal radiation exposure and are crucial in elucidating experimentally unreproducible phenomena.

Computer-Assisted formulas predicting radiation-exposure-induced-cancer risk in interplanetary travelers: Radiation safety for astronauts in space flight to mars

A clear quantitative relationship between the dose of total body ionizing radiation and mortality in humans is not known because of lack of human data that would enable us to determine the lethal dose for 50% of cases (LD50) in total body irradiation on earth or in probable future interplanetary travels. Analysis of human data has been primarily from radiation accidents, radiotherapy, and the atomic bomb victims. The author published the general mathematical formula that predicts mortality probability as a function of dose rate and duration of exposure to acute ionizing radiation in humans on the basis of data presented by Cerveny et al., employing the author's mathematical probacent model. Further, the author applied the general formula to the data on dose versus cancer mortality risk published by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the effects of atomic radiation and other investigators to construct general formulas expressing a relationship between dose and solid cancer or leukemia mortality probability after exposure to acute low-dose ionizing radiation in humans on earth. There is a remarkable agreement between formula-derived and published values of dose and solid cancer or leukemia mortality probability (P > 0.99). In this study, the above mortality formulas are applied to the measurements of the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft containing the Curiosity rover (2012–2013) in estimating radiation safety for astronauts in a future space flight to Mars planned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Results of the estimation obtained with a mathematical approach are presented in this study.

Identities Surrounding a Cenotaph for Korean Atomic Bomb Victims

In 1970, the Cenotaph for Korean Atomic Bomb Victims was erected in Hiroshima by local Koreans, most of whom were associated with South Korea. In the 1980s, this cenotaph gradually came to be seen as discriminatory against Koreans due to its location outside the Peace Memorial Park. In the 1990s, Hiroshima City and the two major organizations of Japanese-resident Koreans (zainichi Koreans), pro-South Korean Mindan and pro-North Korean Sōren, began negotiations to create a "unified" cenotaph that would be moved inside the Park. However, discussions reached a deadlock due to the rivalry between Mindan and Sōren, and also an internal split that occurred within Mindan. This paper will examine why the debate on the relocation of the cenotaph reached a deadlock in the 1990s, with a focus on the identity of zainichi Koreans. While Mindan and Sōren have their own collective identities, each individual zainichi Korean may identify oneself on various levels, from social to personal. An individual's social identity develops through belonging to and participating in activities of social organizations. Given the rivalry between Mindan and Sōren, one's social identity will be influenced by whether one is involved with Mindan or Sōren. In contrast, his/her personal identity may develop through more personal experiences and generally transcends the simple Mindan-Sōren division. The analysis will show that the relocation debate was caused by these various identities, which manifested and became dominant depending on context, leading to consonance or dissonance both between and within organizations.

Hospital Workload for Weapon-Wounded Females Treated by the International Committee of the Red Cross: More Work Needed than for Males

BackgroundCivilians constitute 33–51% of victims in armed conflicts. Several reports on civilian injuries exist, but few have focused on injuries afflicting females. We analyzed routinely collected data on weapon-related injuries from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hospital in northwestern Pakistan in order to define injury patterns and types of surgical treatment for females.MethodsA total of 3028 patient files (376 females) from consecutively admitted patients to the ICRC-hospital in Peshawar from February 2009 to May 2012 were included. Information regarding injury-mechanism, time since injury, vital parameters at admission, type of injury, treatment and basic outcome was extracted from the files and analyzed. Comparisons between gender and age-groups were done by cross-table analyses or nonparametric tests.ResultsFemales were younger than males (20 vs. 25 years), arrived sooner after injury (24 vs. 48 h) (p < 0.001 for both) and were victims of bombs and missiles more frequently (64.4 vs. 54.6%) (p < 0.001). Vital parameters such as systolic blood pressure (110 vs. 113 mmHg) and pulse rate (100 vs. 86) were more affected at admission (p < 0.001 for both). Females were subjected to surgery (83.0 vs. 77.4%) (p < 0.05) and were given blood transfusions more often (18.8 vs. 13.6%) (p < 0.01). No differences in amputations or in-hospital mortality were found.ConclusionsFemales treated at the ICRC-hospital in northwestern Pakistan are markedly affected by indiscriminate weapons such as bombs and missiles. Their average consumption of surgery is greater than for males, and this might be relevant in planning for staffing and facility needs in similar contexts.

Nurse describes caring for Manchester bomb victims.

A senior surgical ward sister has spoken of the emotional night shift caring for those injured in the Manchester Arena attack.

한ㆍ일 원폭피해자의 고통의 감정 연대와 균열

한ㆍ일 원폭피해자의 고통의 감정 연대와 균열

Comparison of Mathematical Equations Applicable to Tolerance of Total Body Irradiation in Humans and Decay of Isotopes, Uranium and Thorium: Differences and Similarity

A clear and exact quantitative relationship between dose of total body irradiation and mortality in humans is still not known because of lack of human data that would enable us to determine LD50 for humans in total body irradiation. Analysis of human data has been primarily from radiation accidents, radiotherapy and the atomic bomb victims. The author published the general mathematical equations of LD50 constructed on the basis of data presented by Cerveny, MacVittie and Young, employing the probacent formula model. In this study, the author compared the equations of tolerance of total body irradiation and decay of isotopes, uranium and thorium. Differences and similarity in these equations of the two groups are presented. The significance of similarity is specially described.

“Vulnerato corde homo vivere non potest” (“Man can not live with a wounded heart”)

The first ever successful cardiac surgery was a repair of a stab wound of the right ventricle by Dr Ludwig Rehn from Frankfurt, Germany on 7th September 1896. It required Dwight Harken to successfully operate on bomb victims of world war II and to save more than 100 soldiers to open the heart to surgical techniques. He operated on 130 soldiers without a single fatality. This article recalls these two moments of cardiac surgery.