Memoirs of a Hiroshima Survivor: Author Reading
By Rossland Telegraph
The horror of the bombing of Hiroshima cannot be conveyed by mere figures. Sachi Komura Rummel has written a book about her life as a survivor of that atomic bomb strike, hoping to convince people that nuclear weapons must never be used. Her book, “Hiroshima: Memoirs of a Survivor” was first published in 2015.
Sachi was an eight-year-old child in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb fell there on August 6, 1945, at 8:15 am. She survived, but others in her immediate family did not. The death toll is estimated by some to have been about 166,000 including later deaths from radiation sickness, but nearly a third of Hiroshima’s population was killed immediately by the blast. The destruction and fires covered about 11 square kilometers.
Sachi now visits communities, libraries, and schools and tells parts of her story. She asks students and others to think about peace, what it means, and now we might achieve it. She will visit Rossland and speak at the Public Library here on February 16.
Sachi now lives in Squamish. She married a Canadian — on Japanese television. The couple moved to Canada in 1975, settling in Toronto, and lived there for 15 years before moving to Vancouver. The move to Squamish about 5 years ago was to be near her grandchildren, but now the grandchildren live in Rossland.
Rossland, she confessed with a laugh, is “too cold!” for her, and so is Canmore, where her other daughter lives. The fact that Sachi has two daughters is in itself remarkable; doctors told her early on that she would probably not be able to have children, because of radiation exposure.
Sachi explained that Hiroshima survivors are getting old and rare — there are not many left who can tell the story of how a city and so many lives were destroyed by a nuclear weapon. She herself is now eighty.
To hear Sachi speak about her extraordinary life, go to the Rossland Public Library on February 16 at 6:30 pm. Some copies of her book will be available for $10 each.
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