The people who lived it | Nagasaki

谷口稜曄

Sumiteru Taniguchi

He was delivering mail by bicycle when the heat burned his back. His account follows the young postal worker who survived the blast, endured prolonged treatment, and lived on with injuries that he later described publicly. The museum’s materials can include graphic imagery.

Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum · Sumiteru Taniguchi

安井幸子

Sachiko Yasui

Sachiko was six when the bomb fell. In her memoir she describes what the bombing did to her family and what growing up afterward meant for a child carrying those memories. She writes about grief and the breakup of ordinary family life as well as physical injury.

Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs · Sachiko Yasui’s memoir (PDF)

永井隆・緑

Takashi and Midori Nagai

Takashi Nagai as a young physician Unknown photographer · historical photograph

Midori died in the bombing. Takashi, a physician injured in the blast, helped organize care for the wounded and later wrote about the city’s losses and recovery. Nyokodō, the small home where he lived with their two children, remains near Urakami Cathedral.

Hideyuki Hayashi, a teacher at Yamazato Elementary School

Hayashi was 26 and working as a teacher when he was exposed in Hashiguchi-machi, about 600 meters from the hypocenter. The Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall preserves his 1990 testimony in an English-dubbed edition. Listen for the perspective of an adult whose everyday work centered on children in a neighborhood near the blast.

National Peace Memorial Halls · Hideyuki Hayashi on video

Terumi Tanaka, from childhood witness to public testimony

Terumi Tanaka speaking at an ICAN event in Hiroshima in 2011 TimMilesWright · CC0

Tanaka was thirteen in Nagasaki. In the 2024 Nobel lecture for Nihon Hidankyo, he described the days after the bombing and learning what had happened to his relatives. The lecture connects those family memories to the organizing survivors undertook over decades. The archive provides both video and text.