Photo/Illutration Yoshie Tsushima looks up at the sky in her yard in Hiroshima’s Asa-Minami Ward on May 9. (Tabito Fukutomi)

HIROSHIMA--Atomic bomb survivor Yoshie Tsushima has hesitated to turn on the TV for the past few months because too many scenes shown on her small screen evoke the painful memories that have haunted her for 77 years.

“How frightened, anxious and sad Ukrainians must be!” said Tsushima, 91, a resident of this city’s Asa-Minami Ward.

She watched one scene showing a Ukrainian evacuee, a young girl in a dim basement, who said in tears that she had not seen the light of day at all for quite some time and she longed to go outside to see the sky and the sun.

The scene was evocative of how Tsushima herself, as a 14-year-old girl, rushed into a bomb shelter to take cover from an air raid by U.S. B-29 bombers in 1945.

Another young Ukrainian woman was shown asking loudly, “Where is my husband?” as she searched for him in a field of rubble.

That reminded Tsushima of how she looked for a friend her senior who was next to her when the atomic bomb exploded and went unaccounted for in the summer 77 years ago.

On Aug. 6, 1945, Tsushima was on her way to Hiroshima Municipal No. 2 Girls’ High School, on foot, from her home in the city’s Onagamachi district, currently Hiroshima’s Higashi Ward, about two kilometers from ground zero.

At 8:15 a.m., Tsushima fell unconscious after a violent blast of hot air blew against her face. When she came to, she saw how a nearby drill ground, where she had made a necklace of white clovers for fun, had been destroyed by fire and how dead bodies were flowing down a river where she had run about chasing fireflies.

Tsushima felt extremely hot in her face, both of her arms, on the backs of her hands and the insteps of her feet. She used water from a hand pump to cool them down.

She was fortunate enough to have no major lingering aftereffects from the bombing, but her house was totally destroyed and many of her friends were killed.

Fire from the atomic bomb blast destroyed her photo mementos taken before the war. Haunting memories of a living hell took hold in her mind instead.

Tsushima had seldom recounted details of her experiences of the atomic bomb to her two daughters until she reached her current age of 91.

In February, the TV screen at her home displayed an image of a woman holding a gun. The woman was a Ukrainian civilian, training to shoot a rifle in preparation for the Russian invasion. The scene shocked Tsushima.

“Is this really taking place now?” she said she thought at the time.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted many times at a possible use of nuclear weapons to intimidate Ukraine and other countries.

“A war is not a game for having people kill each other,” Tsushima said about Putin’s remarks. “He is taking human lives too lightly.”

The war in Ukraine brought Tsushima a rush of memories from 77 years ago. She had never given accounts of her atomic bomb experiences for several years.

Ichiko Yamamoto, Tsushima’s older daughter, accompanied her mother during the interview. Yamamoto, 65, watched her mother tearfully express her feelings about what is happening to Ukrainians.

“I wish for the war to end before anybody ever faces tragic experiences of the sort that my mother lived through,” Yamamoto said.

Tsushima went outside into the open air to be photographed when the interview ended. The yard of her home, on elevated ground, gives a sweeping view of downtown Hiroshima, which was rebuilt from the ravages of the atomic bombing.

High-rise buildings, a superhighway and shopping centers--at first glance, all these things appear to be a world apart from war.

Tsushima, however, said that is not true.

“War can break out anytime and anywhere,” she said. “War is very close to us. I want the people of the world to be considerate toward others, regardless of national borders.”

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