Editor’s note: This is the second installment in a five-part series on the “atomic-bombed violin.” The stringed instrument, once owned by a Russian, survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. It was restored a decade ago and its sound has since touched many people’s hearts across borders.

* * *

CARMEL, California--Anthony Drago’s mind immediately turned to Hiroshima when Russia made threats alluding to its nuclear arsenal regarding its invasion of Ukraine.

The 72-year-old resident of this coastal city, whose mother and grandfather lived through the bombing in 1945, was filled with outrage when he learned of the news. But he quickly started to wonder how people in faraway Japan were taking the news.

“I was totally surprised when a week after Russia invaded Ukraine, Putin spoke about nuclear weapons. And it was unbelievable to me,” Drago said at his home in Carmel in Northern California, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, in mid-July.

“The first thing I thought of was Hiroshima,” he said. “What are the people (in Hiroshima) thinking right now?”

STRINGS OF HISTORY

Drago’s family, originally from Russia, has long held a deep connection to Japan and the devastating effects of nuclear war.

And that family history has weighed more heavily on him than ever given the recent events in Ukraine.

Drago’s grandfather, Sergey Palchikoff, was born in Russia in 1893 to a family of nobility.

At the age of four, Palchikoff started learning to play a violin that, unbeknownst to him, would follow him throughout his life and some of the biggest events of the 20th century, and would come to embody that connection.

When Palchikoff grew older, he joined the Russian army and became a lieutenant colonel by 1917. But his fate was about to change. That was the year that the Russian Revolution plunged the country into turmoil, collapsing the Russian Empire. Palchikoff fled his homeland via Vladivostok and Shanghai, and went into exile in Japan in 1922.

He settled in Hiroshima in 1923 with his wife and 8-month-old daughter Kaleria. By 1926, he had begun working as a music teacher at Hiroshima Jogakko, a private high school for girls in the city.

But he would soon find they made their way out of the frying pan only to land in the fire. His family was forced from their home in central Hiroshima in 1943 due to the war and moved into a tenancy in the city’s Ushitaasahi district.

Palchikoff offered private violin lessons to make a living there.

Then, on Aug. 6, 1945, the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and the blast leveled Palchikoff’s home, located about 2.5 kilometers from the hypocenter.

The three suffered cuts and bruises but survived.

Kaleria described the events she witnessed firsthand on an audiotape which is being kept at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

She was 23 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima.

“What caught my eye was the (Hiroshima) Castle burning,” she said on the tape.

But then she saw people severely injured, with bones protruding through their skin. She looked on as people were buried under houses and burned up in fires.

“(Their) skin would just peel off,” she said. “I heard someone squeaking from under the house. I tried to pull her out, but it was impossible. Some were bruised, some were wounded and some burned.”

According to Drago, who is Kaleria’s son, shortly after the bombing, Palchikoff went back into his collapsed home and searched for his most-cherished belonging: the violin.

He eventually found it among the rubble. Fortunately, the instrument was not significantly damaged.

FAMILY WITNESSED ‘HELL’

Palchikoff moved to the United States after the war ended and taught Russian at a U.S. Army foreign-language institute in California.

Palchikoff enjoyed giving violin lessons there and playing the instrument he had salvaged from the rubble.

Drago said he remembers the way his grandfather cherished and looked after the violin.

Kaleria moved to Los Angeles in 1948 and married an American.

In October 1986, Kaleria returned to Hiroshima, the place she called “home,” for the first time in 38 years.

She was invited to attend a ceremony marking the centennial anniversary of the foundation of Hiroshima Jogakuin, formerly known as Hiroshima Jogakko.

As a token of her gratitude, Kaleria decided to donate her father’s violin to the school.

Drago attended the ceremony with her.

“As a survivor of the atomic bomb, we thought it symbolized my grandfather teaching at the school,” Drago said.

Kaleria said in an interview conducted at the time that she had witnessed “hell” and urged people around the world “not to repeat Hiroshima.”

A STORY FOR THE AGES

When Drago retired after 30 years in policing, he turned his attention to writing a book about his mother’s dramatic experiences.

He published it in 2020 under the title, “Surviving Hiroshima: A Young Woman’s Story.”

Drago said he had long desired to write a book telling the stories of his mother and grandparents, who survived such a tumultuous era.

Drago said that while he does not think nuclear weapons are going away anytime soon, the surviving presence of the atomic-bombed violin offers at least a ray of hope.

He said he has been reflecting on the paths and places the instrument traveled over time—from Russia to Japan, out of the rubble in Hiroshima to the United States and then back again.

“It is a crazy story,” Drago said. “The violin should have been destroyed (from the blast), you know. But it's here.”

Last year, Drago gave his book to his grandchildren as a Christmas gift.

“I want them to know what their grandmother went through, what their bloodline was, and what kind of history was there. Because I didn't want it to ever be forgotten.”

(This article was written by correspondent Daisuke Igarashi and Tabito Fukutomi.)