In this series, The Asahi Shimbun traces the impact on children of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Their stories are told through interviews with their families, and from the memoirs of survivors and records compiled by Hiroshima city. The photos were provided by the bereaved families. Some of the images were colorized using artificial intelligence technology with the help of Hiroshi Ishikawa, professor at Waseda University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering, whose team developed the technology.

This is the third installment in the series.

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The atomic bomb in Hiroshima left thousands of children orphaned.

A Buddhist monk raised such children as if they were his own, and one of his charges went on to lead a fulfilling life as a monk, too, thanks to such support.

The monk’s name was Gishin Yamashita, who was stationed in an Imperial Japanese Army unit on the Goto island chain in Nagasaki Prefecture when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. He was 51 at the time.

His wife and six children had remained in Hiroshima.

He was told that his 13-year-old second son had died when he reunited with his family after he was released from the army in September 1945.

What he saw in the burnt field were orphans living in terrible conditions.

He thought that the “most urgent matter was to ‘give them parents’ and ‘offer them a home.’” He directly told the governor about his thoughts.

He rented land and a building from the prefecture in what is now Hiroshima’s Saeki Ward.

He also sold his father’s and his own houses to raise funds. That December, he opened the Hiroshima war orphans’ care facility.

‘MAKE ME A MONK’

He first accepted about 80 elementary school students who had lost their families in the atomic bombing during the evacuation.

Some of them had hair loss and continual diarrhea, while others could not stop crying because they missed their parents and were hungry.

Yamashita carefully watched over the children’s nutrition and education.

One day, a boy said to him, “I want to see my mom.” He started crying while looking up at the sky.

The boy’s father, who was a carpenter, had died of an illness earlier in his life. His mother, who was a hairdresser, and younger sister were killed in the atomic bombing. Their remains were never found.

He asked Yamashita, who was like a grandfather to him, “How can I see my mom?”

Yamashita fell silent.

The boy continued, “If I become a monk, can I see my mom?”

Unable to hold back, Yamashita replied, “You can.”

“Please, then make me a monk,” the boy said.

The boy was Shuzo Masuda, who was 10 at the time.

Four older boys followed suit, and the five boys cried while embracing Yamashita.

In November 1946, the five boys entered the Buddhist priesthood at Nishi Hongwanji temple in Kyoto and became young monks.

FINALLY MEETING HIS PARENTS

After studying hard, Masuda went to Ryukoku University in Kyoto.

“I’m glad to realize that my prayers, which should have been for missing my parents, have turned into prayers for the happiness of all people,” he wrote in a journal when he was a junior at the university.

In 1958 after graduation, he married Hideko, now 86, who is the eldest daughter of a temple priest in Fukui city. He took her surname and entered her family’s business. His monk name became Gishu Asakura.

At the end of July 1985, just before the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing, he visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

The Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound there contains the remains of about 70,000 people. Some of them are those whose relatives could not be found and others were those whose names remain unknown.

Asakura served as the officiating priest of the memorial service there while his family watched over him nearby.

“I feel like I’ve finally met my father and mother,” he told Hideko after the memorial service.

GREAT PAIN WITHIN

On March 21, 1998, Asakura died at age 62. He had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis about three months earlier and had been fighting the neuromuscular disorder.

After the funeral, a tattered booklet was found among his belongings that summarized his life at the orphans’ care facility and his time as a young monk.

The booklet also contained an essay titled “My beloved grandpa,” which he wrote when he was 10 while thinking about Yamashita.

It said Yamashita would worry about children when they got sick and warn them not to fight with their siblings, just like a grandfather.

“I want to study hard and become a great monk,” he wrote.

Asakura never talked about the atomic bombing. His son, Kenshu, 63, learned about his father’s boyhood for the first time by reading the booklet.

Kenshu saw his father, a man who loved being lively, cry only once.

When he had gone to pick him up in his car one night about 40 years ago, his father had gotten in crying.

Asakura said he had talked over drinks with a person of his generation who also had ties to Hiroshima, Kenshu recounted.

He did not want to talk about who he had met and what they had talked about, but ever since that day, Kenshu always felt, “The pain and sorrow he carried within himself must have been that huge.”