Photo/Illutration Kazuko Ikegame writes names in the list of deceased atomic bomb victims on July 24 in Hiroshima. (Jun Ueda)

HIROSHIMA—A new handwritten list of 5,079 victims was dedicated to the Cenotaph for Victims of the Atomic Bomb during the annual Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony on Aug. 6. 

With this addition, the total number of dead reached 344,306 on the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing. 

Behind this list is a single woman who has, with ink and brush, written the names of around 100,000 victims for the past 35 years, one by one. 

Kazuko Ikegame, 82, is a former Hiroshima city employee and a hibakusha herself. In 1985, she was put in charge of adding entries to the list of the deceased. 

She completed this year’s list on the evening of Aug. 5, the day before the ceremony.

The next morning, she watched it being dedicated at the ceremony at the city's Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on TV.

However, Ikegame worries this may be her last year writing the register.

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The list of deceased atomic bomb victims is dedicated at the Cenotaph for Atomic Bomb Victims in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima on Aug. 6. (Mari Endo)

During her fight with cancer, Ikegame was hospitalized in January to have her stomach removed.

Despite taking anticancer medication, she was hospitalized again from early June to mid-July due to severe jaundice and gallbladder problems.

It was her first major illness, Ikegame said, wondering if the atomic bomb had something to do with it.

During Ikegame's hospital stay, she asked family to bring a 5-centimeter-thick list of names to her hospital room.

She put an ink stone on the side of the bed and unfolded the list, getting to work and channeling her heart and soul into her calligraphy.

Each brushstroke memorialized the name of a victim and was accompanied by their date of death and age. 

After being discharged from the hospital and returning home, Ikegame continued working on the list while fitted with a catheter.

“I felt I had to do this one thing, so I worked hard with a sense of mission and responsibility,” she said. 

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Kazuko Ikegame, a hibakusha who has handwritten the annual list of deceased atomic bomb victims for 35 years, on July 24 in Hiroshima (Jun Ueda)

Ikegame was 3 when she was exposed to the atomic bomb.

She was with her aunt in a neighborhood association office, 1.7 kilometers from the hypocenter, and still remembers the moment bright red flames shot up from the blast outside the office's glass doors.

When Ikegame slipped through the building's front door, her mother was screaming her name outside.

She remembers they hid in a field of eggplants, and her mother removed pieces of glass and other debris stuck in her daughter's face.

Another memory was of her grandmother coming to Hiroshima from Okayama Prefecture and thinking they were all dead, leaving her to pick up their bones. 

Ikegame did write the names of her mother, grandmother and father on the list, but not for a while. 

Her grandmother passed at 94, her mother lived until she was 101 and her father made it to 83 before succumbing to cancer.

A name is also a proof of a person’s life, Ikegame said. 

During a year where a significant number of survivors passed away, she penned about 3,300 names.   

Next year marks the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing and she previously believed she would continue her task until the landmark year.

But with the illness, Ikegame said, “I’m wondering if this is the end of the road for me.” 

She has also expressed heartbreak over the wars in Europe and the Middle East.

“I hope that we can do something to stop it soon,” Ikegame said. “So many innocent people have been killed. In Hiroshima, too, many people were killed by a single atomic bomb. I think it is important to convey our feelings from Hiroshima.”

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