To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima (Asia/Pacific/Perspectives)

"The worst way is to call ourselves victims. To say ‘victim’requires a victimizer, and the victimizer is led to blame; and that starts the cycle of blame. For example, if we say ‘victim of Hiroshima,’ the next sentence that comes up will involve Pearl Harbor and the blaming chain gets stuck all the way in the past. Then we are completely derailed from the lesson that war itself is humanity’s Pandora, and that nuclear weapons are something that came out of Pandora’s Box.”- Masahiro Sasaki quoted inTo Hell and Back: The Last Train from HiroshimaCharles Pellegrino details the suffering and ordeals of the hibakusha (survivors of the atomic bombs) in To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima. The book is unusual for its focus on the double hibakusha, the 300 or so survivors of Hiroshima who took the last trains to Nagasaki where they suffered a second atomic blast. About a tenth survived both bombs, including one man who miraculously survived at the epicenter of both blasts. We journey from ground zero at Hiroshima, to Nagasaki, and eventually to ground zero of the World Trade Center in New York City.Despite the pain and anguish I felt while reading, I was resurrected by their consensus philosophy of hope, kindness and change, rather than vengeance. The true value of Pellegrino's work is not just the history, but the sociological and psychological story of the survivors, and how they took their separate routes to Omaiyari, a philosophy Pellegrino describes as roughly equivalent to the modern concept of "pay it forward."Charles Pellegrino weaves a well written narrative around the airmen and scientists who dropped the bombs, the people killed by the bombs, and those who survived the atomic nightmares. Pellegrino takes us from the tense planning sessions on Tinian to the tranquil streets of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As the atomic bombs are dropped, he breaks down this series of events into microseconds, like a frame by frame playback of the events of the chain reaction, the explosion, the shockwave, and the fireball, and their effects on the structures, plants, animals and people. As the conflagration progresses, the tempo picks up to slow-motion.The book must be read in order to gain the complete scope of the different types of tragedy, suffering and horror imagined on the people caught by the bomb. John Hersey's Hiroshima was originally written a year after the explosions while the postwar MacArthur occupation administration of Japan was still enforcing strict censorship regarding the impact of the atomic bombs. Hersey’s vivid descriptions of the experiences of a few survivors only scratch the surface. The hibakusha were less willing then to talk of their experiences. The survivors were considered anathema to much of Japanese society, unfit for marriage, and if they managed to start families, even their children were considered genetically tainted.Some survive and some are killed within inches of each other, a capricious whim of fate and chance deciding who lives, who dies, and who suffers terribly. Pelligrino’s descriptions of the destruction and horrors are accurate to a fault, eye-opening and heartrending. More thorough descriptions in this review would do a disservice to the words of the survivors and Mr. Pellegrino's work.The after effects of the atomic blast are unimaginable, and I do mean unimaginable. Nuclear weapons had never before been used; even the deployers did not know what the full effects of the weapons would be. Because the survivors on the ground did not even know the true nature of the weapon, the radiation sickness was a mystery to them. After the symptoms of radiation poisoning first appeared, surviving doctors at Hiroshima and Nagasaki speculated the weapon might have a biological warfare aspect to it.The stories of the survivors' lives after experiencing the atomic bombs is a testament to the endurance of the human spirit and the nobility of man. There is the well-known saga of Sadako Sasaki, a little girl suffering from leukemia caused by radiation. She learns “there is a legend that the crane lives for a thousand years. And they say that if you fold a thousand paper cranes, putting your heart into each one, they will help you with your wish for wellness.” When she begins folding origami cranes the entire hospital staff supports her quest, finding paper for her even though paper is a rare commodity at the time.Dr. Paul Nagai at the St. Francis Nagasaki medical center is suffering from terminal leukemia before the blast and discovers the radiation has sent his cancer into temporary remission. His tuberculosis patients also seem to show some benefit. He not only documents the effects of the radiation on the people, but the plants as well. Although still suffering from leukemia, in his time left he chronicles the struggles of the survivors, publishing 13 books. He becomes a beacon of hope and peace, visited by religious leaders, Helen Keller, and even "two polite men from a new American establishment called the Internal Revenue Service" seeking the taxes on his books (he lives in a hovel and has donated the proceeds to orphans and other survivors).Among the dozens of tales of survivors interwoven and intersecting survivors is the story of Tsugai Ito, who survives the bomb at Hiroshima, but whose brother succumbs to radiation sickness. Mr. Ito brings a thousand cranes to ground zero of the World Trade Center for the victims, among them his son who died in the South Tower when terrorists flew Flight 175 into the building on 9/11.There has been tremendous noise around issues detracting from what I felt was the core message of the survivors, their struggle and their legacy. There is a story here from which I believe all humanity can benefit, but apologists and detractors must first put aside the debates of whether the atomic bombs were necessary, whether they saved lives by defeating Japan without an invasion, or conversely, whether Japan was already on its knees and on the verge of surrender.To Hell and Back: Last Train to Hiroshima humanizes the dead and the survivors of the atomic bombs. It provides a face and voice to the statistical numbers. In the end, I believe Pellegrino's important work will not receive the attention of the original edition or as much as it deserves. The important messages of Omoiyari (pay it forward) and Nyokodo (be kind, love they neighbor as thyself) that is the legacy of the survivors may be lost in the noise and tumult of those who would prefer the hibakusha to remain faceless. The reader willing to open their mind may find their heart opened as well.

Before my mother died, she left me with a nagging thought. She told the minister, “ Don’t let me be forgotten.” What if all my ancestors in Hiroshima had said this? What if my grandparents or their parents and their parents had said that, too? I know nothing of them until today. They have remained statistics without names or personhood, except for the surnames of both my grandfathers: Kakugawa and Takahashi. Until today, I have carelessly referred to every member of my Hiroshima family as “my ancestors who were killed in the Hiroshima bombing.”Today, they have risen out of the shadows because of Dr. Charles Pellegrino’s newly published book,Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima. My ancestors have become real people. They are children, teenagers, young adults, mothers and fathers and grandparents. They are children who went to school on an empty stomach because of war rations and of their mothers who would try to find forgiveness by leaving baked potatoes on their children’s graveside for the rest of their lives. They all have a voice.The story begins in Hiroshima at the first flash of the bomb and ends at Nagasaki and beyond. Approximately 300 people from the smoldering city of Hiroshima fled to safety to Nagasaki. Nagasaki was home to many of these survivors. 90% of them were killed by the second bomb. Thirty people survived the second atomic bomb in Nagasaki to become double survivors. One known survivor would experience radiation for the third time in Fukushima.This story is told through the voices of the survivors of the bombings. Pellegrino preserves that part of history with his forensic and archeological expertise along with his poetic and masterful use of language. It is not a generic history but a very personal and humanistic one. It is not a political story, it is a story of humanity. It is not a story of blame, it is a story of forgiveness and hope for our future children. Pellgrino had originally published a riveting book titled : Last Train From Hiroshima. After publication, more survivors sought Pellegrino to tell their stories, stories that were silenced for 70 years. Their message is clearly told…what they experienced must not happen again. What happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki must not be forgotten, ever for the sake of our children.Each time Pellegrino brought forth the story of a child, a teenager, a mother or father, I saw them as my ancestors. Ancestors I haven’t thought of as real people.On pages 43-44, 14 year old boy Akihiro Takahashi’s story is told with uncensored description of the people he saw that day. Pellegrino calls it the un-gloving where skin is burned away and only flesh remains. Takahashi bears many of these scars.My mother’s voice echoes back. I need to believe that Akihiro Takahashi was one of my ancestors.On Page 208, Pellegrino speaks Kiwanu who survived the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and yet, a third time.Kiwanu had chosen, as his family’s place of refuge, the pristine-appearing fields of Fukushima. On March 11, 2011, he would suddenly come to a special unity of feeling with the Kakugawa family, whose members had departed Hiroshima ahead of the war, seeking the illusory peace of a farming community in Hawaii. To the west of Kapoho Village lay beautiful Pearl Harbor/ and somewhat nearer, a scared mountain that would one day bury the entire village beneath a lake of lava.We are all familiar with Sadako and the Thousand Cranes. Sadako’s brother Masahiro asked Pellegrino to continue the legacy of his little sister who made a thousand cranes while dying from cancer.“I think Omoiyari is the best way to start. The worst way is to call ourselves victims. To say ‘victim’ requires a victimizer, and the victimizer is led to blame; and that starts the cycle of blame…Sadako understood this theme more personally and more intensely than most people ever will. And she had only enough time to begin teaching anew what most of us have so easily forgotten.”The survivors who told their stories to Pellegrino are all adults but their memories are from their childhood so these stories are from the children who survived. They are not pretty stories but they are real and a part of who we are. Surely, as Pellegrino and the survivors proposed, each time we do an act of kindness, we honor and remember our ancestors by helping to create a world of peace.Thank you, Charles Pellegrino, for helping us to not forget all those who have passed before us.And to my mother, no, you and all those before you, will not be forgotten because there are the Charles Pellegrinos of the world who will painstakingly pick through the mountainous piles of political and historical debris to bring us the human story of all our ancestors. So we carry on this legacy of peace, forgiveness and human kindness in each of their name.Pellegrino’s book is dedicated to Tomorrow’s Child.

A fab read.

A terrifying, macabre, heartbreaking book which should be essential reading for every head of state, military leader, peace activist and physicist and medical worker.. It places you on the ground in areas where the atomic bombs hit in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki , into horrific, gruesome scenes which are surreal and beyond our imagination. Imagine standing in a building which collapses all around you, and you have no visible injury but people near you either are instantly vaporized and vanish or reduced to crumbling lumps of charcoal. This phenomenon is scientifically explained in the book. The horror of taking a friend's hand only to have the skin of their arm peel off like a glove. Doctors and nurses, themselves ill, working with radiation suffers, in what remains of a building with no roof and without medical supplies. Think of the lines of 'ant people' with melted faces or burned skin resembling that of an alligator, wandering mindlessly in single file until they drop. This book has been thoroughly researched by Charles Pellegrino with many footnotes and bibliography references. There is a foreword by Steven Leeper who worked for the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and feels no one has heard more testimony from the survivors than himself and now teaches Hiroshima studies at University in Hiroshima. He has known personally many of the survivors mentioned in this book and can attest to its power and authenticity. There was a previous book called The Last Train From Hiroshima which I read when first published in 2010. It was a riveting, powerful account, but shortly after its publication it was discovered that one man interviewed fabricated his account. The author acknowledged his mistake and wanted to omit that story, but the book was quickly withdrawn and trashed by the publisher. Pellegrino came under a lot of scorn as a result. He has gone back and rewritten and improved on the original. 300 People who survived the bombing of Hiroshima decided to find safety in Nagasaki, and travelled by train to that city. Very soon after arrival the second bomb was dropped. Only 30 of those passengers survived the second atomic blast. Of those double survivors 4 were still alive between 2008 and 2011 and were interviewed multiple times by the author while this book was written. One of the men was at Ground Zero during both blasts and lived to the age of 93.Many of the survivors of either blast were ostracized by society, and the ones who remained relatively healthy lived to see children and grandchildren sickened by forms of cancer. Their chance of marriage was slim, and many chose to hide the fact that they had experienced the blast and subsequent atomic fallout. The writing of this book caused some to admit their true identity and recount their experiences for the first time in hopes that their stories will prevent this from ever happening again to anyone anywhere. Highly recommended.

This is a book that you cannot put down but cannot keep reading. It is haunting, dark, and has startling, shocking, sad depictions of the tragedy that is nuclear bombings.

Only testimonies of both survivors and bomber crew. A good read if you like that kind of approach.