The Life and Activities of an
A-Bomb Survivor, Numata Suzuko
沼田鈴子さんの優しさと強さを受け継いで
２０１２年１月 追悼集会「沼田鈴子さんがまいた種・命の再生・希望の創造」講演ノート
（日本語版は英語版の後をご覧ください）
Seventy-five years have passed since the horrific nuclear attacks on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and today only few of the A-bomb
survivors with vivid memories of the tragedies of the nuclear holocaust are still
alive. There are many so-called Hibakusha
(A-bomb survivors), but the majority of them were small children at the time of
the atomic bombing. Mostly, they entered the cities of Hiroshima & Nagasaki
with their parents shorty after the cities were destroyed to search for
relatives and friends, so their recollections of the catastrophic destruction
is muted.
The following essay is based on the keynote speech (in Japanese) I
presented at the memorial
gathering in Hiroshima for the late Numata Suzuko, a remarkable A-bomb survivor
and peace activist, who passed away in July 2011. Conveying the memories of war
tragedy survivors to subsequent generations is a difficult task and those of
the A-bomb survivors are no exception. I hope this essay will help you consider
how we can keep these memories alive as long as possible in order to create and
maintain peace.
Sharing Pain Generates Hope
for the Future:
The Life and Activities of an
A-Bomb Survivor, Numata Suzuko
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in August 1945 killed over 230,000 people in total by the end of that
year. Among them were about 30,000 Koreans in Hiroshima and 10,000 Koreans in
Nagasaki. It is thought that 30,000 Koreans (20,000 in Hiroshima and 10,000 in
Nagasaki) survived the nuclear holocaust, and approximately 23,000 of them
returned to Korea shortly after the war. The welfare of these people was,
however, completely neglected not only by the U.S. government but
also by
both the Korean and Japanese governments for many years for two main reasons:
there was political upheaval in post-war Korea and subsequently during the
Korean War which continues to this day; and there was intense social
discrimination of A-bomb survivors. As a consequence, these people endured
extreme hardships and many perished in despair in the 1950s and ‘60s.
In the early 1970s, a small group of
relatively young Japanese A-bomb survivors formed an organization called
“Citizens’ Association for Supporting Korean A-bomb Survivors” and started
promoting a political campaign demanding that the Japanese government adopt a
medical and social welfare scheme for affected Koreans living in Japan as well
as Korea.
About ten years later, Numata Suzuko, a
woman who lost her right leg as a result of the atomic bombing, joined this
group, and quickly became a leading activist. Soon her activities expanded
beyond Korean affairs, and started emphasizing Japan’s responsibility as the
perpetrator of war atrocities committed against Koreans, Chinese and many other
Asians. She also became an iconic figure in a movement that promotes planting
seeds from an A-bomb surviving Chinese parasol tree by school children
throughout Japan.
This
essay
closely examines the life and philosophy of this remarkable woman, whose
immense influence on many peace activists in Japan as well as many other
nations continued until her death in July 2011 at age of
87.
The History of Korean A-bomb Survivors
and Their Struggle for Justice
At
8:15am on August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was attacked by the world’s first atomic
bombing by the U.S. forces, and at 11:02am on August 9, the same year, Nagasaki
became the target of the second atomic bombing. The bomb used on Hiroshima was
a uranium type atomic bomb, while that used on Nagasaki was a plutonium type.
The atomic bombs annihilated many people in an instant. The victims of the
bombs were not only Japanese nationals, but also many Koreans and Chinese who
were living and working in Japan, as well as some prisoners of war from the
Allied Forces captured by the Japanese military. Tens of thousands of others
died soon after the bombs were dropped, due to injuries suffered from the bombs
and a lack of medical supplies. By the end of 1945, an estimated 160,000 people
had died in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki. Since 1945, scores of thousands
of others have died as a result of various after-effects. Many of those who
experienced this “hell on earth” also suffered serious physical, social and
psychological damage.
Radiation from the atomic bombs damaged genes, which later became the
cause of cancer and left various other physical impediments that scientists
still do not fully understand. Today, 75 years after the end of the war, new
after-effects are still appearing and the survivors and their offspring live in
constant fear. It is further thought that damage to health, particularly from
radiation, has in some cases been passed on to children and grandchildren.
Disfigurement also brought about many forms of anguish and discrimination.
Marriage and employment became difficult and life for many became cut off from
healthy society. The atomic bombings made it impossible for many surviving hibakusha (A-bomb victims) to live
normal lives.
Of the 230,000 people who died by the end of
1945 there were about 30,000 Koreans in Hiroshima and 10,000 in Nagasaki. It is
thought that 30,000 Koreans (20,000 in Hiroshima and 10,000 in Nagasaki)
survived the nuclear holocaust, approximately 23,000 of whom returned to their
homeland shortly after the war. The welfare of these people was, however,
completely neglected by both the Korean and Japanese governments for many
years. There were two main reasons for this: the political upheaval in post-war
Korea and the subsequent war; and the intense social discrimination against
Koreans in Japan, and A-bomb survivors both in Korea and Japan.
Korean hibakusha,
who returned home after the war, faced two forms of discrimination: physical
and attitudinal. Initially, people, including hibakusha themselves, were unaware that exposure to radiation
causes various illnesses, including unsightly physical disfiguration. Those returning
from Hiroshima and Nagasaki were thought to be suffering from leprosy or other
contagious diseases. In addition, Koreans generally regarded their fellow
citizens, who had moved to Japan before and during the war and returned after
the war, as traitors of the nation, despite the fact that most of them had been
forced to migrate to Japan by the Japanese colonial authorities. In particular,
children, who were either taken out of Korea before properly acquiring their
mother tongue or those who were born in Japan and thus could not speak Korean
well, were badly treated by those in their homeland.
Even once they returned home, having lost
all their possessions in the atomic bombing, most of them had no means of a
livelihood, such as agricultural land or relatives who could help them
resettle. Many became day labourers and endured extreme poverty throughout
their live. An additional cause for hardship was the Korean War that brought
death and destruction in the years 1950-53. For Japan, however, this war
ignited an economic boom, which spurred the recovery from the destruction of
its national economy and cities. As a result, although many Japanese hibakusha suffered from the same
illnesses caused by radiation as well as the difficulties of daily survival,
the situation for their Korean fellows was far worse. Indeed, many Koreans
endured extreme hardship, while large numbers also perished in despair in the
1950s and ‘60s.
By the mid 1960s, however, some Korean hibakusha in Korea slowly began banding
together, and in February 1967, the “Association For the Support of Korean
A-Bomb Victims (hereafter AFSKAV)” was established. The main aims of this
organization were: to gain medical and financial support from the Korean
government; to obtain Japanese government compensation for damage to their
health; and to have medical and rehabilitation facilities provided by the
Japanese and the US governments. The establishment of this hibakusha organization was in part a reaction to the Japan –
Republic of Korea Basic Relations Treaty concluded in 1965, which failed to
include any agreement on the compensation for Korean hibakusha. Despite their repeated request to both Japanese and
Korean governments in the early 1970s, Korean hibakusha were completely neglected. The Japanese government
claimed that all war compensation issues had been settled by the Japan – ROK
Basic Relations Treaty, and there was no room for the discussion on Korean hibakushas’ demands.
AFSKAV began with about 800 members in Seoul
but quickly grew to 9,362 in 1973 with branch offices in Kiho, Kyongbuk,
Hapcheon, Kyungnam,
Pusan, and Honam. From October 1975, it embarked on comprehensive surveys of
health and living conditions of members, and by 1978 the survey covered 800
people. Based on this record, the Association again submitted demands for
compensation to the Japanese government. Yet again these were rejected. The
Korean government was also unsympathetic to the plight of its own citizens who
were victims of the atomic bombing, as it had an official policy of
unconditional support for the U.S. nuclear strategy against North Korea.
Between 1963 and 1979, South Korea was under the military regime of President Park Chung-hee. This made it almost impossible
for hibakusha to conduct a political
campaign as victims of the atomic bomb because of South Korea’s close military
alliance with the U.S. Thus, AFSKAV continued mainly as a mutual aid group,
although it persisted with its demands for proper compensation from the
Japanese government.
In 1968, a year after AFSKAV was
established, a small number of Japanese hibakusha,
both in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, started a movement to support their Korean
fellows. They collected donations and invited some Korean hibakusha for medical treatment at the A-bomb Hospital in
Hiroshima. In October that year, “the Japan–Korea Association for the Support
of A-bomb Survivors” (hereafter JKASAS) was established in Hiroshima, backed by
the National Council for Peace and Against Nuclear
Weapons (NCPANW), an organization affiliated with the Democratic Socialist
Party. It started
promoting a political campaign demanding that the Japanese government adopt a
medical and social welfare scheme for their affected Korean counterparts.
Toyonaga Keizaburō and His Contribution to the Movement to
Support Korean A-bomb Survivors
In
1971 Toyonaga Keizaburō, a high-school teacher in
Hiroshima, was invited, together with eight other Japanese school teachers, to
Korea by the Korean government to establish friendship ties with high school
teachers in that country. Toyonaga was selected, as he had long been involved
in the anti-discrimination movement of Korean and Buraku (untouchable) students
in Japanese schools. Among the students in his own school, he found many
Koreans who disguised themselves as Japanese by adopting Japanese names in
order to avoid discrimination. Through those students, he learned that many of
their parents were hibakusha.
Toyonaga was nine years old at the time of
the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. He was away from his home in the city centre
on that day and was therefore not injured. But the following day, he entered
the city to search for his mother and three-year-old brother. (His father had
died in 1942.) Toyonaga wandered around the city for two days, exposing himself
to high levels of radiation. Eventually he found both his mother and brother
alive, although his mother’s face and body were severely burnt by the heat
caused by the bombing. His brother was uninjured, as his body was covered by
his mother as soon as the blast hit them. All three soon started suffering from
acute radiation sickness, although all recovered eventually. Despite the
family’s struggle to survive poverty in the immediate post-war period, Toyonaga
managed to complete university education and gain a teacher’s certificate.
It was this personal background that made
Toyonaga interested in meeting Korean counterparts during his trip to Korea. He
visited AFSKAV’s head office in Seoul and established a relationship with them.
On his return to Hiroshima, he set up “Citizens’ Association for Supporting
Korean A-bomb Survivors (hereafter CASKAS),” a nonpartisan civil organization.
He recruited many fellow teachers, most of whom were non-hibakusha who shared his philosophy of anti-discrimination. Others
who became members of the organization were hibakusha,
peace activists and concerned citizens.
As the Democratic Socialist Party
increasingly became inactive in the 1970s losing political influence on labour union organizations
and other parts of Japanese society, so too, did JKASAS. CASKAS, on the other
hand, continued its steady and consistent activities to help Korean hibakusha, despite its small membership.
The main focus of its activities was to aid Korean hibakusha who wanted to come from Korea to Hiroshima for medical
treatment, by helping them to obtain an hibakusha
certificate. The certificate was issued by the city council and officially
identified someone as an hibakusha. It was necessary in order to receive free
treatment at the A-Bomb Hospital or other hospitals approved by the city
council for treatment of hibakusha.
Obtaining this approval was a long and arduous administrative process, and thus
difficult for Koreans not living in Hiroshima to undertake. (Even today, this
process is basically still the same as it was 50 years ago.) If someone failed
to obtain a certificate, CASKAS would appeal to the Hiroshima District Court on
behalf of the applicant with the help of local lawyers. Over the years, a small
group of lawyers also became members of CASKAS and provided pro bono services
as a result of many court cases.
In the late 1970s, Toyonaga and other hibakusha from CASKAS joined “The
Hiroshima Testimony Club.” This was a group of hibakusha who talked about their personal experiences of the atomic
bombing to school children from all over Japan when they were visiting the
A-Bomb Museum as part of a peace education program. In 1983, a woman hibakusha, Numata Suzuko, joined the
group and quickly became a prominent member. Subsequently, she also joined
CASKAS and enthusiastically participated in its activities. Surprisingly, until
1982, she was virtually unknown among hibakusha
in Hiroshima, not having taken part in any hibakusha
activities or anti-nuclear movements previously.
Numata Suzuko’s Background and Her Ordeal as an A-Bomb
Survivor
Numata
Suzuko was born on July 30, 1923, in Osaka, the daughter of a journalist. She
had a brother, who was seven years older, and a sister, who was one year
younger. When she was five years old, her family moved to Hiroshima because of
her father’s work. In 1931, when she was in the second year of elementary
school, the so-called Manchurian Incident occurred, and Japan embarked on the
15 year long Asia-Pacific War. Suzuko grew up as a “typical schoolgirl” in
wartime Japan, receiving a patriarchal and nationalistic education and
accepting emperor ideology without question. On July 7, 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident
plunged Japan into full-scale war, leading to the occupation of large areas of
China, and in December that year Japanese forces entered Nanjing, the capital
city, where they committed mass rape and massacre. Shortly after December 12,
the day that Nanjing was completely taken over by the Japanese forces, a big
celebration parade took place in every major city throughout Japan. Suzuko
joyfully participated in the parade in Hiroshima.
In
April 1938, the National Mobilization Law was enacted, and from mid July the
following year, high school students throughout Japan were periodically sent
away to do various types of “labour service.” Suzuko, who was in the fourth
year of high school that year, was sent with her classmates to one of the
military arsenals in Hiroshima. There she worked removing rust from artillery
shells and polishing them. She embraced this hard work enthusiastically,
genuinely believing that she was contributing to the war effort. From time to
time, the girls also went to Ujina Port, the major naval port of Hiroshima, to
send off Japanese soldiers despatched to various battle zones in China, and to
wish them success in their military achievements. She was a nationalist with
strong loyalty to the nation and its military.
In
1940, Suzuko graduated from senior school and for a while she worked as an
assistant for her father. However, her father subsequently became an employee
of the Hiroshima office of Japan Communications Bureau, the public corporation
responsible for running mail, telephone and telegram services. It also operated
a banking and financial service. From April 1942, Suzuko, too, began working as
a clerk at the Hiroshima office of Japan Communications Bureau. Her elder
brother was working in the banking section, and her younger sister was also
working in a different section of this Bureau.
In
autumn 1943, Suzuko became engaged to a 27-year old man, the son of a close
friend of her father, who lived in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture. They planned to
marry in early 1944, but before they were married, her fiancé was drafted into
the army and sent overseas in March that year. She hoped he would make a great
contribution to Japan’s military, and looked forward to marrying as soon as the
war was over. Shortly after the war ended, however, Suzuko received
notification that her fiancé had died together with many fellow soldiers when
the ship transporting his unit was sunk somewhere in the south Pacific by
Allied naval forces.
Early
in the morning of August 6, 1945, Suzuko was already in her office in the
building of the Hiroshima office of the Japan Communications Bureau. This was a
wooden structure built on top of a large four-storied, reinforced concrete
building, just 1,300 meters from the epicentre of the atomic bombing. Although
her office was on top of the building, Suzuko thought she would be safe if she
could get inside the concrete building and get down to the first floor if US
bomber planes approached the area. She believed the reinforced concrete
building was safer than a bomb-shelter, so she tried to spend as much time as possible
in her office, staying there from early morning till late evening.
Having
cleaned her office, she went downstairs to the bathroom on the fourth floor of
the building to empty a bucket of water. Just as she reached the door of the
bathroom, she was suddenly hit by an extremely bright multicolored flash, then
blown over by a powerful blast. When she regained consciousness, she found
herself covered in rubble and unable to move. No one knows how long she was
there, but at some point, she heard the voice of a man asking if anyone was
there. She called for help. Eventually, two men cleared the concrete rubble
that pinned her down, dragged her out and carried her down to the ground floor
and out of the building. The concrete walls were badly damaged by the blast,
but the steel frames of the building survived the bombing.
What
Suzuko did not know was that the bone in the ankle of her left foot was
completely smashed, and her left foot and leg were held together with just a
three centimetre-wide strip of skin. It was of course bleeding, but she felt no
pain, as both
her foot and leg were numb. She was laid down outside the building, together
with many severely injured people and dead bodies. Those who were able, tried
to care for the injured, despite almost no medical supplies. Soon, her father
who had been in the same building, but was uninjured, found her and took her to
a hospital.
The
hospital was right next to the Hiroshima office of Japan Communications Bureau,
and was also run by this Bureau. It was equipped with the best available
facilities, but it, too, had been seriously damaged, and many of the doctors
and nurses were among the casualties. For three days Suzuko lay on the floor of
the ground storey of the hospital, alongside many dying patients, her injured
ankle tightly bandaged to prevent bleeding. Finally on the night of August 9,
the day Nagasaki was attacked by the atomic bomb, one of the doctors from a
medical team from a neighbouring prefecture examined her with a torch. He found
that Suzuko’s left leg had gangrene as far up as the knee, and told her and her
father that she could be saved only if her leg was amputated. Despite her
strong resistance, the following morning her leg was amputated without
anaesthetic. The supply of anaesthetics in Hiroshima had been completely
exhausted. Suzuko fainted at the start of the operation and when she recovered
consciousness she again found herself lying on a dirty floor, surrounded by
many seriously injured people, who were groaning or screaming with pain. She
also saw many people who had become insane.
Suzuko
spent the next year and a half in hospital, during which time her leg was
operated on four more times. It was the end of March 1947 when she was finally
allowed to go home. Miraculously her family had all survived the atomic
bombing, although her younger sister was also injured and hospitalized for a
short period. Suzuko, however, had no desire to live any longer. She was deeply
depressed and contemplated suicide. Thanks to her family’s compassionate help,
in particular her mother’s caring encouragement, she finally overcame her
mental crisis. Eventually, she graduated from a teacher’s college and in 1951
became a teacher of home economics at the private Yasuda Girls Senior High School.
By then she was 27 years old.
Although Suzuko seemed to regain a normal life as a school teacher, she
constantly confronted double social discrimination – discrimination against hibakusha as well as the physically
disabled. In 1956, a man, four years younger than her, proposed. Suzuko was
willing to marry him, but his parents adamantly opposed the marriage, leading
him to commit suicide. This incident made her determined to hide the fact that
she was an hibakusha, to concentrate
on her work as a teacher, and not to engage in any relationship with men. Such
deliberate mental numbing of emotions is common among victims of war tragedies,
not only among hibakusha.
However, this method of avoiding personal
psychological pain does not solve the problem of anomie. In fact, suppressing
one’s emotions like this, leads to breaking off associations with others and
ultimately to heightened alienation and the inability to construct or restore
relationships.
In
1965, Suzuko was promoted to lecturer in home economics at Yasuda Women’s
Junior College, which was established in 1955. In order to obtain tenure as a
college teacher she had to gain a higher academic degree. She undertook a
graduate course at Hiroshima Prefectural University and specialized in
designing clothes for the physically disabled. Through her study and subsequent
teaching and research she met many physically disabled people. Undoubtedly,
this involvement helped to maintain her humanity, despite her determination to
withdraw from society.
After
a teaching career that spanned 28 years, Suzuko resigned from Yasuda Women’s
College in March 1979, when her elderly mother began to suffer from Alzheimer’s
disease and required constant care. Caring for an aged and senile mother was
extremely difficult for the disabled Suzuko and in May 1980, she moved her
mother to an old people’s home. But caring duties did not cease. Each day
Suzuko commuted to help care for her mother and assist the staff of the old
people’s home. She encountered many other aged hibakusha who were still suffering from illnesses caused by
irradiation. She assisted these people too, while caring for her mother,
although she had no intention of becoming involved in hibakusha activities.
Numata
Suzuko’s “Reformulation” of Her Life By “Reconstituting” Her Existence
On May 10, 1981, Nagai Hideaki, Professor in
the Institute of Theoretical Physics of Hiroshima University, visited Suzuko to
see a film that he and his fellow activists were planning to screen. The film
was shot in Hiroshima by the US Strategic Bombing Survey team in 1946. Nagai
and his fellow activists were conducting a movement called “10 Feet Film
Purchase,” collecting \3,000 from each contributor, to purchase a 10 foot
portion of this film record, which was housed in the US National Archives in
Washington D.C. In fact, by this time, they had already purchased 25,000 feet
of the film with money collected, but they continued to ask people to donate
money for further purchases. (Eventually in February 1982, a film entitled “Ningen o Kaese (Give.Back My Humanity)” was produced by combining many parts of
this US film record of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with testimonies of hibakusha. The film won the Blue Ribbon Award at the American Film
Festival in 1984.)
In the
film, there is a short section in which Suzuko, dressed in a beautiful kimono
and sitting in a chair, shows her amputated leg to the camera. It was filmed in
March 1946 on the rooftop of the Hiroshima Hospital of the Japan Communications
Bureau. At the time, Suzuko felt she could not refuse the request by US Forces
to film her. Her mother had persuaded her to wear the kimono that was
originally made for her wedding that never took place.
Suzuko
was not keen to see the film, but she was curious as to how she looked, so
eventually she accepted Nagai’s repeated requests. When she saw the film a few
days later, she vividly remembered that an American soldier had asked her,
through an interpreter, to take the bandage off the wounded part of her leg.
One of the people who came to this screening was Sakamoto Fumiko, who had lost
her 15 year-old son and 13 year-old daughter in the atomic bombing. She had
managed to overcome her grief by setting up a nursery school called “Senda
Hoikuen” shortly after the war. She was also active telling her own tragic
experience of the atomic bombing to children who visited Hiroshima on school
excursions from all over Japan. Fumiko spoke to Suzuko immediately after the
film, saying that the film was proof that Suzuko was a victim of the atomic
bombing and that the two of them were destined to live and testify to the
carnage of the tragedy. She repeated that this was the case, despite the loss
of Suzuko’s leg.
A few
days later Suzuko visited Fumiko and learnt more about her life. She was deeply
moved by the fact that Fumiko overcame the deep sorrow of losing her children
by transforming her grief to a positive energy, aimed at raising as many
healthy children as possible through running a nursery school. Seeing her own
image in the film taken 36 years before may also have given Suzuko a chance to
look back on her life objectively. She suddenly felt she should speak out to
testify that she had survived the bombing. Here we can see what Robert Lifton
called “re-formulation of oneself by reconstituting one’s existence” – a
remarkable transformation of dehumanized victims of war. Suzuko was 57 years
old. Although not numerous, there are a few hibakusha
like Suzuko who had been silent for many years, and suddenly decided to speak
out on behalf of peace and justice.
In May
1982, Suzuko joined a group, which toured the US and Europe screening the film Give Back My Humanity, together with
testimonies by a few hibakusha. They
visited 14 cites, including New York and London, and travelled to Switzerland,
Germany, Holland, Finland, Sweden, England, Canada and the US. The tour was a
great success, disseminating information about the horrendous effects of
nuclear weapons on human beings and the environment. Suzuko’s contribution was
undoubtedly significant. When the group arrived in New York in June, large
numbers of anti-nuclear activists were gathering from all over the world, prior
to the 2nd Special Session on Disarmament of the United Nations. The
film and Suzuko’s speech moved many people, among them Herbert Sussan, one of
the film crew of the US Strategic Bombing Survey team which had filmed Suzuko
37 years previously.
After
returning from her first overseas trip, Suzuko became actively involved in hibakusha activities. In 1983, she
joined “The
Hiroshima Testimony Club” and met Toyonaga and his fellow hibakusha, who periodically gave testimonies to children visiting
Hiroshima on school excursion. In her talks, she would describe her ordeal in
detail. Perhaps because of her physical disability, children were particularly
interested in her experience. However, soon she realized that children were
simply sympathetic to her disability, and did not truly comprehend what she
wished to convey, that is “the importance of life” and “sharing pain” (in other
words, internalizing other people’s physical and psychological pain as your
own). Suzuko thought these two to be vital elements for constructing a peaceful
society.
One day, Suzuko suddenly recalled that a Chinese
parasol tree in the courtyard of the Hiroshima office of the Communications
Bureau had miraculously survived the intense heat and blast of the atomic
bombing. When contemplating suicide shortly after she was released from
hospital, Suzuko felt she could see similar elements between the damaged tree
with the large black scar in the middle of its trunk and herself. She
remembered having felt that the tree was somehow struggling to live despite the
heavy damage. She later arranged for this tree to be transplanted to a site
just behind the A-bomb Museum in Hiroshima Peace Park. She chose this place to
talk to children about her experiences.
Suzuko decided to use this tree that had
survived as a symbol of the “restoration of life” and “pain sharing” in her
talks. By juxtaposing her personal ordeal and the tree that had survived, her
message assumed a symbolic form, conveying a profound humanity on a universal
level. Children and teachers were deeply moved by her talks and she became a
heroine among school children throughout Japan. Suzuko began to give seeds from
this tree that had survived to children visiting Hiroshima to disseminate her
message throughout Japan. Later, other visitors from various countries in the
world were the recipients of these seeds. Soon the Hiroshima City Council and
other civil organizations adopted the custom of giving seeds from offspring of
this tree. As a result, tens of thousands of Chinese parasol trees are growing
in school-yards, parks, temples and private gardens throughout Japan as a
symbol of peace.
Suzuko joined CASKAS in 1983, and visited
Korea for the first time in 1985. In March that year, a group of eight hibakusha from Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
led by the late Professor Kamata Sadao of the Nagasaki Institute of Applied
Science, conducted a study tour to Korea to investigate the living and health
conditions of Korean hibakusha. They
met some 200 people and recorded interviews with 130. As a member of this
group, Suzuko spent eight days, interviewing 24 Korean hibakusha in Seoul, Pyongtaek, Daegu, Hapcheon and Busan. It was an
eye-opening experience as she had been totally ignorant of the situation of her
Korean counterparts. On her return to Japan, she began serious study of the
history of Japan’s colonization of Korea, trying to understand the problems
that Korean fellow hibakusha were
facing in historical context. In 1989, Toyonaga established “The Association
for Interchange between Japanese and Korean Hibakusha”
(AIJKH) in order to further augment and strengthen the friendship between the
two groups. He organized a tour of Japanese hibakusha
to Korea and Suzuko again joined the group, making more friends among those
she met. She continued her activities as a member of CASKAS and AIJKH, working
to support the Korean hibaksuha
movement in its efforts to gain full recognition for victims of the atomic
bombing by the Japanese government.
In August 1988, Suzuko joined another civil
organization, “The Citizens’ Association for Linking Hiroshima and Okinawa,”
and travelled there for the first time with its members. Again she realized how
little she knew about the history of this part of Okinawa and that 94,000
people, in fact a quarter of the civilians, were killed during the Battle of
Okinawa. Among them was a group of 222 young students known as the “Himeyuri Students” (Lily Corps), along
with 18 teachers from Okinawa Daiichi Women’s High School and Okinawa Teachers
College, who had been mobilized as military nurses. Because she herself was a
teacher of young girls for many years, Suzuko was particularly concerned about
their victimization in war. She returned to Okinawa many times after this first
visit to learn more about what had happened during this fiercest battle in the
Pacific. She wanted to know how people confronted different problems, both
during and after the war, when much of Okinawa was occupied by US military
forces. As a result of her many visits, she again made numerous friends there,
particularly among young girls who respected Suzuko’s strong commitment to
peace and justice.
In the six years since coming out as an hibakusha, Suzuko’s life had changed
dramatically. She had travelled extensively both inside and outside Japan
meeting many people. She had learnt much about other victims of war and had studied
the contemporary history of her country, in particular the history of its
colonialism and the Asia Pacific War. She was now 65 years old.
Extending Her Moral Imagination to Universal Humanity
Suzuko
had another significant experience in August 1988, shortly after her return
from Okinawa. On August 15, Commemoration Day for the End of the Asia Pacific
War, she participated in a conference organized by a civil group in Osaka known
as “The Association for the Concern of War Victims in the Asia Pacific.” Here,
she heard speeches by five Malaysians who had survived massacre by Japanese
military troops in early 1942. The massacre took place in various parts of the
Malay Peninsula immediately after Japanese forces invaded and took Singapore.
The victims were mainly Chinese Malaysians, and it is thought that 100,000
people were killed in just one month. The five men invited to Osaka were
survivors of a massacre of 4,000 people that the Japanese troops committed in
the Negeri Sembilam State. They all lost close kin.
Suzuko was shocked to learn that some of the Japanese troops that participated
in this massacre were soldiers from the 11th Infantry Regiment of
the 5th Division, whose headquarters was in Hiroshima.
Hearing the stories of these Chinese Malaysians, Suzuko found herself
viewing the Asia Pacific War from a different point of view. Until then, she
had always considered it from the viewpoint of a victim of military violence.
Indeed, her friendships with Korean hibaksusha and Okinawans were based on a
shared recognition of themselves as war victims like her. Suddenly, she was
forced to consider the war from the viewpoint of the perpetrators of war
atrocities. Suzuko had never imagined that she also shared responsibility for
the war crimes committed by Japan against Asian peoples. She recalled her
feelings during the war – her strong commitment to the war effort while working
at the military arsenal and her hope that her fiancé would perform well as a
soldier. She came to understand that war makes every one a victim as well as an
assailant. She felt that she needed to comprehend this duality of war when
talking about “sharing pain” with others. Undoubtedly Suzuko's physical
disability and the discrimination she suffered as an hibakusha helped her considerably to understand the pain of
others and consequently to develop her concept of “pain sharing.”
Between late March and early April 1989, Suzuko made a study tour to
Malaysia with her friend Yoshino Makoto, a fine arts teacher, and his wife.
During this trip she met and interviewed many more survivors and people who had
lost relatives in the massacre. She offered her sincere apologies as a Japanese
citizen, while hardly talking about her own experience as a survivor of the
atomic bombing. Again, she made many friends in Malaysia, and these people in
turn showed concern for Suzuko’s disability, eventually discovering her hibakusha background.
Through this powerful experience, Suzuko’s ideas about “pain sharing”
deepened, extending her moral imagination beyond that of herself as war victim
to include other victims, due to her strong sense of responsibility as a
citizen of the assailant nation. Yet, the focal point was always the pain
suffered by victims. Based on this new idea, in July 1991, she led a group of
10 people from Hiroshima to visit Chongqing to participate in the memorial
service for the victims of the Chongqing bombing conducted by Japanese forces
during the Asia Pacific War. The Japanese Imperial Navy engaged in the first
indiscriminate bombing in the Asia-Pacific region with the January 1932 attack
on civilians on Shanghai. Thereafter, Japanese bombers targeted civilians in
Nanjing, Wuhan, Chongqing and other cities. Chongqing, in particular, was
targeted as the Nationalist Chinese capital after the fall of Nanjing in 1937.
There were more than 200 air raids over three years starting at the end of
1938. The death toll reached 12,000. Suzuko was the first, and as yet probably the
only, hibakusha to participate in
this memorial service. She met victims of the Japanese bombing and offered a
public apology as a Japanese citizen.
In
any war, it is almost inevitable that the “enemy’s faces” are dehumanized, as
too are those of the enemy’s civilian population, even though these people are similar
to those of one’s own country. In order to prevent the dehumanization of
citizens of any country and thereby reduce acts of violence and terrorism
worldwide, it is most important for each of us to examine such acts from the
victims’ viewpoint. To comprehend the problems of violence in the eyes of
victims, one must listen to the individual stories to interpret and internalize
their psychological pain. As Suzuko powerfully demonstrated through her own
activities, “sharing memories” in the true sense becomes possible only through
this process of re-living and internalizing the pain of others. By focusing
attention on these personal stories, the scope for “sharing memories” begins to
widen, as they force one to think about the fundamental question of universal
humanity.
Suzuko continued to travel throughout Japan
from Hokkaido to Okinawa, as well as to many overseas countries throughout the
1990s and early 2000s. She conducted public lectures and met many people in
each place she visited, and particularly enjoyed interacting with children. In
her speeches she always emphasized the restoration of life, the
sharing of pain and the creation of hope as the vital
elements for peace. Suzuko passed away on July 12, 2011. Yet, her philosophy of
peace and justice has been implanted in the minds of many children and adults,
just as the Chinese umbrella trees grow throughout Japan and in many other
countries.
The meaningful human ties that people like
Numata Suzuko and Toyonaga Keizaburō
have established and nurtured from a grass-roots level with Korean, Chinese,
Malaysian, Okinawan and other peoples cannot easily be destroyed by politicians
like Japan’s prime minister Abe Shinzo, who view international relations purely
from the perspective of power politics.
- End –
Yuki Tanaka
＜かなり良い＞まで最も長い距離
「悪い」まで５０キロ
「さらに悪い」まで１００キロ
「めちゃくちゃ悪い」まで１５０キロ
「少し良い」まで２００キロ
「かなり良い」まで２５０キロ
広島・長崎原爆無差別殺戮から７５年が過ぎ去りました。しかし、残念ながら、核兵器のみならず世界の軍拡状況、軍事力覇権をめぐる確執状況は、問題解決に向かうような方向に進むどころか、ますます悪化していることは誰の目にも明らかです。そのうえ、パンデミックと地球温暖化も悪化する一方。核兵器廃絶には全く関心もないくせに「唯一の核被害国」を機会あるごとに強調し、欺瞞と虚言を駆使する安倍政権の日本は、そんな悪化する世界状況をますます悪化させ、同時に日本の「民主主義」を根底から腐敗、頽廃させつつあります。
このような状況下、７５年前に米日両国の責任で起こした広島・長崎原爆無差別殺戮の体験記憶を、私たちは平和構築に向けてどのように活かすことができるのか、活かすべきなのか、を考えるための材料として、２０１２年１月に広島市内で開かれた故・沼田鈴子さんの追悼集会でさせていただいた私の講演ノートをここに紹介させていただきます。先月末発行の『週刊金曜日』では沼田さんの生前の活動を紹介する記事が掲載されたようですが（残念ながら私はまだ読んでいません）、９年前に亡くなられた沼田さんの「メッセージ」が急速に忘却されつつあるのではないかと私は懸念しています。「人間は二度死にます。まず死んだ時。それから忘れられた時」という永六輔さんの言葉は、残念ながらひじょうに的確です。愛する人、尊敬する人の「二度目の死」をどうしたら私たちは避けることができるのでしょうか、ひじょうに難しい問題です。
沼田鈴子さんの優しさと強さを受け継いで
追悼集会「沼田鈴子さんがまいた種・命の再生・希望の創造」講演ノート
田中利幸
原爆によるすさまじい爆風で吹き飛ばされ、その結果、左足切断を余儀なくされた沼田鈴子さんの平和活動家としての見事な「再生」と、彼女が被爆した同じ場所で、激しく傷つきながらも新緑の芽を出し「再生」した青桐。しかも被爆を生き延びたその青桐が、原爆により精神を深く傷つけられ「死の呪縛」にとらわれていた沼田さんに、その呪縛から自己を解き放つ力を与え、生きることの希望を与えた青桐。「命の再生」と「希望の創造」を、自然と人間との相互関係として象徴的に表現する沼田さんの証言は、年齢性別を問わず、私たち聴く者全ての心を深く感動させました。沼田さんと青桐の相互関係は、しかし、傷ついた両者が互いに痛みを分かち合う人間関係の象徴性を内包しているからこそ、私たちの心をかくも強く震わせるのです。被爆青桐の「痛み」を語る沼田さんは、他者の「痛み」への優しい配慮を、青桐に疑似化して語っていたわけです。沼田さんは、「相手の痛みの分かる心を持つこと」に平和の原点の一つを求めましたが、青桐はその象徴的シンボルだったのです。青桐の繁殖は、「痛みの分かる心」の繁殖をめざしています。
沼田さんは、自分の証言活動を通して多くの人と出会い、「痛み」を分かち合うことで感動し合い、そこに新しい人間関係を発見し、その新しい人間関係から希望のある行動を共に出発させることで、世界の多くの人々と親交を深めました。沼田さん自身がしばしば述べたように、「出会い — 感動 — 発見 — 出発」が、沼田さんのモットーの一つでした。
しかし、沼田さんの証言・平和活動が、最初からこのような人間的深みと広がりをもっていたわけではありません。
沼田さんは、婚約者が戦死したことも重なって、被爆後しばらくは精神的打撃から立ち直ることができず、自暴自棄になり、自殺を何度も考えたこともありました。しかし、ご両親や妹さんの愛情に支えられながら、１９４７年９月には教員となることをめざして再び立ち上がりました。にもかかわらず、学生の間も、教員となってからも、身体障害者と被爆者に対する二重の差別に苦しめられるという苦い経験から、被爆者であることを隠し続ける生活を、その後長年続けました。１９５７年には、沼田さんにプロポーズした同僚の男性が、彼の親が被爆者との結婚には猛烈に反対したため、自ら命を絶つという悲惨な出来事が起きました。そのため、沼田さんは「もう再び人を愛することはすまい」と決意します。屈辱的体験に対する感情的反応を心理的に閉め出してしまうというこのような心理現象は、被爆者だけではなく、他の戦争犠牲者にも多く見られるものです。しかし、こうした「感情的反応の心理的閉め出し」は心理的な自己抑圧をもたらし、人間関係を断ち切るだけであって、人間関係の修復・再構築という点ではなんらの解決策も産み出しはしません。その結果は、徐々に自己の「人間性喪失」をもたらすことになります。
しかしながら、沼田さんの場合には、ご自身が身体障害者であるということから、自分の仕事との関連で障害者支援という活動に従事したことが、「他者の痛み」への配慮という温かい人間性を育み続け、自己の「人間性回復」へと繋がっていったのではないかと考えられます。さらには、病に倒れた母親の介護のために１９７９年３月に教職を退いた後も、原爆特別養護老人ホームでのボランティア活動を通して、「人間関係構築」をはかりました。そうした「人間性回復」の蓄積が、１９８３年に本格的な証言活動を開始した後で大きく開花することになります。つまり、身体障害者であるというハンディキャップが、彼女の人間性を豊かにするという、逆説的な結果につながったのです。
被爆者に対する差別と偏見が理由で被爆体験を語らない、あるいは「あの悲惨な出来事は言葉で表現できるようなものではない、それゆえ、語ることは嘘をつくことにもなり、死者を冒涜する」と考え、沈黙を続ける被爆者が今なお多くおられます。しかし、長く沈黙を守ってきた被爆者が、ある日突然、証言活動に乗り出すというケースも多々見られます。その動機は被爆者それぞれによって異なるでしょうが、沼田さんも、そうしたケースのお一人でした。
ご存知のように、沼田さんの場合は、１９８１年５月、１０フィート運動によって入手可能となったフィルムを、映画『人間をかえせ』として制作するために、編集段階で見せられたことがきっかけとなりました。沼田さんは、１９４６年３月にアメリカ戦略爆撃調査団が撮影した、切断された痛々しい左足をさらけ出した３５年前の自分の映像と対面させられました。その公開承諾を初めは躊躇したものの、被爆者で当時すでに語り部であった坂本文子さんと出会い、彼女の「私もあなたも生かされている」という言葉に勇気づけられ、証言活動を始めることになりました。
３５年前の自分との対面で、沼田さんの心理にはどのような変化が起きたのでしょうか。カメラに向かって虚ろな目を向けている３５年前の自分に、沼田さんは精神的には「死んでいる自分」を見たのではないでしょうか。徐々に人間性を回復してきて今ここに生きている自分が、「死んでいる過去の自分」と対面させられることによって、それとは極めて対象的な、自己の生命力のその活力と大切さをあらためて再認識させられるという、「命の再生」という思想的体験を沼田さんはしたのではないでしょうか。その貴重な体験が沼田さんを動かしたのではないでしょうか。沼田さんの８７年にわたる人生の中では、被爆青桐だけではなく、他にも様々な要素が沼田さんを動かしていきました。
証言活動を開始したからといって、すぐに沼田さんが被爆青桐の話を自分の証言の中で紹介しはじめたわけではありません。１９８２〜８３年、映画『人間をかえせ』の海外上映隊に参加してヨーロッパ、カナダ、アメリカを訪問し、各地で証言を行いましたが、ご自分も認めていたように、その証言は原稿に書かれた形式的な文章を読み上げ、通り一遍の核兵器廃絶を訴えるだけのもので、聴き手に感動を与えるような内容のようなものではなかったのです。
沼田さんが本格的な証言活動を開始したのは、『人間をかえせ』上映旅行から帰国した１９８３年からです。証言活動のこの初期の段階で、沼田さんがどのような内容の証言をしていたのか、その詳細は明確ではありません。しかし、これまたご本人が述べられているように、自分と逓信局の職場の同僚たちが体験したすさまじく残酷な被爆状況を、涙を流しながら語るということに終始した証言だったのです。そのため、彼女の証言を聴いた子供たちの感想文は「かわいそうだ」というものが大半であったということです。したがって、沼田さんは、このような証言では、子供たちに被爆者の苦しみの実情と核兵器廃絶の重要性を知ってもらうことはできないと反省し、もっと冷静に事実を知ってもらえるような証言作成に努力したと述べています。実際に証言内容がどのようなものに変わったのか、私のこれまでの調査ではいまだ明らかではありません。（どなたかご存知の方がおられましたら、ご教示願います。）
これより４年後の１９８７年における沼田さんのビデオ・テープ証言記録が、広島市平和記念資料館に所蔵されています。逓信局ビル跡地に残されている、正面玄関にあった階段を背景に、３０分ほどの証言ですが、極めて冷静に、しかし詳細にわたり被爆当時の惨状を説明しています。１年半の間に４回も手術を受けなければならなかった自分の足の状態、瀕死の状態で隣に横たわっていた人の吹き飛んだ右腕の肉を大きなウジ虫が喰っている恐ろしい状況や、妹さんが乳癌を患い、甲状腺癌の疑いもあることなど、原爆投下による犠牲者の苦悩、苦闘にのみ焦点が当てられた証言内容です。その証言は、「今日は他人の身、明日は我が身」という言葉を引いて、いつあなたも核兵器の被害者になるかもしれないと示唆し、したがって現在の繁栄に甘えることなく、いつでも平和が続くということを信じてはならないという警告で終わっています。
つまり、この段階での証言は、徹底した被害者意識にのみ基づいた内容で、私たちが現在知っている「他者の痛みへの配慮」、「命の再生」、「希望の創造」といったものとは格段の差があります。被爆青桐の話は全く出てきません。ただし、フィルム編集段階でどのような内容の部分がカットされたのかは明らかでありませんので、沼田さんが全く被爆青桐に触れなかったとは断定しかねます。さらには、証言が元の被災現場で行われたところから、証言の内容が当時の現場状況に集中してしまったという可能性も考慮しなければなりません。しかし、そうした可能性を配慮しても、１９８７年の段階においても未だ、証言内容が一貫して「被害描写」に集中していたことは否めないように思えます。ただし、「私たち被爆者は、事実を知るためにもっと勉強して、＜見える者＞になりたい」という、沼田さんらしい発言が結論部分で述べられています。「事実を求める知恵が平和をつくる大きな力になる」という、その後の沼田さんのモットーとなった信念は、すでにこの段階で形成されつつあったことが分かります。
１９８３年の段階に話を戻しましょう。子供たちの「かわいそうだ」という感想文からの反省を踏まえ、感情を抑え、なるべく冷静に話すという手法はとられても、おそらく、引き続き自分の被爆状況と被爆者の苦しみに焦点をおいた証言内容に、基本的には変化がなかったものと推測されます。だからといって、聴き手の子供たちの心を動かさなかったとは決して言えません。
１９８３年１１月に、大阪府立西成高校２年生２２０名の一行が修学旅行で広島にやってきました。在校生のほぼ４分の１が被差別部落出身、在日韓国人・朝鮮人、崩壊家庭、貧困家庭といった背景をもつ生徒たちで、彼らに対する根深い差別意識のために、学校は低学力、非行、校内暴力で荒廃していました。豊永恵三郎先生の呼びかけで集まった１５名の被爆者たちが、精神的に荒れたこれらの生徒たちに証言を聴かせることになりました。その１５名の中に沼田さんも加わっていました。小グループに分けられた生徒たちが各被爆者から被爆体験を聴き、原爆で家族を失った悲しみや、差別や病気の苦しみを乗り越えて生きているという証言に、自分たちがおかれている境遇との共通点を発見し、深く心を動かされました。この修学旅行の後、西成高校に大きな変化が見られるようになりました。それは、生徒たちと被爆者の間に「痛みの共有」という現象が起きた結果だったのです。
被爆者に「痛みの共有」を見いだした生徒たちの一部が中心となり、様々な困難を克服して、翌年の８月に５０名ほどのグループで再び広島を訪れ被爆者と再会しました。生徒たちは、このとき原爆病院に入院を余儀なくされていた沼田さんを見舞います。沼田さんは、生徒たちの中に両親を亡くし苦学している男子学生を見つけ、自分の長い闘病記録が記されている期限切れとなった原爆手帳を彼に手渡し、次のように呼びかけました。「これ、あなたにあげるから、私の原爆手帳。どんな苦しいことがあっても、私がこんなに頑張ったんだから。苦しいときはこれを見て、あなたも頑張らなくちゃ駄目よ。あなた親がいないと言ったでしょう。だけど、親がいなくたって、広島の被爆者の人が見守ってあげているからね。勇気を持って、頑張ってね。」彼は、沼田さんの手をしっかり握りしめ泣きました。感動を呼び起こす、「痛みの共有」の象徴的な場面です。沼田さんは、若者たちとの「痛みの共有」を通して、自分自身が強く勇気づけられたと明言しています。
したがって、証言活動を始めたばかりのこの時期の沼田さんの証言内容がいかなるものであったにせよ、沼田さん自身の人格の中に「他者の痛み」への深い配慮と、「痛みの共有」への強い願望がしっかりと根付いていたことが分かります。すでに述べたように、それは、沼田さん自身が身体障害者であり、障害者支援活動によっても培われてきた彼女の人間性によるものでした。しかし、この「他者の痛み」が強烈な形で証言内容に反映されるようになるまでには、後述しますように、もっと多くの「出会い」を経る必要がありました。
１９８４年１２月２３日に、沼田さんは日本キリスト教団府中教会にて洗礼を受け、キリスト教者となっています。沼田さん自身は、自分の宗教信仰については、公的な場所ではほとんど述べていません。極めてプライベートなことと考えていたのかもしれません。しかし「洗礼」は、言うまでもなく、キリスト信仰を通して自分が精神的に生まれ変わる、すなわち「自己再生」という意味をもつものであり、このことも沼田さんの後の証言内容の重要な要素の一つである「命の再生」と、思想の上では深く関連しているのかもしれません。
１９８５年３月には、沼田さんは在韓被曝者実態調査団に加わって初めて韓国を訪問し、韓国人被曝者と交流。１９８８年８月には「ヒロシマとオキナワを結ぶ市民の会」のメンバーとして沖縄を訪れ、沖縄戦で市民が嘗めた様々な苦汁について学ぶと同時に、米軍基地の実態についても直に自分の目で見ることになりました。こうして彼女は、徐々に広島以外の戦争被害者と出会い、戦争関連の知識を精力的に吸収しはじめました。しかし、この段階での「出会い」は、同じ原爆被害者としての韓国人、同じ太平洋戦争被害者としての沖縄市民であったことから、「他者の痛み」への配慮は、自国民とその延長である韓国人の戦争被害者仲間としての「他者」に限定されたものでした。
沼田さんの思想と証言・平和活動を大きく飛躍させる「出会い」は、１９８８年の終戦記念日８月１５日に起きました。この日、「アジア太平洋地域の戦争犠牲者に思いを馳せ、心に刻む会」が大阪で開いた市民集会で、ここに招かれた５人のマレーシア人の証言を、沼田さんは初めて耳にしました。彼らは、太平洋戦争中に日本軍がマレー半島で犯した大量虐殺で親族を殺され、自分たちもかろうじて生き延びた人たちだったのです。シンガポール・マレー半島での日本軍による大量虐殺の犠牲者は１０万人にのぼると言われていますが、彼らは、マレー半島のネグリセンビラン州で抹殺された４千人を超える住民虐殺で親や兄弟姉妹を殺され、自分たちも銃剣で傷つけられた人たちだったのです。しかも、このマレー半島を侵略し虐殺に加わった兵隊たちの一部は、広島に本部が置かれていた第５師団歩兵第１１連隊所属の兵員だったのです。このマレーシア人たちとの出会いによって、沼田さんは戦争行為が持つもう一つの局面、すなわち「加害」の局面に直面することになりました。翌年３月下旬から４月上旬にかけて、沼田さんは、吉野誠先生御夫妻と共に、マレーシアに慰霊と証言を聴く旅に出て、さらに詳しく「加害」の状況について学びました。
日本軍の非人道的な残虐行為に対する責任は、戦時中に日本勝利を願って軍需工場での動員作業に汗を流した自分、婚約者の出征の際に「一人でも多くの敵兵を殺して手柄をたて、日本勝利のために頑張って欲しい」と願った自分、その自分の「加害者」としての責任という思いと重なり合い、沼田さんは彼らに謝罪します。そうした謝罪によって、沼田さんのそれまでの限定された「他者の痛み」への配慮が、一挙に深みと広がりをみせ、「いかなる人の人権も尊重する」という普遍的で根本的な原理に裏打ちされた「他者への痛み」への共感として、強く且つ深く彼女の思想の中に根を下ろしたものと考えられます。こうした沼田さんに、マレーシアの被害者たちも沼田さんの原爆被害による「痛み」に対して応えるという、「痛みの共有」という感動的な現象が起きました。
沼田さんは、１９９０年、９１年には南京虐殺の犠牲者や重慶爆撃の犠牲者とも出会い、日本軍戦争犯罪行為の責任を認め、謝罪することによって、中国人被害者との「痛みの共有」にも成功しています。
戦争が起きると、常に必ずといってよいほど「敵の顔」は非人間化されます。そのため生きた諸個人＝普通の市民、つまりわたしたちと同じ市民である人間の顔も非人間化され、人間性が剥奪されてしまいます。他者を非人間化することを避け、戦争やテロ、暴力を防止するためには、私たち一人一人が、そうした暴力行為の被害者の立場に立ち、被害者の目線で暴力を見つめ直してみることが必要です。自分の国が犯した残虐行為の犠牲者であろうと、他国が自分たちに犯した被人道的行為の被害者であろうと、常に被害者の目線で見るということは、顔の見える具体的な被害者の「個人の物語」に耳を傾け、その人の「痛み」＝精神的苦痛を自分が追体験し、内在化する、つまり自己の感性として自分の記憶の中にしっかりと根付かせるということです。沼田さんは、自分が出会った一人一人の戦争被害者の話にしっかり耳を傾け、その人の「痛み」を自己内在化することに努力し続けました。そのことによって、他者もまた、沼田さんの「痛み」を自分のものとする内在化で応えてくれました。そこから互いに「生きる希望」が創り出されたのです。
私は目下まだ調査中なので確定的なことは言えないのですが、その結果、１９９０年代初期頃から沼田さんの証言内容に変化が表れたように思われます。自分の被爆者としての痛みについての言及は必要最低限な情報提供におさえ、むしろ、その「痛み」と「苦しみ」から自分が学びとったもの、すなわち「痛みの共有」、「命の再生」、「希望の創造」といった点に重点を置くようになったのです。それらを表す象徴として、被爆青桐の話が沼田さんの証言に使われるようになったわけです。おそらくは、１９９０年以前は、被爆青桐は、沼田さんの記憶の中ではそれほど鮮明に残っていなかった可能性があります。しかし、「痛みの共有」、「命の再生」、「希望の創造」といった要素が沼田さんの思考の中で重要性を増すにつれて、被爆青桐の記憶はこれらの要素と連結し、その意義を強調するような形で、記憶自体が沼田さんの中で鮮明にされ、高められ、説話化されていった可能性があります。いずれにせよ、沼田さんが被爆青桐に、私たちの誰にとっても重要な「痛みの共有」、「命の再生」、「希望の創造」という象徴性を持たせたことは、広島から世界に向けての「平和のメッセージ」発信という意味で、極めて重要なことです。
「痛みの共有」、「命の再生」、「希望の創造」は、世界に共通する普遍的価値をもつ、私たち人間誰にとっても欠くことのできない要素であり、平和構築と維持にとって不可欠の要素であると私は信じます。それゆえ、これらこそ「ヒロシマの思想」の確立にとっての支柱となるべきものであり、広島市民が被爆体験から学びとり、継承すべき叡智であると考えます。
その意味で、沼田さんの証言・平和活動は、今後の私たち広島市民の反核・反原発・平和運動にとってのモデルを提供しています。新しい人との「出会い — 感動 — 発見 — 出発」を通して、さらには「痛みの共有」、「命の再生」、「希望の創造」に努力することで、平和の絆は必ず広がっていくはずです。
２０１２年１月２２日
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後書き： 原爆無差別大量殺戮の記憶の継承に関する私自身のさらなる考えについては、拙著『検証「戦後民主主義」：わたしたちはなぜ戦争責任問題を解決できないのか』（三一書房、２０１９年）第５章「＜記憶＞の日米共同謀議の打破に向けて」をご笑覧いただければ光栄です。
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