Source: National Post Online
August 6, 1999
By Mary J. Breen
Each year on Aug. 6, the world remembers Hiroshima, and honours the memories of the tens of thousands of people who died there. This year, and every Aug. 6 hereafter, I will remember an extraordinary man whom I met last winter -- one of the survivors of Hiroshima, Haji Abdul Razak.
On Aug. 6, 1945, the 21-year-old Razak was sitting in a mathematics class at Hiroshima University. In 1941, the Japanese had overrun Malaya, and Razak and three others had been sent to Japan for training as part of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Program. When the war was won, he was to be sent back to Malaya to promote Japanese language and thinking.
It was a beautiful, clear morning. The students had just returned from the air-raid shelters because a single enemy plane had been spotted; when no other planes were seen, the all-clear signal was given. This plane was the American reconnaissance plane for the bombing mission. It sent back an all-clear message, and at 8:15 a.m., only 1.5 kilometres from where Razak was sitting, the bomb was dropped.
"Suddenly everything I could see was filled with bright yellowish light," he recalls. "I shouted, 'Look at the light!' " Seconds later, the two-storey wooden building collapsed. When Razak came to, he could barely breathe under a pile of boards and rubble covering him. He could see light through the planks above him; slowly he and a few others managed to climb out. He was bleeding from some superficial cuts, but he had no serious injuries.
As he emerged from the rubble, he couldn't believe his eyes. Everything, as far as he could see, had been completely destroyed. He thought it was the end of the world.
Familiar landmarks were gone, trees were on fire, and the roads were obliterated by fallen buildings. In every direction he saw horrendous suffering: people covered in blood, their skin hanging in strips from their finger tips, their faces bloated "like sponge cake," their hair falling out, their clothes burned off, crying and begging for help. The dead were everywhere, some "frozen like black ice," and some completely burned except for "the belt wrapped around their waist or the wristwatch they wore." It was a scene from hell.
When Razak finally reached his dormitory, it was engulfed by a raging whirlwind of fire caused by the heat of the bomb. He spotted a raft floating on the nearby Motoyasu River and realized the river was his only hope of escape, so he and about 15 companions climbed onto the raft with their books and a few belongings.
"The fire was like a cyclone. It was so hot that it felt like the sun was falling down on us. We knew we would be fried if we remained on the raft." Their only recourse was to jump into the river and use the raft as a float. Because of the intense heat, their belongings soon ignited, so everything had to be thrown into the water to prevent the raft from catching fire as well.
The men clung to the raft for two hours, regularly submerging themselves to escape the heat. When the fires finally subsided, they came ashore near the university. They cleared away bodies and debris, and set up camp as well as they could. Someone managed to find some food in one of the buildings, but the rice was filled with tiny pieces of glass. The potatoes, they found, were already cooked.
As night came, they tried to help the others but there was almost nothing they could do. When they fetched water for those who were dying of thirst, to their horror these people died immediately because of internal burns. The cries of the injured and dying surrounded them on all sides. Finally, late in the evening, the Red Cross from nearby towns arrived, bringing some food and medicine; for many it was too late.
Throughout that night, Razak most vividly remembers the crying mothers. By the most terrible chance, about 10,000 high school students from nearby towns had been brought into Hiroshima that morning to help create fire breaks in case of air raids. All night he could hear the terrible cries of the mothers calling out their children's names. But it was hopeless. "There was no reply from the darkness of the night."
After about two weeks, Razak and some friends were taken in by a kind Japanese family, and a few weeks later, he was transferred to Tokyo for medical treatment where he received injections to prevent his white blood cell count from falling any further. As a result of the bomb, at least 140,000 people were dead, including the other three Malayan students, but to this day, there is no indication that Razak's radiation exposure caused any lasting physical harm. He was extraordinarily and inexplicably lucky.
The day I met Abdul Razak at his home in Kuala Lumpur was the beginning of Hari Raya, the three-day event that marks the end of Ramadan. During Ramadan, Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset as an exercise in learning tolerance, patience and endurance. Hari Raya is a time of feasting and visiting but, more than that, it is the day when people ask each other for forgiveness.
A forgiveness custom is practised in each Muslim home on this day. The grandparents seat themselves side by side, and each of their children and grandchildren kneels before them, hugs their parent or grandparent, and quietly asks for forgiveness for any wrongs committed over the past year. Then children ask their parents for forgiveness, and brothers and sisters ask each other.
Forgiveness, therefore, is not a new concept for Abdul Razak and his family. Despite Hiroshima, or maybe because of Hiroshima, Razak has found a way to forgive, a way to replace the bad with the good, the wrong with the right. Razak says, "Only the bitterness of Hiroshima can lead us back to the true path of God, spreading His message of peace and love among ourselves."
Instead of hatred or dreams of revenge against the Allies or the Japanese, Razak's energy has gone into trying to ensure that no one will ever experience the horrors of nuclear war again. He has written a book Debu Hiroshima (Ashes of Hiroshima) about his experiences, and a TV video called Hiroshima In My Heart was made about him and other survivors of the bomb. He is also involved with the Malaysian Chapter of Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War as part of his work for the abolition of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons tests.
This is why on Aug. 6, as every year, Abdul Razak will take part in a commemoration of Hiroshima, and why I will remember him.
Mary J. Breen is a writer based in Peterborough, Ont.
