A Life Shaped by Silence and Resilience
"I had no choice but to stay silent." These words, spoken with calm determination, reflect the deep loneliness that Tomoko Oshiro has carried for most of her life. Now 84 years old, she is one of the few surviving witnesses to the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, a tragedy that left an indelible mark on her and her family.
Oshiro was born in Osaka to parents from Naha, Okinawa. Her father, Chiyu Bise, passed away in 2004 at the age of 93, and her mother, Sachiko, died in 2006 at 95. In the spring of 1945, when she was just four years old, Oshiro moved to the Motoharamachi district of Nagasaki to live with her paternal grandmother. The family of five included her one-year-old brother.
On August 9, 1945, at 11:02 a.m., as Oshiro played with her grandmother and brother, the ceiling of their home collapsed onto her head. The atomic bomb had exploded, and she was only about 1.3 kilometers from the hypocenter. She heard her mother’s voice calling out, "Tomo-chan, Tomo-chan," as she returned from a friend's house. Oshiro shouted for help from under the rubble, and her mother, who was also burned, managed to rescue her and carry her to a first-aid station. According to her mother’s memoir, her grandmother was killed instantly, and her baby brother was crushed against an earthen wall.
In 1946, the family moved to Okinawa, where her parents worked as geta sandal makers and welders. Many hibakusha in Okinawa found work on U.S. military bases, which had dropped the bomb. The need to survive made many reluctant to speak about their experiences. Taeko Kiriya, an associate professor of peace studies at Tama University in Tokyo, noted that many survivors hid their status due to fear of losing their jobs.
On the Japanese mainland, the 1957 atomic bomb medical law provided health checkups and medical expenses for hibakusha. However, Okinawa was excluded from these benefits. A survey of survivors in Okinawa began in 1963, and the Ryukyu government started issuing survivor health handbooks in 1967—10 years after the mainland. It was through these checkups that Oshiro’s mother discovered glass fragments still embedded in her body.
When Oshiro graduated from high school, relatives in the Kanto region warned her, "Never tell anyone you're a hibakusha. It will affect your chances of marriage." She obeyed, thinking, "If I'm going to be discriminated against, I have no choice but to stay silent." The first time she confided in someone outside her family was in her late 20s, to a man she later married.
Worried about the effects of radiation, she told him, "I can't have children." Despite this, she became pregnant at 25 and raised a daughter. In her 40s, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and uterine fibroids. She never consulted colleagues or those close to her, believing that the atomic bomb was something that happened on the mainland and that people in Okinawa wouldn’t understand the survivors’ pain.
A turning point came 25 years ago, after Oshiro retired and settled into a quieter life. She joined the Okinawa Prefecture hibakusha association, the only such group in the prefecture. At general meetings and health checkups, survivors from across the archipelago gathered, allowing her to share feelings she had never spoken about before.
Eight years ago, her only daughter was diagnosed with bile duct cancer and died at age 50. Oshiro wondered if her daughter’s illness was her fault. It was her fellow association members who helped ease her guilt.
In the early 1980s, there were more than 350 hibakusha living in Okinawa. As of April 2025, only 68 remained. At the Peace Memorial Park in Itoman, the Cornerstone of Peace bears the names of those who perished in the Battle of Okinawa and local atomic bomb survivors, including Oshiro’s parents. When she visited the monument in June, she traced their names with her hand and said, "Dad, Mom, I'm doing well."
Since 2020, Oshiro has served as president of the survivors' association. She says she is only able to speak out now thanks to the community built by earlier generations of hibakusha. "I hope people will not forget the journey of hibakusha on the islands who lived far from the bombed cities," she said.