From mainichi.jp/english
HIROSHIMA -- Words in a diary left by a teenage girl before she died of acute leukemia 15 years after the Hiroshima atomic bombing became a driving force in preserving the Atomic Bomb Dome in this city's Naka Ward.
While the dome, which withstood the intense heat rays and blast from the bombing, has passed down the devastation to the present day, some locals once called for tearing it down due to the ruins reminding them of horrific memories. The diary written by the girl before she passed away at age 16 pushed the movement forward toward the dome's preservation.
The girl was Hiroko Kajiyama (1944-1960). She was 1 year old when she was exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb at her home in Hiroshima's Hiratsukacho district, now part of the city's Naka Ward, about 1.2 kilometers from the bomb's hypocenter. Unscathed, she grew up healthily, until she developed acute leukemia at age 16 and subsequently died. On Aug. 6, 1959, around eight months before her passing, she wrote in her diary:
"Will that painful Industrial Promotion Hall (present-day A-bomb Dome) alone forever remind the world of the dreadful atomic bomb?"
Ichiro Kawamoto, who attended the memorial service on the seventh day after her death, was handed her diary from her mother, and this passage caught his eye.
Kawamoto, who was exposed to radiation upon entering Hiroshima after the bombing, was calling for donations from people across the country to erect a statue commemorating Sadako Sasaki, who died of leukemia at age 12 in 1955, 10 years after being exposed to the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The statue, called "Children's Peace Monument," now stands at Peace Memorial Park in the city. Kawamoto also later served as a facilitator for the "Hiroshima Orizuru no Kai," a group of elementary, junior high and high school students in Hiroshima.
Back in those days, there was deep-seated sentiment among residents of Hiroshima, such as, "I feel pained every time I see the dome, which reminds me of 'that day.'" The Hiroshima Municipal Government was also unenthusiastic about preserving the ruins.
Kawamoto, together with children of the Orizuru no Kai, launched a signature and donation drive to keep the dome alive.
Eiko Mikami, 78, who joined the campaign as a high school student at her friend's invitation, stood on the streets to raise donations after school and on weekends alongside Orizuru no Kai members. She often faced criticism, such as, "Why are you preserving the dome, which evokes that horrific memory?"
Mikami nevertheless continued her campaign with a sense of urgency, thinking, "If the A-bomb Dome is gone, the memory of the war will be forgotten." She recalls that Kawamoto said, "Out of sight, out of mind." Kawamoto died in 2001 at age 72.
Their steady efforts eventually began to move society. In 1965, then Hiroshima Mayor Shinzo Hamai suggested his intentions to preserve the dome, followed by a Hiroshima Municipal Assembly decision in 1966 to permanently keep it. Mikami, now a resident of Hiroshima's Minami Ward, recalls thinking at the time, "The wishes of Kajiyama have come true." After preservation and anti-seismic work, the A-bomb Dome was registered as a World Heritage site in 1996.
While Kajiyama's words significantly impacted the drive to preserve the dome, she is not very well known even in Hiroshima, her hometown, compared to Sadako Sasaki, famous both at home and abroad for paper cranes she folded to pray for her recovery.
In 2019, a group of three junior high school classmates of Kajiyama published a book about her at their own expense out of their wishes to let her be known globally for serving as a catalyst for the dome's preservation. The classmates spent around six years interviewing those who had interacted with Kajiyama, gathering newspaper articles of the time, and compiling their findings into the book, whose title roughly translates to "The A-bomb Dome and Hiroko Kajiyama -- Hiroko's diary and the preservation of the A-bomb Dome."
Masahiro Terada, 82, one of the three classmates who edited the book, recalls that Kajiyama was "full of energy" in their junior high school days, being on good terms with everyone and having a vibrant personality. Terada says he was unaware Kajiyama had been exposed to the atomic bomb.
An entry in her diary dated Aug. 6, 1959, states, "They say people exposed to the atomic bomb would die early. Whenever I hear things like that, I feel I might die tomorrow, or even today."
It was years later that Terada, now a resident of Hiroshima's Asaminami Ward, got to know Kajiyama's feelings despite being healthy at the time. "It is as if she were foreseeing her own death. She was insightful," Terada thought.
The book records her upbringing and how she was exposed to the atomic bomb, as well as how her diary led to the preservation of the A-bomb Dome. The three classmates initially planned to print 100 copies to distribute to fellow classmates, but after orders flooded in from researchers, libraries and others, they have printed a total of 400 copies by now.
"Had there not been that diary, the A-bomb Dome would have been demolished. It is precisely because the dome exists that the tragedy of the atomic bombing can be passed down to future generations," Terada believes.
(Japanese original by Deockwoo An, Hiroshima Bureau)
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20250827/p2a/00m/0na/009000c
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