[Speech]Jeong-soon Park: The first generation of Korean A-bomb victim

The first generation of Korean A-bomb victim: 

Jeong-soon Park



My name is Park Jeongsoon, a first generation Korean A-bomb victim. I am 90 years old this year. I was born in 1934 in Nagoya, Japan. At the time of the A-bomb dropping in 1945, I was 12 years old, a 5th grader. My father got a job through a friend and started working at a factory in Nagoya. My mother and the rest of the family followed him in 1932. As the war continued, it became difficult for my father to work at the factory.

 

He first moved to Hiroshima in 1943 to find work. The rest of the family followed him in May 1945 to Uchikoshi-cho, Hiroshima. It’s about 2 km away from the epicenter.

 

On August 6, 1945, as usual, my father went to work at the munitions factory early in the morning. My mother was preparing to leave for her workplace, a restaurant. All my siblings were in the house. The air raid warning sounded, but because of the frequency of air raids, we didn’t think it was significant.

 

But then suddenly, a blinding light like lightning flashed. The light flashed, then the wind blew, and as if the whole world was shaking, there was a tremendous explosion.

 

The whole house shook and collapsed in an instant. The ceiling and pillars collapsed, covering our family. Amid the chaos of screaming and desperate attempts to escape, my mother pulled us out one by one.

 

I was hit by a fallen pillar and the back of my head was cracked, causing blood to flow from my head. I also hurt my back and have had back pain my whole life. Later, when I got an X-ray, they said my lumbar vertebrae were dislocated.

 

As we all came out of the collapsed house, I saw the neighbors screaming and crying. There were people lying on the road, dead, burned and bleeding. Everywhere was in chaos. We just barely got ourselves under control and ran toward the bamboo fields with our neighbors. The neighbors gathered there. We thought that the whole of Hiroshima had been destroyed. Few of the people gathered in the bamboo grove were intact. It seemed that everyone was somewhat relieved to have survived the bloodshed and chaos.

 

My father looked into ways to return home in order to leave Hiroshima as soon as possible. He was pushed back and pushed back, and we were finally able to return home by ferry from Shimonoseki 4-5 days before the Lunar New Year in 1946.

 

My family went to Yesan, Chungcheongnam-do, the hometown of my father and mother. Our family's circumstances were very difficult.

 

At that time in Japan, the US military government did not allow Koreans to take more than 1,000 yen. They only exchanged about 1,000 yen. It was difficult to even buy a house to live in with that amount of money, and there was no food to eat during the long winter.

 

No matter how hard we struggled to survive in the countryside, we couldn’t find a way to survive there. I was born in Japan and have lived in Japan all my life, so I never knew how to speak Korean. My siblings were all like that.

 

In Japan, I was discriminated against and ignored because I was a Korean. Even after returning to my home country, I was labeled as a returnee and looked down on by those around me. My sister and I didn't know Korean very well and were still having a hard time living, so we attempted to go back to Japan.

 

My mother, who was pregnant at the time of the bombing, gave birth to a stillborn child in March 1946 and continued to suffer from illness. She had difficulty moving around and had digestive problems, so she couldn’t eat properly and would vomit anything she ate. My mother would always say to herself, “It’s because of the bomb.”

 

My father, due to the aftereffects of the atomic bombing, could no longer find regular work. And his body was getting worse day by day, and he had no choice but to spend his days blaming the world and drinking alcohol.

 

If the atomic bomb had not been dropped, my mother and father would not have suffered so much or passed away so early. It is so unfair and I am so resentful.

 

I still can't move without getting acupuncture every day because of the aftereffects of radiation exposure. Not only me, but my younger sibling also suffered from bile duct cancer, heart disease, and other diseases for a long time.

 

My father, mother, me, and my four sisters all suffered from the aftereffects of radiation exposure. We couldn't even tell anyone that we were suffering from the exposure to radiation.

 

Some of my sisters' descendants are also showing symptoms that are suspected to be aftereffects of the atomic bomb.

 

My mother suffered from severe body pain, but she didn't show it because she was worried about her children. When I saw her suffering, I regret not having taken her to the hospital even once. Now I can't stand not affording to do so.

 

I truly resent the barbaric ambitions of Japan, which started the war, and especially the United States, which dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

I want to hold the United States accountable for dropping the atomic bombs and receive an apology.

 

Furthermore, as someone who has suffered from nuclear weapons, a weapon of mass destruction, I want to cry out and scream for the world to ban nuclear weapons.

 

The end of nuclear war means the destruction of humanity. long for world peace and believe that it is my duty as a surviving Korean atomic bomb victim to pass on a peaceful world without nuclear weapons to our descendants.

 

We must brand the use of nuclear weapons in war as illegal. Please keep in mind that only when the US apologizes and pays compensation can this world start to change into a world without nuclear weapons.

 

We urge you to hold the US accountable. For the sake of world peace, the US must apologize and pay compensation.


Part-1: On August 6, 1945, the situation at the time


Part-2: Life after returning to Korea


Part-3: We urge the United States