IDE Yoshitsugu

Yoshitsugu was two years and seven months old when he was killed in the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki. No photograph of him exists today.

The only “proof that he lived”, according to his younger brother, Yoshinori, is the air-raid hood that he wore. Their mother, Yae, would often stand in front of it and pray – for half an hour or more – until her death in 2010.

The hood is now in the permanent collection of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. “At the very least I want visitors to know that there was such a small child who fell victim,” said Yoshinori, who was in his mother’s womb at the time of the attack.

Yae informed him that her face and arms had been so badly burnt in the bombing that Yoshitsugu was unable to recognise her in his dying moments.