KUBOTA Sumie

At the time of the nuclear bombing, two-year-old Sumie was at home in the Nishikanon neighbourhood of Hiroshima with her parents and baby sister, who had just been born.

The shockwave from the explosion tore the house apart, and Sumie became trapped in the wreckage with her mother, Tsuyako, and hours-old sister. Her father, Minoru (a second-generation Japanese-American from the US state of Hawaii), tried desperately to free his trapped wife and daughters.

“I tried so hard to get them out and my hands became bloody, but I couldn’t do it,” he recalled. “Sumie was crying. She said to me, ‘Daddy, it’s hot! The fire is coming! My hands are burning!’ There was a final scream, and then I couldn’t hear her voice anymore.”

As fire engulfed the destroyed home, Minoru was forced to flee the scene with his son, who had been at a neighbour’s house.

After the war, Minoru remarried and had another son and two daughters. Almost every month, they would visit the family grave to pay their respects to those killed in the nuclear bombing.

The inscription on the gravestone for the baby girl read: “Died due to the atomic bombing on 6 August 1945 at the age of zero.” She was never given a name.