KUBOTA (Unnamed)

Before dawn on 6 August 1945, 25-year-old Tsuyako gave birth to a baby girl – her second daughter – at her home in the Nishikanon neighbourhood of Hiroshima. Hours later, the newborn would become one of the youngest victims of the nuclear bombing.

Tsuyako’s husband, Minoru (a second-generation Japanese-American from the US state of Hawaii), was present for the baby’s birth. He prepared some warm water for her first bath, and then waved goodbye to the midwife. Moments later, the nuclear bomb exploded in the sky above.

The shockwave from the explosion tore the house apart, and Tsuyako, her baby and her two-year-old daughter, Sumie, became trapped in the wreckage.

“I tried so hard to get them out and my hands became bloody, but I couldn’t do it,” recalled Minoru. “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.