SUZUKI Hideaki

A sixth-grade student at Fukuromachi Elementary School, Hideaki was kind, smart and well liked. He was close with his cheerful and mischievous nine-year-old sister Kimiko.

At the time of the nuclear bombing, both siblings were at school: Kimiko out in the schoolyard, and Hideaki inside the concrete school building. Kimiko was badly burned all over her body by the bomb’s searing heat.

Hideaki, who appeared uninjured, carried his little sister on his back to a relief station about 2 kilometres away. “I'll come back and get you,” Hideaki told Kimiko, who tried to show her spirit even as they parted. This was the last time anyone in the family saw her; Kimiko’s remains were never found.

An uncle later found Hideaki at a different relief station. At his uncle’s house, Hideaki repeatedly asked why his parents had not come to take him home. His relatives at first tried to hide the truth, but they eventually told Hideaki that his parents had not yet been found. “I want to see my dad, I want to see my mum,” Hideaki sobbed.

Days later, Hideaki developed signs of acute radiation syndrome; he suddenly suffered a severe nosebleed and quickly died.

Before the bombing, Hideaki’s father, Rokuro, had run a barber shop in downtown Hiroshima. Relatives found the bones of Hideaki’s three-year-old brother Mamoru and one-year-old sister Akiko in the burned ruins of the shop.

Their father was also seriously injured and soon died at a relief station. Their mother, who had suffered burns but survived, killed herself by jumping into a well after learning of the deaths of everyone else in her family.

Rokuro’s hobby had been taking photographs, especially of his children. Many of his photos were later donated to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum by his nephew.