TANISAKI Shoji

Shoji, who had an easy smile, would often indulge his younger sisters Kei and Miyoko when they wanted to play tag. He was also serious about his studies.

Although born and raised outside Nagasaki city, Shoji dreamed of going to the city’s Keiho Junior High School and begged his parents to let him attend. After being accepted, he lived in a boarding house there.

After hearing about a “new type of bomb” dropped on Hiroshima, Shoji’s father attempted to bring his son home on 8 August, one day before the attack on Nagasaki. However, Shoji refused with tears in his eyes, saying he had an important English exam the next day.

On 9 August, Shoji’s sisters saw a bright flash from the direction of Nagasaki city. They feared for their brother’s safety. Their father went again to Nagasaki the next day to search for him. However, he never found any trace of his son.

In the years after the bombing, Kei and Miyoko felt that talking about their deceased brother became taboo. Although their father previously hadn’t touched alcohol, after Shoji’s death he began to drink to help him cope with his loss.

In 2016, more than seven decades after the bombing, Kei and Miyoko announced at a press conference that they had finally identified their brother’s dead body in a photograph taken on 10 August 1945.

When Kei had first seen the photograph in an exhibit, she sensed it was “Jicchan” – the sisters’ affectionate name for their brother. Forensic doctors then examined the photograph and determined, based on the facial features, that it was likely of Shoji.

This brought some solace to the two sisters.