Remembering 1945 -
GOKA O MITA

"GOKA O MITA: Pictures Drawn by Atomic Bomb Survivors" was really a shocking book to read. The book is based on the pictures drawn by people who survived the A-bomb dropped in Hiroshima.

The book is published by Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK). The project was started in 1974 when Mr. Iwakichi Kobayashi brought one of his drawings to NHK's office in Hiroshima. His drawing brought very passionate feelings for the editorial staff and they started to figure out bringing these kinds of drawings to public.

The tv-program "Only one image" , broadcasted by the Morning TV, started a large scale collection of images drawn by hibakushas (victims of a-bomb). After that the editorial staff started to receive more and more images from horrors of atomic bomb. Old men walking with their getas brought their pictures to the NHK's office. Many of them cried when they introduced their drawings to the people in the office and told what they remembered.

There was all kinds of images, images made with pencils, watercolours, crayons and pastels. But most of all, there was images drawn by ordinary people, not by artists.

This book contains most of those pictures from year 1974, explanations and memories from that dreadful moment. The idea of the book is to spread out knowledge all over the world about the horrors of the a-bomb. To prevent this dreadful event happening again and to maintain peace.

I believe that the point that the images are very simple and drawn by an unaccustomed hand, gives them very powerful and realistic impression. The images are really shocking and they really describe how hopeless and unspeakable the situation was in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped.

GOKA O MITA is published by Japan Broadcast Publishing Co. Ltd. in 1977.

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