Gay exhibit, which was going to be held at the smithsonian. 1995, so this was the 50th anniversary. In the midst of this, i decided with one of my students, whose mother survived the atomic bombing in hiroshima, we decided we would do Something Special to commemorate the 50th anniversary. We brought students to kyoto and hiroshima. This, theere planning smithsonian exhibit got canceled. Bring some we would artifacts to American University and it do an exhibit here on the 50th anniversary. That was the first time that the a bomb museum ever did an exhibit outside of japan. We have been doing one every year cents. This is the 70th anniversary of the bombing and we decided to do it again at American University. We combined artifacts from hiroshima and nagasaki with the marie key hiroshima panels. Marukiare the hiroshima panels. To where be compared the guernica paintings. Put together with these artifacts and with childrens drawings from an Elementary School in hiroshima, as i will explain later, that was the origin of our exhibit. 20 years later we have a more elaborate exhibit. It is the most elaborate exhibit on the atomic bombings that has ever been held in the u. S. It is overwhelming. I cant tell you how many people have written me and told me it brought them to tears. This is one of the most famous images out of nagasaki. This is a young girl and she dazed. The caption says many who survived the bombing said they were sure the bomb had fallen on their house. You will see one of the maruki panels called fire. Crucifix. Is we have a there are a lot of crucifixes that are considered to be symbolic, especially in nagasaki. In nagasaki, the bomb missed the original target by almost two miles and landed above the euro commie cathedral urakami cathedral. In town had been preserved pristine condition because the americans wanted to have a pristine target to show the effects of the atomic bomb. They had not bombed nagasaki. People in nagasaki thought they had not been bombs because it is the christian it was the christian capital of east asia. We were in for a big surprise. We also see the stopwatch there, a pocket watch showing 8 15. That is a popular image inside hiroshima. The bomb dropped at 8 15 am. The clock stops, washes stop. Stop. R watches a lot of images will show that. When we did our first exhibit, many of those replicas were the original artifacts. Some were so fragile the museum decided not to let them out of japan anymore. For some of these we have the replicas instead of the originals but almost everything is the original artifact. What we have got here are the famous mushroom clouds, photographs of the mushroom clouds. On august 6, 1945. The description of them from people who were on the plane said it was like a pillar of flames shot up into the air. This cloud kept expanding. From the top of the column, additional bursts kept going up 40,000 feet into the sky. Crew of the the enola gay said they could still see the cloud looking back, it was so high. There was a lot of radioactive debris swept up in the cloud that came down as black rain on the victims of the bombing. Here we has a view of hiroshima city. The target was for the bomb was here, the aioi bridge. The pilots thought they would be able to see that clearly from the sky. The bomb drifted, missed the landed overlynn here over shima hospital. This is the most famous symbol. This is the Old Industrial prefecture building. It is now called the atomic bomb dome. It has been preserved. If you come back now, all of this has been built up. This part here and here have been preserved as a peace park. You can see everything is devastated. The estimate is that almost two miles in each direction was totally destroyed. If you were two miles away, your house could have been destroyed. Was is by modern standards a tiny, primitive little bomb. The bomb that dropped on hiroshima we estimate now to have been a 16 kilotons in destructive capability. The bomb that dropped on nagasaki, we now estimate 21 kilotons. We later developed bombs that were so much bigger. By 1954 we were Holding Congressional hearings in which scientific leaders were laying bomb 700 to build a thousand times as powerful as the hiroshima bomb. It seems insane but it was the you sure they were holding out. This is what we walked into with eyes wide open this bomb was a little bigger but the casualties were smaller. Nagasaki was surrounded by mountains on both sides, so the effects of the bomb were contained, the effect of the blast was contained by the mountains. Nagasaki was in the valley between the mountains. , 150,000 deadbomb dead at 1945, 200,000 by 1950. 70,000 dead by by 1950. ,000 dead they were different kinds of bombs. Some of the got more human artifacts in a way. We have got the shoe of a young student, 13yearold boy who was killed in the bombing. We have got the hat of the Junior High School student who was killed. We have got the water bottle of another young boy, a 13yearold who was killed when the bomb exploded. One of thee got replicas. It is a replica of a lunchbox of a 12yearold girl, who totally disappeared. No trace was ever found of her. Inside it has carbonized rice and peas. Her mother was able to identify it as hers, even though she was not able to find a trace of her daughter. In 1995, a few of us suggested if they wanted to cancel the big enola gay, they should show to artifacts one was the enormous plane, the enola gay, the other was a lunchbox of the 12yearold girl. It was not that that would send the message about what the atomic bombs were really about. That was the last thing in the world they would ever display. They didnt want any of the artifacts from the victims, they did not want statements by American Military leaders condemning the bombing, they did not want that controversy. A historical panel. As a historian i would like an exhibit about the decision to drop the bomb. It would make a more boring exhibit, probably but this has some of the Important Information about the Manhattan Project that was started to build obama get as build a bomb as a deterrent. Americans were terrified of the prospect of hitlers getting an atomic bomb, so they built a bomb as a deterrent against germany. They did not dream that they would use it against japan. Survey of the bombing targets. These are potential targets but you have to remember the u. S. Had been firebombing japanese cities. By the end of the war, three quarters of our bombs were incendiary to burn down japanese cities. Overall we bombed over 100 japanese cities. When we ran out of major cities, we started to bomb secondary cities, which had no military relevance. Of war stimson said to president truman, i do not want the United States to get the reputation for outdoing hitlers in atrocities. Another general called this the most ruthless killing of noncombatants in history. Cities, kill civilians. This is about the decision to drop the bomb. Theofficial narrative says u. S. Dropped the bomb in order to expedite the end of the war without having to invade. Truman says an American Invasion would cost half a million lives. The number keeps going up. Of thousands of lives, then quarter of a million lives, then half a million lives. There would have been a lot of americans lost in an evasion and invasion. Truth to that. Maybe a little truth to that, but no basic truth to that. The reality was the japanese from the battle of saipan onward they could not win but they hoped to get one more victory and then sue for better surrender terms. The big obstacle for them was the emperor. He wanted to keep the emperor. They issued a background briefing in december that said to the hanging of the emperor to them would be like the crucifixion of christ to us. All would fight to die like ants. Thest every advisor of trumans urged him to change the surrender terms, let the japanese know they could keep the emperor. That was in americas interest. We refused to signal that. We were calling for unconditional surrender. What else would end the war . A yalta, roosevelt got promise from stoll and that three months after the end of the war in europe, a massive red japan. S going to come to truman met with churchill into stalin to make sure the soviets were coming in. He got agreement from the soviets the first day of the conference. Stalin will night be in the japanese war by august 15. Wife the nextis day, think of all the boys who he describesed. Telegram as the telegram from the japanese emperor asking for peace. They all knew the japanese were finished. American intelligence rep ported that the entry of the soviet union into the war will convince all japanese that complete defeat is inevitable. Truman whon is why is not bloodthirsty, that did not take pleasure in killing people, why would he use the atomic bomb knowing they were not militarily necessary . We assume as historians that a big part of his motivation was that he was sending a message to the soviets. If the soviets interfered with american plans in a europe or asia, this is the fate they would get. The astounding thing is the soviets interpreted it that way. Suddenly the day of judgment was tomorrow and has been ever since. We have beeneality confronted with. That is what makes the atomic bombing so important, not just to that hundreds of thousands of innocents were killed, the fact that the human species has lived with this sort of damocles hanging over us ever since. Weapons16,000 nuclear in the world. U. S. And russia still have thousands of Nuclear Weapons on hairtrigger alert pointing at each other. We are not playing games here. This is still real and that is why we still wanted why we wanted to do this exhibit. There were several people carrying cameras in hiroshima on august 6 only one is known to have taken photos. Withwas a reporter hiroshimas newspaper. He had enough film to take 24 photos, but he said it was too horrible. He ended up taking seven photos and five of them have been preserved. He was very respectful. He did not want to show closeups. He did not want to show horrible burns, horrible suffering. He shows people at the relief stations who had escaped from the fires downtown. You can see the fire in the background. This was 1. 5 miles from the hypocenter. He says it was like walking through hell. We could not take photos. It was too horrific, too intrusive on peoples privacy and a suffering. There were no medical supplies. The hospitals were destroyed. The nurses were killed. What you see here are people in the relief stations. There was no medicine, nothing to treat them. They put oil on the burns. The shots from nagasaki, people lying there dying on the ground. A woman breastfeeding her baby. Stories aboutf women carrying around a dead babies on their backs, trying to nurse their dead baby there are lots of stories about women carrying around dead babies on their backs, trying to nurse their dead baby. People who are near the hypocenter, their internal organs boils away and they quickly turned into charcoal and became carbonized. You see the bodies, clothes burned off the bodies, lying there, the charred corpses. Some of the people who wore their kimonos had the patterns burned into their skinned their skin. The shadow of someone, completely disappeared, on the steps of a bank in hiroshima. He was sitting there. I have got one friend in nagasaki who speaks to our group. He survived, obviously. He writes down the names of all his family members and how far they were. Not a single one was affected by the bomb, was scarred by the bomb, was injured or burned by the bomb. Out. Y one, he crosses them this was over the next couple weeks. One by one would die from radiation poisoning. You would get these purple spots all over your body. Terrible diarrhea, your hair would start to fall out. I know of many cases in which family members came into hiroshima after the bombing looking for relatives or friends and within several days after they would die of radiation sickness. Some experts say the effects of radiation are gone quickly. A lot of evidence suggests that was not the case. His is this shima hospital it was above the shima hospital that the bomb actually detonated. This is the Elementary School in nagasaki. Almost all the teachers and students were killed. From the a mile hypocenter. I take my students every year on the morning of august 9, we go to a private ceremony at the Elementary School. All the children who now and attend to that Elementary School the and have this special commemoration ceremony with the school filled with Elementary School students. You realize that is who the victims of the atomic bomb were. Congregants of all souls church after the war sent art supplies to students at an Elementary School in nagasaki. Students used to the art supplies at a time when there were very little supplies of any sort after the bombing. You see so many reports of students living as street urchins basically. There were orphans. They had to put up these makeshift shelters. Just the fact of getting art supplies was a huge thing for these kids. Sent backde, they drawings and paintings to the congregation at all souls church. These were lost to for a long time and then rediscovered. ,ow the members of the church some went back to hiroshima recently and met with some of the kids. There is a nice book and documentary made by my friend about this. [speaking japanese] japanese]ng i thought it would do nice touch to the exhibit. I human side and a different light of americans who reached out to the people in hiroshima and the gratitude on the part of the children who received those gifts. S were famous japanese artists who came to hiroshima redays after the bombing and saw the horrors and decided to do a series of panels. Ghosts. T one was called what it shows is the image of hiroshima afterwards. People who experienced it said they felt as though they were walking through hell. ,ires everywhere, people naked walking with their arms held in front of them to lessen the pain a little bit, often their skin hanging down. Peoples clothes were burned off by the fire. This possession of naked people some said you could not tell men from women as they were walking. You see the shock, the horror, the suffering in hiroshima after the bombings. The second panel we have here is called fire. Was the the reality fire was everywhere, spreading rapidly. People tried to escape the fire. Escaping what escaping the fire meant, and of this was the reality for so many survivors, it meant they had to leave others behind. They had to ignore the cries for help from people trapped in their houses, people trapped under beams, people who were injured, in order to escape. There are so many tragic stories about children leaving their parents behind or parents leaving their children behind in order to escape. The flames were encroaching. There are many stories we know of people staying with family and friends. The folks at the maruki gallery told me i could choose any six of the 15 panels i wanted. I decided i want to complicate the narrative, not just portraying the japanese as victims of the atomic bomb, but put a different context. There is a possibility for them to be victims and victimizers at the same time. I wanted to panels to show that. Twofirst one i wanted panels to show that the first one is called crows. There were 43,000 cap knees soldiers, 45,000 there were 43,000 japanese soldiers, 45,000 korean slave laborers. They were badly treated by the japanese. They were discriminated against in japan and also discriminated against during the time of the atomic bombing. They got no medical treatment, no aid at all. Many of them died in the streets. This one is called crows. It shows crows plucking out eyeballs of the dead korean victims here. It is very controversial inside japan still. Shinzo abe and his administration is doing everything they can to cover up the history of japanese atrocities for the koreans. I want to show that part of it too. Further to come kate it. Aere were american pows in camp in hiroshima. 23 of them in the bombing, many of them arrived only many of them survived only to be beaten by enraged japanese citizens. They depicted several women among the american pows. There were no women there. It is baffling why they chose to do so. Theee the progression in thinking of the marukis. In the beginning, they focused on japanese victims, then their consciousness began expanding. They start to show the japanese as also victimizers. They have one panel on the rape g. Nanjin one on auschwitz. They are trained to make that trying to make this a broader human story. This one is titled floating lantern. We participate in the on the evening of august to six and the floating lantern ceremony. So many of the people jumped in the river to try to escape the flames or cool their bodies that had been badly burned. Many of them died. These descriptions of the river that night, a sea of floating corpses, what people did to commemorate it, they hold a lantern ceremony every year. It is no longer restricted to the families of the victims. You make a paper lantern, put a candle inside and on the lantern you write a message and you go down and take her turn and put your floating lantern into the water. Take your turn and put your water. G lantern into the it is very beautiful at night when i went yoyo ma was playing. This is a depiction of the lanterns floating in the water. You are watching American History tv, with eyewitness accounts, archival films, lectures in College Classrooms and visits to museums. All weekend every weekend on cspan3. The real america, author and historian Greg Mitchell discusses a collection of a previously classified films documenting the aftermath of the atomic bombs of august 1945. Here is a preview. Harry, that is not a name Many Americans know but a wellknown japanese cinematographer who was born in japan, actually went to hollywood, worked on mainstream hollywood movies in the 1930s and went back to japan. 1942, he was the asawasographer for kur first movie. He was enlisted by the americans to shoot most of their footage of that is again the level quality that went into this. Shot most of this footage that you will see now. This is seen here is nurses marching into the Red Cross Hospital in hiroshima, which was badly damaged. Shot in the was fall or winter following the atomic bombing. Where was this color footage then . Archives as at the air force, but when did people learn ab