It’s one of many scenes from 80 years ago this August still etched in the octogenarian’s memory -- and now depicted vividly by Japanese teenagers on canvas.
Showcased recently by the school ahead of the August 6 anniversary were 15 new artworks, including of scorched soldiers writhing in pain, and a horror-stricken girl surrounded by an inferno.
“It’s authentic, and very well drawn.”
A few days before, his father had come home heavily burned by the blast and asked Hironaka to yank out a glass shard stuck deep into his flesh.
The widowed mother, clasping Hironaka’s tiny hand and with his younger sister strapped on her back, is depicted gazing down and mumbling to him about her fears.
‘Inner struggle’
Motomachi High is now an integral part of what was originally the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum’s initiative, which has over the years birthed more than 200 artworks.
In the last eight months or so, witnesses including Hironaka sat down with students every few weeks to review their works in progress, sometimes requesting a drastic re-do.
“Since I’ve seen none of these described scenes myself, I was never confident that my depictions were accurate,“ she said in the school’s cluttered art room.
Having initially drawn the fruit’s leaves to face upward with vitality, she “completely re-drew them to wilt,“ to match Hironaka’s memory.
‘The last generation’
Immersing themselves in the carnage took a toll on some such as Mei Honda, 18, who described the “emotionally draining” task of depicting charred skin and flesh dangling from people’s arms.
“I initially depicted her arms pressed against her torso, but skin contact would have hurt her badly because of the burns,“ Honda said.
“We are probably the last generation to have the opportunity to listen face-to-face to the experiences of hibakusha,“ Aoi Fukumoto, a 19-year-old Motomachi High alumna, told AFP.
“Before I embarked on this project, what the atomic bomb did had always felt distant to me even as a Hiroshima native,“ she said.
“I can no longer remain a bystander,“ she said.
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