The Keloid Girls were a little known group of Japanese girls who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Scarred and disfigured in horrendous ways they became outcasts and pariahs to their people. In an effort to provide aid to the victims of the war and to gain positive publicity and take attention away from anti nuclear sentiments the USA embarked on a project of repair. In 1955 Norman Cousins went to japan and brought the promise of a better life to the Keloid Girls through the advanced plastic surgery available in the US. America was one of the leaders of plastic surgery in the world at the time. Now dubbed the Hiroshima Maidens they arrived in America and for 1 year they went through countless operations and procedures to rebuild their faces and bodies. Throughout this year they made many public appearances and were one of the top news stories.
Before reading the second chapter of David Serlin’s article Reconstructing the Hiroshima Maidens. I had never heard of the Hiroshima Maidens. The assumption could probably be made that most Americans now have not heard of them either. As famous as this trip seemed at the time, my opinion is that in the long run it was forgotten pretty quickly. I am basing these opinions on my experience within the American public. From my experience the public changes its attention rather quickly and unless a past event keeps affecting current events or people with power continue to revitalize interest in said event. In the example of the Hiroshima Maidens their impact on future events in America faded relatively quickly. Once the maidens leave publicity slows and eventually stops as new stories take place and without regular updates people lose interest. Another factor was that people in power were less likely to bring up the topic of the Hiroshima Maidens because it brings up the negative effects of nuclear use. Because of this I believe that is why this story was gradually forgotten to people today.
A supplementary article I found was titled Hiroshima Japs Rebuild City of 1 Story Houses from the Chicago Daily Tribune published in May 1947. The article avoids mentioning death for the most part and focuses on rebuilding. The atomic bombings are still recent so they give a quick casualty figure at the beginning and the only time they mention human death again is when they talk of the shadows imprinted on building walls. They mention that people were erased leaving only shadows behind but they don’t use the word death and they certainly didn’t mention the effects on people who survived. When mentioning destruction the article focused on buildings rather than living things. This avoidance of talking about atomic effects on humans probably factored into why the Hiroshima Maiden project waited until 10 years after the bombing. The subject needed time to settle and even when the project begin.
