World War II was the first war to showcase the United States new war weaponry, the atomic bomb. They first tested the nuclear weapon in July 1945, called the Trinity test, and only a month later, a desperate Harry S. Truman would authorize the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brining the war to an end.
The woman in the photograph shows her injuries in Hiroshima; her skin was burned in a pattern corresponding to the dark portions of a kimono worn at the time of the explosion. This woman was one of the “lucky” survivors, she survived, but the city was decimated and it is estimated that about 140,000 of Hiroshima’s 350,000 population were killed in the blast, and that at least 74,000 people died in Nagasaki. In addition the radiation from the nuclear bombs caused the deaths of thousands more from radiation sickness in the weeks, months and years that followed. Like the woman in the picture those who survived the bombings are known as “hibakusha” or “person affected by a bomb”. 1
In the readings by David Serlin, “Reconstructing the Hiroshima Maidens,”begins with an Japanese American sculptor aspiring to build a memorial for the victims of Hiroshima- the Japanese have discontent for this offering deeming it inappropriate for an American regardless of ethnic ties to build such memorial. America in an attempt to mend relations offers their surgical expertise to mend the faces of twenty-five women “the Hiroshima Maidens.” These women would eventually make their way to the United States for reconstructive facial surgeries. In total, they endured around 140 surgeries and spent eighteen months in the U.S. beginning in May 1955 and ending in November 1956. (Serlin, 59-60) These medical technologies specifically that of reconstructive surgery has been also been seen as a tool for reconstructing the damage both metaphorically and literally.
Created by Kichisuke Yoshimura. Artist’s comments summarized: “Their clothes ripped to shreds, their skin hanging down.
Another perspective offered by Robert Jacobs, “Reconstructing the Perpetrators Soul by Reconstructing the Victim’s Body: The Portrayal of the Hiroshima Maidens’ by the Mainstream Media in the United States, agrees with much of Serlin but would also add the reconstructive surgeries and their success over simplified and glossed over the amount of damage done to the citizens of Hiroshima. He added a Times article which quotes: “Much was made of the need to restore the beauty of the Japanese women, and newspaper coverage focused on the likelihood of their marriage prospects, to a degree we would now consider unhealthy. “Of the 6,000 Hiroshimans who suffer lingering injury from fire or radiation,” claimed one article, ‘the most poignant cases have been these girls who reach marrying age bearing the akuna no tsume ato—the Devil’s claw marks—as the Japanese describe the Bomb scars.”2 Jacobs also notes that “many of the media stories express hostility and suspicion about Japan and Japanese society.” Jacobs states that in one article claimed that in the Japanese press, their case was ‘sometimes exploited in a horror campaign against US use of atomic weapons,’ but self-assuredly concluded that ‘the story quickly turned into one of medical triumph.”3
A take away from these authors is the exploitation of the twenty-five selected survivors and the campaign used by the United States used to sway the publics perception of of truly destructive the use of nuclear weapondry can behowever successful these restored faces would be, it would be America taking another victory from a situation of absolute loss, and the Japanese left to clean up the mess.
1)“Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 75th Anniversary of Atomic Bombings.” BBC News, August 8, 2020, sec. In Pictures. https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-53648572.
2)’Young Ladies of Japan,’ Time (24 October 1955): 53–54, p. 53.
3)Robert Jacobs. “Intersections: Reconstructing the Perpetrator’s Soul by Reconstructing the Victim’s Body: The Portrayal of the ‘Hiroshima Maidens’ by the Mainstream Media in the United States.” Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, June 2010. http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue24/jacobs.htm#n11.
4)David Serlin, Reconstructing the Hiroshima Maidens, (2004), pp. 57-110
Photo Credits:
1)https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-53648572
2) https://www.vice.com/en/article/kb77a9/the-bomb-survivor-artwork-depicts-the-horror-of-nuclear-weapons
The painting that you chose is very moving and I think it represents this topic extremely well. It shows the gruesome story of what occurred in Japan and the tragedy that followed. I like how you added that America took this aftermath as an opportunity for exploitation, to show that they are not as bad as they seem.
I think that not only the use of two artifacts, but also the artifacts that you did choose were both especially powerful. With the first picture showing the physical damaged sustained by these women and your second being an abstract painting I think that both of these artifacts applied well to your post. Additionally, I liked how you used two different types of artifacts, good job.