The BBC Herosheima visits the bomb’s Korean readers

August was on August 9, 45.45 at 4: 15: 7: 15: Li Jung-Tun was going to primary school, when nuclear bombs were falling from the sky of Hiroshima.

Now -88 -year old is trying to remove memory in her hands.

“My father was about to leave for work, but he was suddenly running back and told us to get out immediately,” she remembered. “They say the roads were filled with dead – but I was very shocked that what I remember was crying. I shouted and shouted.”

The bodies of the victims were “melted so their eyes were just visible”, Ms. Lee says, the city of 420,000 was covered as a equivalent explosion of 15,000 ton TNT. Whatever remained then the bodies can be identified.

“Atomic bomb … this is a terrible weapon.”

In the middle of Hiroshima, the first nuclear bombs of humanity have been exploded with the ‘Little Boy’ explosion, and it has been 3 years since, and immediately killed about 000,4,3 people. In the coming months, radiation illness, burns and dehydration have died thousands of more deaths.

The demolition of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s bombing-which has brought two decisive ends of the Japanese Empire rule and have been documented in the last eight decades.

The fact that 20% of the victims was immediately Koreai is low.

When the bomb was dropped, Korea had been in Japanese colony for 35 years. At that time, approximately 5,000,3 Korean Hiroshima lived in Korean Heroshima – many people had gone there because of the mobility of the workers or the exploitation of the colony.

Those who read their descendants in a nuclear bomb live in the long shade of the day-wrestling with the battle for many decades for dissolution, pain and unacceptable justice.

“No one takes responsibility,” Shim Jin-, 83-year-old read. “There is no bombing country. We have no failed country to protect. The United States never apologized. Japan pretends to know it. Korea is not better than that. They just blame – and we are alone.”

Mr. Shim now lives in the Hapcheon of South Korea: a small couple, who has become a dozens of readers like Ms. Lee, has been called “Korea’s Heroshima”.

For Ms. Lee, the shock of the day did not diminish – he sticks to her body as an illness. It is now survived with skin cancer, Parkinson’s disease and angina, which is causing the heart that occurs in the heart from poor blood flow, which is usually seen in chest pain.

But the weight that is overweight is that the pain with her did not stop. Her son Ho-Chang, who supports her, is diagnosed with kidney failure and dialysis is on while waiting for transplantation.

“I believe this is due to radiation exposure, but who can prove this?” Ho-Chang Lee says. “It is difficult to verify scientifically – you need a genetic test, which is tired and expensive.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) told the BBC that he had collected genetic data between 3 and 5 between and will continue the study by 2 until. “The definition of the victims will consider the” only “readers’ only” in the third and generation of the third-generation, “he said.

During the bombing, many of the Korean people in Hiroshima were of Hapcheon.

Surrounded by mountains with small farms, it was difficult to live. Japanese traders occupied crops, drought destroyed the land and left thousands of people for Japan during the war. Some were forcibly admitted; The assurance that “you can eat three meals a day and send your children to school”.

But in Japan, Korea was the second class citizen-often the most difficult, worst and most dangerous jobs are offered. Mr. Shim says his father was strictly working in a war factory as a laborer, while his mother knocked nails in a wooden ammunition crate.

After the bomb, the distribution of labor was translated into dangerous and often fatal work for the Korean people in Hiroshima.

Shri. Shim told the BBC Korean, “Korean workers had to clean the dead.” “Initially they used stretchars, but there were many bodies. Finally, they used dustpons to collect the bodies and burnt them to school.”

“These were the most Korean people who did this. Most of the warfare and weapons after the war were done by us.”

According to the Gionggi Welfare Foundation study, some readers were forced to clean the pile and recover the bodies. While Japanese escaped with empty relatives, the non -local relationship stayed in the city of Korean, came in contact with radioactive fallout – and limited access to medical care.

The combination of these conditions – bad treatment, hazardous function and structural discrimination – all contributed to the toll of excessive death among the Korean people.

According to the Korean nuclear bomb victim, the Korean death rate was 57.1%, about 33.7%compared to the total rate.

About 70,000 Korean people came in contact with bombs. At the end of the year, about 40,000 people were dead.

After the bombing, which led to Japan’s surrender and subsequent liberation, about 23,000 Korean readers returned home. But they were not welcomed. Branded as scattered or cursed, they also faced prejudice on their homeland.

Mr. Shim explains, “Hapcheon was already a leprosy colony.” And because of that image, people thought that those who read the bombs also have skin diseases. “

He further said that those who survived such stigma were chatted about their plight, saying that “the existence of pride came before.”

Ms. Lee says she saw it “with her own eyes”.

She remembers, “People were badly burnt or treated extremely poor people.” “In our town, some people’s backs and faces were so bad that their eyes were only visible. They were rejected from marriage and went away from there.”

With poverty and trouble with stigma. Then there were no obvious causes: skin diseases, heart condition, kidney failure, cancer. Symptoms were everywhere – but no one can explain them.

Over time, the focus turned to the second and third generations.

The second generation of Han Jeong-Sun, her hips, suffers from auscular necrosis and does not run without dragging herself. Her first son was born by Cerebral Palsi.

“My son has never taken a step in his life,” she says. “And my father-in-law treats me very badly. They said,” You gave birth to a disabled child and you are also disabled-are you here to destroy our family here? “

“That time was the perfect hell.”

The Korean government has not taken active interest in its own victims for decades, as the north and financial conflicts were considered as high priorities.

This was not until 2019 – for more than 70 years after the bombing – that MOHW announced its first fact. That survey was mainly based on the questionnaire.

Responding to the BBC inquiry, the ministry made it clear before 2019, “there was no legal basis for funding or official investigation”.

But according to two independent studies, it has been found that the second -generation of victims of the victim becomes more insecure. From 2005, one has proved that the victims of the other generation were more than ordinary people, more than the common people, and their disability registration rate was twice as much as the national average.

Against this backdrop, Ms. Han is amazing that the authorities continue to ask for evidence to identify her and her son as a victim of Hiroshima.

“My illness is proof. My son’s disability is evidence. This pain comes down to generations and she is visible,” she says. “But they won’t recognize it. So what do you want to do. Will you die without confessing?”

On July 7, only last month, Hiroshima Officials visited Hapchene for the first time to wear flowers in the monument. Former Prime Minister Hattoyama Yukio and other private persons had come before, this was the first official visit to the current Japanese authorities.

“Now Japan talks about peace in Japan. But without apologizing, peace is useless,” Junko Ichiba, for a long time, says Japanese peace activists who have been the victim of Korean Heroshima.

She said that the officers of the visiting Officers did not mention or apologize how Japan had treated the Korean people before and during the second World War.

Although multiple Japanese leaders have apologized and repent, many South Koreaians believe these feelings inadequate or inadequate without a formal receipt.

Ms. Ichiba states that Japanese textbooks still exclude the history of Korea’s colonies – as well as nuclear bomb victims – it has said that “this invisibility only increases injustice”.

It connects from the point of view of many as a lack of comprehensive responsibility for the inheritance of Japan’s colony.

Director of the Red Cross Support Division, Hio Jong–said, “These issues must be taken into account while the readers are still alive. For the second and third generations, we should collect evidence and witnesses before it is late.”

Not just about compensation for those who read Mr. Shim – this is being acknowledged.

They say, “Memory is more important than compensation.” We remember what we have done on our body… if we forget, it will happen again. And there is no one left to tell the story one day. “