Kazue Sueishi’s Experience of the Atomic Bombing
This mini-documentary featuring the atomic bomb testimony of former President of the US Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Association, Ms. Kazue Sueishi, was created by TSS (TSS-TV), a television broadcasting company located in the atomic-bombed city of Hiroshima, and Nagasaki University. It will be released for streaming globally on January 31, 2024, on the TSS Archive Project official website.
The Next Generation Project began in FY 2022 is a program that aims to pass on the reality of the atomic bombing to the next generation by translating atomic bomb survivor (hibakusha) testimonies and peace-related news into English in collaboration with the younger generation. This is the third undertaking in this program following others at Hiroshima University’s Center of Peace (Professor Kawano’s research group) and at the University of Idaho in the United States.
Former president of the US Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Association. Born in Pasadena, California (US) in 1927, she returned to Japan when she was 9 months old. At 18, she experienced the atomic bombing at her home in Minami-Kannon-machi, Nishi Ward, Hiroshima, located at a distance of 2.2 kilometers from the hypocenter. After the end of WWII, she went to the US, and, in the 1970s, she began campaigning for health check-ups for hibakusha who lived in the US and couldn’t get health insurance.
She continued to appeal for the importance of nuclear weapons abolition through special peace education classes for children where, for 40 years primarily in the Los Angeles area, she conveyed to children the horrors of nuclear weapons. She also gave her testimony of the atomic bombing at the UN as a Communicator for a World Without Nuclear Weapons appointed by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Affectionately, she was known to all as Mama Kazu.