Yuriko Hayashi

In 1951, when I was an 8^th grader, a few big American men suddenly came to our house by jeep.  They spoke English which I didn’t understand at all.  I was forced into the jeep and taken away.  It was like an abduction and happened in an instant.

The jeep took me to Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (the present Radiation Effects Research Foundation) on Hijiyama Hill.  They showed me English documents at the reception and made me sign.  I was given a 20 cm square piece of white cloth with two strings and taken into a room where I was told to take off my clothes and put the cloth over my front.  The room had lines like a grid on the walls and I was told to stand in front of them.  I was instructed to turn in various directions so they could take pictures of me.  There were five or six male doctors wearing white gowns.  I was 14 and going through puberty.   I was so scared and embarrassed but bore it with clenched teeth.

This examination was conducted once a year, four times in total even after I entered high school.  From the second time, not even a small cloth was given.  I was forced to stand naked in front of male doctors and they took my pictures.

One day, when I came home, my mother noticed that my lips were stained with blood because I had bitten them so hard.  For the first time, I told her what I had been done at ABCC.  Until then, I had not told anything about it to anybody, including her.  It was deeply frustrating and I didn’t understand why I was so humiliated simply because we lost the war.  In addition to the photography, a large amount of blood was taken from me with a large syringe for blood tests, and I once fainted due to anemia.

When I was in the third year of high school, the jeep came to my school to fetch me, but I ran away across the school grounds.  With the help of my friends, I managed to hide from the men.  From the following year, the jeep stopped coming.  At the time, I thought it was because I had run away, but later I learned that my mother had made a strong complaint.