2009年09月12日
11 Visiting the UK
In 1999, I sent my picture taken in front of the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims to Keiko Holmes with the greetings of the New Year. A few days later, I got a fax from her, which said that some members of a British-Japanese grassroots exchange group would come to the UK and meet with former British prisoners-of-war and their families in May. She asked me to come with them and talk about my experience of the A-bombing. I could not immediately make up my mind to go. However, when I remembered the people walking quietly around the Cenotaph in Hiroshima whispering to each other, “Quietly. Quietly with care…,” I wanted to meet them again.
I met Koshi Miyagawa, a leader of the exchange group, for the first time at Narita Airport on June 29. He explained the details of how the group members have kept up exchanges with former British POWs. Only I had no experience as a member. Although I felt anxious, I decided to tell about Hiroshima and got on the plane. I folded paper cranes with traditional Japanese chiyogami paper all the way in the airplane.
When we arrived at Waterloo Station on the evening of July 1, I saw the Union Jacks flapping among high-rise buildings. In 1943, when I started to go to elementary school, this Union Jack pattern was repeatedly shown when we were told that America and Britain were brutal. I got rigid and painfully understood Asian people’s hatred toward the flag of the Rising Sun.
On opening the heavy door of the Union Jack Club, the group members found their old acquaintances and started talking. I was alone. A gentle-looking old lady came to me and said, “Oh dear, you read the poem for us in Hiroshima, didn’t you?” She took my hand and said, “My father was a POW taken by the Imperial Japanese Army, but I changed my view toward Japan after I went to Hiroshima. I stopped hating Japan.”
As the program did not go as planned, I could not get a chance to talk about Hiroshima. But I could fully realize that Keiko Holmes was trying hard to make a chance for me.
During the reconciliation service, a veteran said, “Keiko, as a member of the Allied Forces, I feel responsibility for having dropped the A-bombs. Please forgive us.”
All the people there held hands with each other and started singing. “Amazing Grace” echoed, mingling in the dome of the basilica.
(Meeting with AGAPE members in Waterloo)
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