An Atomic Bomb Story From Korea

The Unseen Scars: Korea's Forgotten Hiroshima Survivors

Eighty years have passed since an atomic weapon fell from the sky, but for a group of its victims, the shadow remains. On 6 August 1945, the world recoiled from the devastation in Hiroshima. The narrative has long focused on the unprecedented destruction and the conclusion of a world war. Yet, hidden within this history is a story of colonial subjects caught in the crossfire. Thousands more Koreans, brought to Japan as forced labourers, were present at the moment of detonation. Theirs is a legacy of disfigurement, discrimination, and a multi-decade struggle for acknowledgment that continues to this day, a fight waged by the last survivors and their children.

An Unwilling Presence

Japan’s 35-year colonial rule of Korea created the conditions for this tragedy. In the years leading up to 1945, the Japanese empire conscripted huge numbers of Koreans for its war effort. When the bomb hit, an estimated 140,000 Koreans were residing in Hiroshima. Many did not come willingly. They were part of compulsory work drafts, moved to industrial hubs to work in munitions factories and other demanding jobs. Treated as second-class citizens, they endured harsh conditions and were paid almost nothing for their toil, living as a disenfranchised community in a foreign land. Their presence was a direct consequence of imperial policy.

A City in Ashes

The morning of the bombing was deceptively clear. At 08:15, the US aircraft Enola Gay released 'Little Boy', a uranium gun-type atomic bomb. It produced an explosive yield equal to 15,000 tons of TNT, instantly killing an estimated 70,000 people. For Lee Jung-soon, then a young girl as she walked toward school, the memory is a blur of shock and terror. She recalls her father's frantic warning to evacuate as the city descended into chaos. The streets, she remembers being told, were littered with corpses. Her own memory is simpler, and perhaps more profound: she just cried.

Horror in the Rubble

The immediate aftermath was a vision of hell. Survivors described bodies that had seemed to dissolve, leaving only their eyes. The city was a ruin, littered with corpses mangled beyond any hope of identification. The intense heat incinerated people, leaving only their shadows etched onto stone. The blast wave shattered buildings, burying thousands under debris. For the individuals who endured the initial explosion, the coming weeks and months brought a new ordeal: radiation sickness, horrific burns, and severe dehydration. The death count from the Hiroshima weapon would rise by many thousands.

A Grim Distinction in Labour

For survivors from Korea, the horror did not end with the blast. They faced a unique and perilous duty in the ruins. According to Shim Jin-tae, who is 83 and directs the Hapcheon chapter of an association for Korean atomic bomb victims, the task of clearing the deceased fell to Korean laborers. Initially using stretchers, the sheer number of bodies soon made this impossible. They resorted to employing dustpans to collect human remains, which were then burned in schoolyards. This gruelling and hazardous work was disproportionately assigned to people from Korea, who undertook the majority of the post-war cleanup.

Heightened Exposure, Higher Toll

This dangerous work compounded their exposure to the bomb's lethal fallout. While many Japanese evacuees could flee to relatives in the countryside, Koreans often had no such network. Lacking local ties, many stayed within the irradiated city and had minimal access to healthcare. This combination of hazardous cleanup duties, poor treatment, and systemic discrimination was a factor in the exceptionally high number of deaths. The Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Association calculates the fatality rate for Koreans at 57.1%, in contrast to the general rate of about 33.7%. Of the 70,000 Koreans affected by the bomb's blast, the death toll reached 40,000 by the year's end.

The Challenge of Counting the Dead

The exact number of Korean victims remains difficult to confirm. Hiroshima's city office was so completely destroyed that clear records were lost. The task of identification was further complicated by Japan’s colonial policy, which had forced many Koreans to abandon their names and adopt Japanese ones. This deliberate erasure of identity has made a precise historical accounting nearly impossible. Korean advocacy groups estimate that as many as 50,000 Koreans were within the city that day, with about 30,000 perishing. The lack of definitive records adds another layer of injustice to their story.

Image Credit - BBC

A Bitter Homecoming

Japan’s surrender on 15 August 1945 led to Korea’s liberation. Approximately 23,000 Korean individuals who survived the atomic blasts eventually made their way back home. They did not receive a hero's welcome. Instead, they were met with fear and prejudice. Labeled as deformed or damned, they encountered terrible stigma in their own homeland. Unfounded rumours spread that the effects of radiation were contagious, making them outcasts in their communities. Their suffering was compounded by a deep sense of shame associated with having performed menial labour for their former colonial ruler.

The Stigma of Sickness

The fear was palpable. In Hapcheon, a county where many survivors settled, there was already a settlement for lepers. Shim Jin-tae explains that people conflated the survivors' conditions, particularly their visible burns and scars, with leprosy. This association made them social pariahs. Those with severe burns, with faces so disfigured only their eyes could be seen, were ostracized and deemed unsuitable for marriage. The physical pain of their injuries was matched by the psychological pain of isolation. To survive, many chose to conceal their past, hiding their experiences in Hiroshima from their spouses and even their own children.

Korea's Hiroshima

The small, mountainous county of Hapcheon in South Korea became an unlikely home for a large number of survivors. It had always been a challenging place for survival due to scarce arable land. During the colonial era, many of its residents had left for Japan, some lured by false promises of a better life, others forcibly conscripted. After the war, as survivors returned to Korea, they naturally gravitated back to their home county. Over time, Hapcheon became known as "Korea's Hiroshima," a community uniquely defined by a shared trauma that occurred hundreds of miles away.

A Legacy of Illness

The trauma from that August morning etched itself permanently into the survivors' bodies. In the years since, Ms Lee has contended with ongoing sickness. She currently manages skin cancer, angina which stems from inadequate blood flow to the heart, and Parkinson's disease. These conditions are common among survivors, who have suffered from a range of ailments including ailments of the skin, cardiac problems, and renal failure. The manifestations were pervasive, but for decades, no one could fully explain them. The survivors carried the bomb's poison within them, a silent, slow-acting affliction.

 Image Credit - BBC

A Pain Passed Down

What weighs most heavily on many survivors is the fear that the agony wasn't confined to their generation. The focus has shifted over time to their children and grandchildren. Many descendants of survivors suffer from chronic and congenital illnesses. Avascular necrosis afflicts the hips of Han Jeong-sun, a survivor from the second generation, making walking extremely difficult. She gave birth to a first son who has cerebral palsy. She speaks of the "absolute hell" of being blamed by her in-laws, who accused her of bringing ruin to their family. This intergenerational suffering is a visible, tangible reality for these families.

The Fight for Scientific Proof

Despite the anecdotal evidence, proving a scientific link between ancestral radiation exposure and illness in descendants is incredibly difficult. Ho-chang Lee, Ms Lee’s son who suffers from kidney failure, notes that verifying the connection would require extensive and expensive genetic testing. For years, the South Korean government demanded such proof before it would broaden the formal classification of victim. Two distinct research projects uncovered a higher susceptibility to illness among second-generation victims. A 2005 study showed they were more prone to conditions like depression and heart ailments. Furthermore, a 2013 study found their disability registration rate was almost twice the national mean.

A Government's Belated Response

For decades, the government in South Korea demonstrated minimal active concern for its citizens who were victims of the atomic bomb. The nation was preoccupied with rebuilding after the Korean War and pursuing economic development. The survivors were a low priority. It was not until 2016 that Seoul enacted a special law to provide some support, including a small monthly stipend. The first comprehensive fact-finding report was only released by the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) in 2019, over seven decades after the explosion. According to the ministry, no lawful framework existed before this time to finance official inquiries.

An Ongoing Study

The MOHW advised the BBC it had collected genetic information in the period from 2020 to 2024 and would continue further studies until 2029. Only when the findings are deemed "statistically significant" will the ministry consider broadening the official classification of victims to include second- and third-generation survivors. For families like Ms Han's, this continued demand for proof is incredulous. She insists that her illness and her son's disability are the proof. For them, the pain that passes down through generations is visible, and the refusal to acknowledge it is a profound injustice.

The Legal Battle in Japan

While struggling for recognition at home, many Korean survivors also waged a long legal battle in Japan. They sought the same rights and medical benefits afforded to Japanese survivors, known as hibakusha. For decades, the Japanese government was slow to extend these benefits to non-nationals, particularly those who had returned to Korea. This created a discriminatory two-tiered system. Survivors in Korea had to travel to Japan and navigate a complex bureaucracy to prove they were present in Hiroshima or Nagasaki when the bombs were detonated, a difficult and costly undertaking for the elderly and infirm.

A Landmark Victory

After years of legal challenges, a significant breakthrough occurred. In the early 2000s, Japan's Supreme Court issued landmark rulings that affirmed the rights of overseas survivors. The court ordered the government to provide medical benefits to hibakusha regardless of their nationality or place of residence. This was a crucial victory, but it came too late for many. The majority of the initial survivors from Korea had already passed away, often from sicknesses connected to radiation. The quest for justice became a desperate contest against time, one that many did not survive to witness the conclusion of.

Fragile Gestures of Peace

In recent years, there have been tentative signs of reconciliation. In May 2023, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made a historic joint visit to a memorial for Korean victims in Hiroshima during the G7 summit. It was a powerful symbolic moment. More recently, in July 2024, officials from Hiroshima made an inaugural trip to Hapcheon, where they placed flowers at a memorial. While these gestures have been welcomed, many activists argue they fall short of what is needed.

Peace Without Apology

According to Junko Ichiba, a veteran Japanese peace activist and advocate for Korean victims, these actions are empty. She observes that the Japanese officials who visited made no reference to, nor did they express remorse for, Japan's colonial-era treatment of Koreans. For Ichiba, peace offered without an apology holds no value. Although previous leaders from Japan have extended condolences, many people in South Korea view them as insufficient without a formal and sincere acknowledgment of the historical injustices that led to Koreans being in Hiroshima in the first place. This missing piece remains a major obstacle to true reconciliation.

The Invisibility of History

This lack of acknowledgment is reinforced by what is taught, or not taught, in schools. Educational materials in Japan still fail to cover the history of Korea under colonial rule or the narrative of its citizens who were atomic bomb victims. This "invisibility," she argues, only deepens the injustice. The story of the bomb frequently omits the essential background of imperialism and coerced work. By leaving out this part of the story, the full scope of the tragedy is diminished, and the specific suffering of Korean victims is erased from collective memory, hindering any genuine understanding between the two nations.

The Race Against Time

With the first-generation survivors now in their late 80s and 90s, there is an urgent need to preserve their stories. Heo Jeong-gu, a director at the Red Cross, has emphasized that these matters need to be resolved within the lifetimes of the survivors. It is vital to collect proof and personal accounts for subsequent generations. Organizations like the association for Korean victims of the atomic bomb are working tirelessly to document the accounts of the remaining survivors, creating an archive of memory against the inevitable passage of time.

Memory Matters Most

For individuals like survivor Shim Jin-tae, the fight has always been about more than money. He insists that remembrance holds more weight than financial restitution. Their physical selves carry the memory of their ordeal, acting as living proof of the bomb's lasting terror. A fear persists that if this specific history fades from memory, a crucial lesson will be lost to the world. Forgetting, they believe, could lead to repetition. Eventually, no one will remain to share the tale of the Koreans who suffered under the mushroom cloud, making their fight for acknowledgment today a final, defiant stand against oblivion.