<Begin Segment 16>

TI: Now, when they took your father away in May 1944, what did people say to you? Was there any kind of stigma attached that your father was taken away right after this big explosion? Did people... like, were there rumors about your father or anything like that?

YI: The people didn't know, you know, and for one thing, we didn't know where he was too. So except for the people at the office, nobody knew that, you know, he was picked up.

TI: But then at the camp, you know, people saw the authorities there with your father, getting some things and then taking him away, did people wonder, like, this is the day right after that big explosion?

YI: No, because, the morning he was picked up, I think it was about seven o'clock that, you know, I mean, I was surprised that they knew where he was working for and thing, right, to pick him up. My sister was home and my sister was a office worker for the plantation, so she was still home. Other than my father opening up the place and superintendents that, you know, had to pick up paper or stuff, nobody else was there.

TI: Okay, so no one really saw what happened. Okay, with them taking your father away, he was like one of the main bread winners for the family, did people help your family after they took your father away?

YI: No, no, it wasn't necessary because my sister was already working and then I went to work.

TI: Your mother was still doing her work?

YI: No, by then I guess she didn't have to already.

TI: Okay. Then after the war is over, you know, they released your father in September 1945, did he look any different when he came out? I mean, how was he when he was released?

YI: No, he didn't look any different. I don't remember really that day except in that, see, they were released because the war ended, they bombed Hiroshima --

TI: In August 1945 and then a month later, September, he was released.

YI: So I guess they released him and they closed the camp. So the camp probably has been closed then from that day, you know, they had no use for it. So whatever that was there, people must have gone in and taken the building apart and then taken the lumber and stuff like that.

TI: Okay, you know, in August 1945, you know, they dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, your mother and father were from Hiroshima-ken, did they have family that was affected?

YI: Yeah, actually my mother's half-brother's family was affected. My uncle was a postmaster but he was postmaster for Okayama, which is a neighboring prefecture, but my aunt and my... I have three cousins, the youngest died because they were exposed to the radiation, much later though, but my cousin died when she was about forty-five, before fifty because she was a child. She was the only child at home, the others were relocated, school kids relocated, and I was told that the blast, they were out in the yard and the blast blew them into the house and then they got thrown against the wall. So eventually she died of leukemia and my aunt too eventually, you know, she got all kind of problems and she died.

TI: So in the camp, you know, when the atomic happened, you know, there were others who from Hiroshima-ken, what happened, was there a lot of talk about that or concern about the bomb and what happened?

YI: You know, I think they kept it quiet, you know, I don't think we knew about it. Was there some, I mean, you people researched it but they didn't make it known that they dropped bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

TI: So there's nothing in the papers? I haven't done the research if there's anything in terms of --

YI: I don't think so that I can find.

TI: So still sort of top secret, the atomic bomb. So people didn't really know what happened for a while, until later.

YI: And then you know, by then because of the war, I think most of us all lost communication with Japan, I think so.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.