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SS: And then when we got on the plane, not the plane but the train and the train was dirty and just packed. Just packed. You couldn't even go to the toilet or anything so when the train stopped at the stations, people used to jump out the window and do their duty and jump back. And then, when we reached Hiroshima... nothing. The old fukuya was partially, just barely standing and then, the dome that is now the shrine, the main part of, were the only two buildings up. Can you picture Hiroshima? With just those two? And then, after we got off... we walked all the way to my mom's father's house because the Okada side had nothing we had to go Kawasaki. And when we got to Grandpa's place... because Grandpa also evacuated, because he lived in Yokohama. And when the war started and it started to get bombed and all, he thought it would be safer to take his family back to Hiroshima, his second family. And... when we got there, I remember Grandpa's youngest sister saying that we were bakatare, for coming back to that place because they had no food, and everything was haikyuu rationed. Rice...

DG: This was winter?

SS: Winter... right...

DG: '46.

SS: '46. Yeah, January. Somehow, we were always being sent in January, right? And then, when we got there well Grandpa said -- Grandpa's house had only one room and the little room and the kitchen. So Grandpa and his second family slept in this big room and my mom, my dad and I in the other one. And... then we had to go and register so that we got our portion of the food and then my Grandpa's sister was one of those who rationed off. And I remember she said, "Oh tonight we're all going to have noodles," because that's what they got for the haikyuu. And then I think that's what they call ration, haikyuu? I think. And she (boiled some) noodles and she put it in the zaru, that bamboo colander, and she was kind of cooling it off, and she turned and when the other people came she was giving them the haikyuu and a dog came and started to eat the noodles. She just got so upset because she said, "There's hardly any food I don't have food to feed the dog and I don't know where this dog came from." [Laughs] But that's how bad the food situation was in Japan. And fortunately because we spoke English, I went to apply for a job as a secretary for the CIC in Hiro, Hiroshima.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.