<Begin Segment 15>

EO: How did you feel when the war ended?

HK: Uh...

EO: And knowing how it ended.

HK: I felt, in a way, I felt relief that it was over. I didn't feel the, the emotions that the Issei felt. You know, they were, you didn't see them whole days or several days, they didn't come out. They were in mourning, especially when they heard the voice of the Emperor. That they were, that this was unconditional surrender. And it took them days to get over that. I didn't really feel... I thought, relief that it was over. In a way, the whole thing, in my case, was that I was a pacifist. And that I, if I had, even if I had been outside, I think I would have been a conscientious objector, because I didn't like the idea of killing. And so when the war was over, even when Roosevelt died, people went around celebrating, saying, "Hey, Roosevelt died." Well, I felt kind of sad that a great leader -- even though he had put us in camp -- had died. So, I really didn't have much feelings for Japan. I'd never known Japan.

EO: You didn't lose any family?

HK: No. Well, I had family there but, yeah, they were not in Hiroshima. On my wife's side, I guess. But I didn't know, know her then. So we went to visit the relatives and it was interesting that when I talked to the uncle, he said, "Oh, we had a very hard time. We had nothing to eat, and we ate a lot of things," he says. And I thought that said a lot. Ironna mono tabeta. But they were very grateful for packages that my mother sent after the war. And this woman, who was very successful and elegantly dressed and all that, but she said, oh, she remembers those dresses, those out-of-date dresses that my mother sent. She says, "I was, I was the only one wearing such stylish clothing." [Laughs] And the food that we sent, she sent, I guess, but they were really happy about that, and that's why they were being so nice to us now. But, and then when I went to Hiroshima, that's another story. The, her aunt's family, I guess, we were visiting, well, they were within that epicenter of the bomb. So they were A-victims, even now. And they have to go for check-ups. But the roof fell on them, and they were on the, it was a two-story house, and the roof fell. And somehow they were able to crawl out. And there were two boys and a mother, and the father was an engineer and he was away from Hiroshima, building the zeroes, so he was safe, yeah. She described the people.

EO: Oh, yeah.

HK: Yeah. It was really something.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 1992, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.