<Begin Segment 34>

EO: You've had a long journey; now you're finally in Tule Lake.

HU: Right.

EO: And now your family has joined you, so life has gotten a little bit more settled for you now. How did you hear about the end of the war?

HU: End of war? Well, end of war is, well, I decide to stay in this country. So --

EO: No, I'm sorry. How did you hear that the war had ended?

HU: Oh, I was listening to shortwave. There was a American colonel, he went to Japanese high school and graduate, he's a perfect speak on Japanese. He broadcast over the shortwave the Emperor accept the United States proposal for end of war, and he spoke in French, the Emperor Hirohito. But Colonel Zacharias speak in Japanese and explain to the broadcast over to the Japanese people in Japan so they could hear, but I hear, too. So I know Japan lost but a lot of people still believe Japan gonna win the war. I know one guy's in my neighbor, not too far from our place, he put the Japanese flag up and he said, "Japanese soldiers going to come and get us back to Japan." [Laughs] You can't talk to those people, you know. I went to work as usual, and I told a few of my friends that Japan lost the war, they surrender everything. But some people, they don't believe that. They had a pretty bad argument in Japan. Some people you can't talk to it, otherwise they're after you. Just like Brazil. But I know Japan lost the war. Just like I said a while ago, 1943, June, I know they're going to lose, matter of time.

[Interruption]

EO: Did you... you had heard, or had you heard that an atomic bomb had been dropped?

HU: Yeah, yeah.

EO: On Hiroshima?

HU: Yeah, I hear that.

[Interruption]

EO: Where did you hear -- or how did you hear -- how the war had ended?

HU: Well, I... my gosh, atomic bomb... I'm not too sure when I hear that, though. I'm not too sure. But after a while, I started communicate with Japan, I hear that because my youngest uncle was a veterinarian, you know. He lost his youngest son in Hiroshima. And used to be a lot of outside Hiroshima city, they all go to the Hiroshima for high school or higher technical school or teacher school, all those things, you know. They commute from outside by the train or bus. And youngest son has died and a lot of my villages are only about fifteen mile away from Hiroshima city. And during the wartime, there's no, hardly, young active men in the city. So they used a lot of volunteer from outside the city, village people. And we had about seventy-three or -four people went in from our village to volunteer to clean the city or there's a lot of manual work there. And almost, let's see there, almost a dozen or more been killed instantly there. And most of them get atomic radiation, they died sooner or later, none are living now. Just like her, she went back and looked for her brother or sister or somebody and she get radiation, too. So she often go back to Japan and treatment, see. So... I lost my uncle, too, in there. My aunt's husband was killed there. Quite a bit people get killed all over near Hiroshima, not only the city itself, but outside people. And right now they have those museums in atomic bomb right by the, near those building there, a big museum. I visit a few days -- a few years ago, and the head of that museum was my friend's son.

EO: When it was announced that, or when people learned that the atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, what happened in camp?

HU: Well, Japan is... well, at least the people baptized with radiation, they had a small amount insurance they paid, they'll look for, put in the hospital, take care of everything.

EO: No, but I mean in camp. Since many people --

HU: Oh, the camp, yeah.

EO: 'Cause many people were from Hiroshima or had relatives there. So what was the feeling like? What happened when people learned that that's how the war ended?

HU: Well, I guess many people, they don't know what the atomic bomb means, first of all. They don't, they got no idea, those days. And especially, those radiation, all those things they learned much later, though. That time they don't know how serious those thing is.

EO: So how did you feel when the war ended?

HU: Well, it's sad, but I think... I expect they're going to lose the war. But I didn't expect the United States gonna use atomic bomb or such a thing, because Japan is already asking for the peace through the Soviet Union. And Soviet Union is, ignored those things. They want to invade Japan. See, they, I think they act the atomic bomb drop a day or two after, Soviet Union occupied those northern islands, see. So, I don't know. When it comes to the war, nobody is God or anything. They all get cruel and mean and the devil. [Laughs]

<End Segment 34> - Copyright © 1994, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.