<Begin Segment 13>

KL: Do you, I wondered, you mentioned that you were kind of reluctant to visit Hiroshima because of your experiences at Manzanar. Do you remember, you were really young, but do you recall getting news of the atomic bombs being deployed?

KP: Oh, yeah, yeah. But I don't remember thinking, I just thought how horrible it was that those people had to die like that. It was just horrible. But when we visited, when we actually visited Hiroshima, the biggest memory of mine going into that museum there, it was very well done, and there were a lot of Japanese people there. And I didn't want to look 'em in the eye, that's the way I felt. But there was a cement step, like had been in a building, and it had a gray stain on it where a human body had been melted from the bomb, and that's what it said. And I just went, I was just completely horrified how the power of that bomb, what it would do, it was really awful. So that's why I didn't want to go there in the first place, but we did see the bombed out building that's still there, the framework, at Hiroshima. But we did, we took the train down from Tokyo and visited Kyoto and the shrines and the beautiful churches and shrines that they have down in there. So we had that side of it, too, in Japan.

KL: Do you remember news of -- this may be a silly question -- but what do you remember about news of Victory in Europe day, or Victory in Japan day?

KP: I don't remember very much about it because I was just too young. The impact of just being grateful that the boys could come home, my uncles could come home, I knew how many people had died. You just go on with your life, that's all you can do. We were having enough trouble, enough struggle on our own without thinking about the big pictures, I guess, just surviving.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.