Foreign Priest Who Treated and Nursed Many A-bomb Survivors
Klaus Luhmer
Father Luhmer was born in 1917 in Cologne, Germany. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1935 and came to Japan in 1937. He spent most of his time in Tokyo, but as the air raids intensified, he evacuated to Hiroshima at the beginning of January 1945.
Father Luhmer (then, 28) was exposed to the atomic bomb at the Nagatsuka novitiate. Father Hugo Lassalle and others were in Nobori-cho. Father Luhmer carried them on a stretcher to Nagatsuka and treated them. At the novitiate he worked with Prior Pedro Arrupe to treat and care for many survivors. In 1947 he returned to Tokyo to become a school teacher. Father Luhmer said “The universal sentiment opposing war and longing for peace must be nurtured from childhood, not after they have become adults.” He dedicated his life to peace education and passed away in 2011.
Courtesy of F. J. Mohr
Diary from August 1945
On August 18, after the bombing situation had calmed down, Father Luhmer wrote in his diary about the situation at the time of the bombing.
On August 24, he wrote about the funeral mass that was held on the 16th.
Collection of F. J. Mohr
Special Overseas Student from the South
Abdul Razak
Abdul Razak during his time in Hiroshima University of Literature and Science
1945
Courtesy of Dzulkifi Abdul Razak
Abdul Razak was born in 1925 in Penang, Malaya (now, Malaysia). In 1944, he arrived in Japan as a ‘special overseas student from the south’ and entered Hiroshima University of Literature and Science in the following year.
During the Pacific War, to promote its Great East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, Japan invited foreign students at the government’s expense. Scholarships were offered to students from mainland China (selected students from China) and to students from Southeast Asia (special students from the south). Hiroshima University of Literature and Science and Hiroshima Higher Normal School were accepting foreign students each year. Razak (then, 20) was exposed to the atomic bomb while attending a lecture in the campus building in Higashi-senda-machi. He returned to the Konan Dormitory in Ote-machi to rescue other foreign students who he studied together with. Of the 21 foreign students like Razak in Hiroshima, eight died.
After returning to his country, he taught Malay, and since 1982 has been involved with Japanese language education. Having experienced the horror and suffering of the atomic bombing, Razak longs for a peaceful world without war.
American Prisoners of War Who Died in Detention Centers
Plaque to commemorate American soldiers
killed by the atomic bomb
Moto-machi
James Ryan
Toward the end of the war, low-ranked American soldiers captured in the Chugoku region were detained at three different locations - Chugoku Military Police Headquarters, Infantry First Reserve Base, and Chugoku Regional Military Headquarters.
James Ryan (then, 20) became a prisoner of war when the airplane that he was piloting was shot down. He was held in Chugoku Military Police Headquarters where he experienced the atomic bombing and died.
At the time of the bombing, Ryan was one of 12 American prisoners of war in Hiroshima; all of them died.
