Chieko Watanabe (Nagasaki, 1928–1993) In the summer 1945, Chieko Watanabe (age 16) was mobilized to work at Mitsubishi Electric as a member of Student Patriotic Corps. She was trapped under a fallen beam of the factory, which paralyzed the lower part of her body. Whenever she gave in to despair, it was her mother, also a hibakusha, who always encouraged and inspired her to live on. We should be the last to suffer from atomic bombs. I ask you, people of the world, please make joint efforts to abolish all atomic and hydrogen bombs. And with your help, we hope to achieve a world without these weapons as soon as possible, when we can say, “We are glad to have survived till today.” — Quoted from the appeal by Ms. Watanabe Chieko, at the Second World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, 1956. Chieko joins in the World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs with her friend’s help in Nagasaki, August 1975. Photograph by Kikujiro Fukushima, Courtesy of Kyodo News. Chieko distributes leaflets in a downtown area: “Let us make Nagasaki the last victim city of atomic bombing.” Photograph by Haruo Kurosaki, 1984.
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