Pictures from a Hiroshima Schoolyard

ANNOUNCER: Pictures from a Hiroshima Schoolyard is made possible in part by... United States-Japan Foundation... Susan Nordeen... Pan Asian Association...

PanAmerican-PanAfrican Association... and by the following... A complete list of funders is available at aptonline.org [Shuffling] EMILY DYER: Here's the box.

LITTLE GIRL NARRATOR: The people of All Souls Church are the keepers of a treasure.

REVEREND ROB HARDIES: Here they are.

LITTLE GIRL: Pictures.

EMILY DYER: Now, can you see the image well enough?

LITTLE GIRL NARRATOR: It was later discovered that these drawings were made by the children of Honkawa Elementary School in Hiroshima, Japan, two years after their city was decimated by a single bomb.

They were given to the children of All Souls in 1948, in gratitude for donations received after a bitter war.

The pictures were aging, fragile, and fading.

So the people of All Souls had them restored.

Their vibrant colors were made bright again, as bright as they were on the day the Hiroshima school children brought them to life, so that their message of hope could be passed on.

[Church bell tolling] REVEREND ROB HARDIES: I can't remember the first time I actually saw them.

The first time I really kind of made a connection with them when I was the pastor here, though, was um, I had gone away for a summer, uh for my kind of summer vacation and come back.

And folks at the church told me this story.

They said, this funny thing happened this summer, Rob.

There was a bus load of Japanese tourists who just kind of pulled up outside the church and knocked on the door and said, are you the church with the you know, with the children's drawings?

JUDITH BAUER: I had seen drawings by children who were affected by war before.

And they're usually dark.

Um, it's usually a lot of uh, erratic movement in the drawings.

These were colorful, lots of round things you know, round being sort of a way of perfection.

So they're full of color.

They're full of joyful scenes.

There is no sadness in these pictures.

REV.

HARDIES: I was struck by the colors, and their vibrancy, and how they spoke about- how they spoke to the flourishing of life rather than the destruction of life.

The drawings are a reminder... of the ways in which... human beings can reach out to each other and and re-establish human relationship when that relationship has been broken.

[Dramatic drums] [Plane motor roars] [Crashing] [Battle cry in Japanese] [Missiles whistling] [Bombs exploding] [Whistling and explosions] [Typing] [Speaking in Japanese] [Cicadas] [Plane engine] [Children talking and laughing] [Speaking Japanese] [Gong] [Gong repeats] [Repeating Gong] [Hypnotic Drumbeat] [Hypnotic drumbeat] [Chanting] [Speaking in Japanese] [Church Organ] [Singing] This is my song, O God of all the nations, A song of peace... PAUL PFEIFFER: When the bomb was dropped, there was great relief.

We felt at last we're safe.

At last we could return.

We didn't know much about it, except that it was an extremely effective weapon.

And we were- we were elated because the war was now over when the final bomb was dropped.

And we could stop this- you know, useless killing.

We were not- we weren't raised to be killers, and it w- did not come easily.

I was only- I had one kill.

I didn't kill directly, but I was a cog in a very effective killing machine.

And I resent that.

I resent that that was necessary.

And I felt it was.

So, we were glad that the war was over.

BAUER: When VE day came, that was the end of the war in Germany, and there was jubilation.

I mean, there was great jubilation.

And everybody was throwing confetti and dancing in the streets.

I remember uh, the end of the war in Japan.

And I remember no cheering about the dropping of the bombs.

I remember a very subdued kind of reaction to the end of the war.

And I think that a lot of it was that um, people we knew understood the enormity of what had happened.

[Singing] PFEIFFER: In 1945, A. Powell Davies was the minister of All Souls Church.

Davies was horrified by the dropping of the bombs.

He was uh, disconsolate.

He was, remote.

He left, he didn't want to talk.

MURIEL DAVIES: We were sitting on our porch, porch of the cottage in Maine, on the coast of Maine.

And we were getting ready to go on a picnic with some friends.

And then we heard the news of the dropping of the bomb.

And Powell said to me, join the rest of them and go on your picnic, but I have to stay here because I have to think about this.

This is something that is changing the world.

JANE PFEIFFER: Dr. Davies had studied a lot about atomic energy and the dangers of releasing atomic energy.

And so when this happened, he just spoke to nobody, I would say for two, three, four days or most of a week, because we didn't understand the awful implications of what it meant.

[Church choir sings] MURIEL DAVIES: 'Cause we knew everybody was trying to get the bomb, like Russia and all the other countries, and that somebody was going to drop it.

But I think he was very sad that we were- it was we who dropped it.

[Church choir singing] Come to me, come to me [Cicadas] [Eerie wind blows] STEVE LEEPER: Hiroshima completely was blown away.

Really, this what a lot of people don't get, is that everything within a 2 kilometer radius, everything that was combustible burned in that area.

And then out to about 4 kilometers, everything was destroyed, had to be rebuilt if you wanted to live in it.

So it was just this incredible blow to the city.

The kids who were going to Honkawa are in an area that has been totally blasted and burned out.

They don't have any homes.

Many of them are orphans because they had been sent off into the hills to protect them from the fire-bombings that they were expecting.

So they were out of the city and their families were here.

If their families were at home, their families were dead.

[Speaking Japanese] [Speaking Japanese] LEEPER: When they found out that this is an atomic bomb and had this new thing called radiation, no one knew what that meant.

And immediately, there was this um, rumor that nothing would grow here for 75 years.

And there was very serious talk about moving Hiroshima and having it you know, just go up and down the coast somewhere and abandon this area.

But, that didn't happen.

And it didn't happen mostly because people just came back.

And they came back worried that they were going to lose their territory, their land, if they didn't come back pretty quick.

So they came back in and they built these little shacks right in the middle of the ashes.

And they started bringing the thing back.

And even that was controversial.

Some people were saying we shouldn't allow this.

And actually, people were getting sick.

Especially until the Makurazaki Typhoon, which happened about a month after the bombing.

A little more than a month.

A lot of survivors say we were all sick and getting sicker for a month, and then the Typhoon came and cleaned out the city.

And after that, we started getting better.

LEEPER: All of this was a very uncertain time.

Are we going to rebuild this city or are we not going to rebuild this city?

And then, plants started growing.

So the people who said nothing is going to grow in 75 years were wrong.

They really got hope from these plants.

Now, they're definitely determined to rebuild the city.

[Cicadas] [Speaking Japanese] [Speaking Japanese] LEEPER: Two years after the bombing, things had changed very little.

It was a very, very harsh time in Hiroshima.

Many survivors are happy to tell you how horrible life was before and during the war.

They will tell you how horrible the bombing was and the immediate aftermath.

And then the next five years, they will not talk about because of what they had to do to survive.

They will not talk about it.

And at that time, you know you just did what you had to do to eat.

And it was not easy.

This whole area had a lot of gangsters, you know Yakuza, coming in here and taking it over because there was a lot of unprotected property.

So the Yakuza come in and claim something.

And then once they claim something, if you come back, it's very hard to get the Yakuza out because they are- they'll kill you.

So a lot of people around here lost their property to the Yakuza.

And the Yakuza maintained order.

And they would use kids to kill people.

They would use kids to steal things because the kids didn't get the same kind of punishment that adults did.

I mean, that's the kind of very wild, lawless, um... very uncivilized place this was.

And it was that way for two or three, maybe four years.

For a long time, it was a very rough place to be.

And those Honkawa kids were in the middle of it.

[Speaking Japanese] [Speaking Japanese] ROBERT FREEMAN: Well here's here's some of the Hiroshima.

How about this?

This is the article in Time magazine around, what sort of got things started.

Uh, on November 13th, Dr. Davies was giving the sort of Armistice Day sermon.

And as he- about three quarters of the way through the sermon, he held up the newspaper which had this picture in it of the uh Navy people cutting a cake in the shape of the atomic blast, and he started haranguing about this.

He said, this was in the paper this morning.

And what does this say about us as a culture?

And what would other people think about this, and this is outrageous, and so forth.

[Organ playing] [Reading of A. Powell Davies Sermon] "I have with me here in the pulpit this morning a page from a newspaper.

From a very fine newspaper.

It contains a picture.

As it seems to me, an utterly loathsome picture.

If I spoke as I feel, I would call it obscene.

It is a picture of two high Naval officers and a very beautiful lady.

They're in the act of cutting what is called an atom bomb cake.

And it is indeed, a cake shaped in the form of an atomic explosion.

The caption says it is made of tiny angel food puffs.

How would it seem in Hiroshima or in Nagasaki to know that Americans make cakes of angel food puffs in the image of that terrible, diabolical thing that brought sudden death to thousands of their friends and a lingering loathsome death to thousands of others?

If I had the authority of a priest of the Middle Ages, I would call down the wrath of God upon such an obscenity.

Such a monstrous betrayal of everything for which the broken-hearted of the world are waiting."

REV.

HARDIES: Davies during his time was really one of the most prominent progressive preachers in the country.

Um, he was also preaching at a time when the press covered what preachers said a lot more than they do now.

I mean, you know it was quite common on a Monday morning at that time for the Post to cover what the kind of big preachers in town said the day before.

You know, would that were that true today.

[Laughs] I'd give anything for that kind of press today.

BAUER: His reaction was reported even in Time magazine at the time.

And somehow, the um, his outrage was communicated to a staff member of uh General Douglas MacArthur, who wrote and said, "You know if you really want to do something to help as a result of what's happened here, uh the children have nothing in their schools.

And if the children at All Souls could just, clear out their desks and send their little leftover pencils and crayons, uh this would help."

A. Powell Davies passed it on to the religious education director, who mobilized the children.

And at some point, over went, I guess, a half ton of school supplies for uh, the children.

[Speaking Japanese] J. PFEIFFER: The young people over there were, we are told, so appreciative that, by way of thanks, they sent all the work they'd done in the spring in their art classes, or however it was taught.

PFEIFFER: Honkawa sent drawings as a as a uh, gesture of thanks.

And along with it, I think they had a couple of dolls.

And I think a scrapbook of cartoons.

It came as a great surprise here and everybody was delighted.

[Church bells toll] BAUER: We are making an effort to put this into higher consciousness within not only the congregation, but the whole city.

Uh, and hey the world.

So we had an exhibit of the enhanced reproductions in in Pierce Hall.

BAUER: My senior minister, Rob Hardies.

REV.

HARDIES: Mr.

Ambassador.

So good to have you.

JAPANESE AMBASSADOR: Thank you very much for having us.

REV.

HARDIES: We had the honor of the Japanese Ambassador to the United States actually coming to All Souls for the opening of the exhibit of the drawings.

[Children's choir singing] Building Bridges, building bridges between our divisions, I reach out to you, will you reach out to me... REV.

HARDIES: It was this beautiful, kind of multicultural service that celebrated Japanese culture as well as American culture.

[Child singing Japanese song] REV.

HARDIES: We really got a chance to tell the story in a vivid way to another generation of members of All Souls Church.

So it was a very special day.

I think it was really the day that this story was owned by this generation of the congregation.

[Murmur of crowd] BARBARA CORPREW: For the purposes of the church, it was to show the church's history and relationship and caring for these drawings that you know represented, you know a bond between the children at All Souls and these Japanese children who had suffered so much.

REV.

HARDIES: It feels like both the culmination and the beginning.

You know the culmination of you know over 50 years of this incredible story that we lost the thread of for, for so many years.

And now we've picked it up again and we're going to take it forward.

COMMITTEE SECRETARY: I move that the board of trustees supports the Hiroshima drawings project committee's July 2010 trip to Japan.

The committee will be taking 17 of the original Hiroshima drawings by Japanese... BAUER: The pictures are going back to Japan.

And they will be reunited with the um, the artists who drew them.

COMMITTEE CHAIRWOMAN: All those in favor say aye.

COMMITTEE: Aye.

CHAIRWOMAN: Opposed?

Abstained?

Passed.

And again, thank you so much.

[Applause] [Speaking in Japanese] CORPREW: It is an important journey for the entire church because it speaks to the ministry of A. Powell Davies.

It speaks to the commitment of the church at a time when people were not speaking out about what happened.

BAUER: I hope that we will form some friendships with um, with those that we meet there.

REV.

HARDIES: To come bearing these precious gifts is really exciting and feels like a real honor.

I'm really looking forward to meeting the artists, you know the children who drew the drawings.

Um... You know I'm really looking forward to being there as they're reunited for the first time with the originals, with their drawings.

I want to be part of that celebration.

You know it's that- it's that reunion where the story comes full circle.

[Speaking Japanese] [Singing] MEL HARDY: Great to meet you.

TOSHIMI ISHIDA: Great to meet you.

Thanks for bringing this picture.

Very great.

[Chuckles] [Speaking Japanese] TOSHIMI ISHIDA: My picture.

[Laughs] Shame [laughs].

[Speaking Japanese] GROUP: Okay!

[Applause] [Speaking Japanese] [Gasps] [Softly gasps] [Speaking Japanese] TOMOKO FURUSAWA: Enjoy.

We enjoyed throwing ball.

REV.

HARDIES: Yes.

Do they still play this game in Japan?

TOMOKO FURUSAWA: Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

REV.

HARDIES: A woman took me and brought me up to her painting.

And she said, "This is this is my drawing."

And up until that moment, they'd just been pictures.

And now they were people.

REV.

HARDIES: Uh huh.

Oh, it breaks open?

So you throw the small balls at the big one?

That was a really important transition for me.

Um, because that's when this became a real relationship.

[Murmur of crowd] BAUER: And we always love in Washington this little girl here who's picking a flower.

Well, it is beautiful.

And it's the excitement of seeing the whole thing, all the colors.

All the colors are there.

And seeing people look at it and realizing that people value it as much as we do.

And so we're so excited about the reception they've gotten.

TOSHIMI ISHIDA: Pencil and the crayon.

Pencil on the-- crayon on the pencil.

REV.

HARDIES: That's right.

That's right.

Pencil on the crayon, yeah.

CHARLES WOOLDRIDGE: Do- do you remember drawing?

YOSHIE FUJII: Yes.

CHARLES: You do remember?

Very good.

[Murmur of crowd] REV.

HARDIES: We now believe that as the stewards of these drawings, that it is our responsibility to continue to share this story with, with the whole world.

And so we're very honored to share that responsibility with all of you.

So thank you.

[Applause] [Speaking Japanese] [Singing bowls ring] [Children Sing] In my world Everyone's at peace There's no need for armies of men, No need for police And all of the little babes can play Outside in the garden Their bodies are safe, their minds are free, Their hearts never harden In... my world, Everything is beautiful and we're happy, All the time, and you can tell that the People want what they already have Oh all, all is well in my world Pictures from a Hiroshima Schoolyard is made possible in part by... United States-Japan Foundation... Susan Nordeen...

Pan Asian Association... PanAmerican-PanAfrican Association... and by the following... A complete list of funders is available at aptonline.org ANNOUNCER: An extended version of this film is available on DVD.

To order a copy, go to MPT.org/SHOP or call the number on the screen.