Dead Letter Room

In many ways, despite their background against mass carnage on enormous scales the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki constituted something entirely new. The earlier fire bombing of Tokyo had likely killed more people (mostly civilians the vast majority of whom burned alive). But it was Hiroshima and Nagasaki that became etched into Japan’s consciousness in ways that are almost impossible to describe. A combination of factors might have contributed to what unfolded. To begin with, until the end of the US occupation of Japan in 1952, photographs from Hiroshima or Nagasaki could not be published (while US photographers extensively documented the aftermath in both cities — which fact we will come back to). Given the country’s history, the Japanese were used to large fires destroying their cities (often as direct consequences of major earthquakes). But two cities wiped off the face of the Earth literally in an instant? And there were the survivors (hibakusha in Japanese), many of…