Oral Histories

Keiko Ogura is a hibakusha, an atomic bomb survivor. She was eight years old on August 6, 1945, when the US dropped the “Little Boy” atomic bomb on Hiroshima. She eventually married Kaoru Ogura, who served as director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and passed away in 1979. After his death, she took up the mission to spread knowledge about the bombings and keep the survivors’ stories alive.

During the 2003 exhibition of the Enola Gay, she was the official interpreter for other hibakusha. Additionally, she established the Hiroshima Interpreters for Peace and published several books, including the Hiroshima Handbook, Hiroshima Peace Park Guide, Hip’s Hiroshima Guide and One Day in Hiroshima.

In this interview, Ogura recalls the events of August 6 and how her family survived the bombing. She also discusses the long-term physical and physiological impacts she and other hibakusha suffered, as well as the social stigma of being atomic bomb survivors.

Al Zelver served as a Japanese language officer in the U.S. Army during World War II. He spent a year in Japan after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In this interview, Zelver talks about becoming a Japanese language officer, his time in the China-Burma-India Theater during the war, and seeing the ruins of Hiroshima shortly after the Japanese surrender. Zelver ruminates on the decision to drop the bombs and on the surrender itself. He recalls his time in Japan both immediately after the surrender and years later when he returned to Hiroshima to speak with the Hiroshima Peace Foundation. He reflects on the atomic bombings and nuclear proliferation today, and describes a conversation with Manhattan Project scientist Felix Bloch.