C07C, Selena Pang ‘87, Hisa Nagae, Housemaid, 1919, Tochigi, Tōkyō
I interviewed Mrs Hisa Nagae, about World War II. She kindly shared her experiences with me, and I was able to learn what those events were like for the people who actually went through them.
You are very lucky to be born in such a peaceful time. I had to go through World War II. I thought that I would not be able to live through it. I was already married and had two children. We all lived in Tōkyō, but we moved to my husband’s hometown in Tochigi. His home was a big farm. I worked so hard so that I could get plenty of food for my children.
This was the scariest moment of the war: in Tōkyō, when the warning sirens went off, we had to hide in a big hole that we dug in front of our house. As the siren blared, I carried my children and was rushing out the door, when a disabled airplane came in my direction. It swept across the top of the roof, and I thought that there was no chance of surviving it. I crouched down and then jumped into the hole. The plane barely missed us. Since our house was located on a hilltop, we were prone to these dangers. The plane crashed into someone else’s house, further down the hill. All of those people died. Later I found that the plane didn’t have a pilot in it. The pilot had jumped out of the plane.
My brother died in the war. I hate wars, because people are the ones who cause them, unlike natural phenomena like earthquakes. If people cause wars, then people can find a way to prevent them. I hope that there will be no wars any more. I am already old, but I would like to live to see the 21st century.
I was glad to be able to listen to Mrs Nagae. I learned a lot from her stories. It also makes me appreciate how lucky I am to have so far without encountering any major disasters.