E02U, Richard Davidson ‘94, Hiroko Suzuki, Grandmother, 1926, Ibaraki
I talked to my maternal grandmother in November 1992, to find out more about her experiences during World War II.
Q: How old were you during the last year of World War II?
A: I was just a little older than you—I was 19 years old.
Q: What was the situation like, and how did you respond to it?
A: There was always a great amount of tension, and I always felt afraid. Everyone wore a bōsai-zukin (cloth emergency helmet) over their heads all the time, even while we slept. I left Tōkyō and went to Ibaraki. All of the children and young women were sent to the countryside. During the firebombing of Tōkyō in March 1945, the sky was lit up with red flames all night, and I was able to see it even from Ibaraki.
Q: How much food was there for you and the other people to eat?
A: There was not enough food, but the situation wasn’t as bad as for the people who stayed in the city. Everybody in the countryside had to help each other, and we cultivated some farmland near the forests and grew sweet potatoes there. There was not enough rice, so we even ate the vines of the sweet potatoes. We ate anything we could find, even insects.
Q: How did you feel about the Americans, and about the other Japanese?
A: I had nothing against either nationality, but I was upset that people had to sacrifice their lives for the country. People were dying “for the country” (o-kuni no tame ni) against their will.
Q: What was the meaning of the war to you, then and now?
A: War to me then was a time of total fear and anger. No one had any rights, nor were they allowed to express their opinions. People were forced to think only of how to be loyal to their country. We were forced by our own government. I felt almost like a slave, in a way, or as if I were in a concentration camp. If we spoke even a single complaint against the Emperor or the country, we would lose our heads. There was more fear towards our own country than towards the enemy. I felt like running away to a place where there was peace, even if that place did not exist.
War to me now is a bad nightmare. It’s something that I never want to go through again, nor should anyone else. War makes everyone distrust each other and brings total sadness to everyone who lost their trust. You lose your friends and lose your family. War takes away everything that’s important. I only feel hatred towards war, not to the people who fought in it, but war itself. It results in nothing but sadness.