Wartime Memories

Category: Uncategorized

  • Eriko Satō

    L11, Eriko Satō ‘04, Ito Muramatsu, Grandmother, 1927, Shizuoka On November 2, 2002, I interviewed my maternal grandmother by telephone. Her name is Ito Muramatsu, and she is 75 years old. She survived one of the most disastrous of all wars: World War II.  World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, which corresponds…

  • Hana Shiraishi

    R04U, Hana Shiraishi ‘16, Toshii Saitō, Family Friend, 1937, Niigata, Yokohama: Minami-ku On November 2, 2014, I had the privilege of interviewing my neighbor, who experienced life under poverty, intense hunger, and confusion as an innocent little girl unable to understand the situation during World War II. Her name is Toshii Saitō, and she was…

  • Yui Shapard

    L13U, Yui Shapard ‘04, Grandfather, 1928, Shizuoka I interviewed my grandfather, who lived through World War II. He was born on February 14, 1928, and now he is 74 years old. Q: How old were you when the war started? What are your memories of the war, or your impressions, or beliefs? A: I was…

  • Hiromu Fujino

    S01, Hiromu Fujino ‘18, Giichi Fujino, Great-grandfather, c 1906, China For my interview, I chose my father, so that he could tell me about my great-grandfather’s experiences during World War II. None of my grandparents remember much of the mid-20th century, because they were all still babies. However, my father and my grandfather still remember…

  • Pamela Bernard

    K01B, Pamela Bernard ‘02, Tomohisa Ōishi, Uncle, 1935, Yokohama: Nishi-ku, Kanagawa: Hadano-shi I interviewed Tomohisa Ōishi, who is my uncle, my mother’s oldest brother. He is 65 years old and was born in 1935.  During World War II, he lived in a place called Sengen-chō, not far from Yokohama Station in Nishi-ku. When war broke…

  • Marika Yo

    L16C, Marika Yo ‘04, Yo (Yu) Aiko, Grandmother, 1929, Ōsaka, Wakayama I interviewed my grandmother on November 9, 2002, at my house. She is 73 years old now. When the war started, my grandmother was in fifth grade. She is a Chinese who was born in Japan and has lived in Japan for her whole…

  • Umi Kobayashi

    S02, Umi Kobayashi ‘18, Naohisa Takata, Hibakusha, 1934, Hiroshima During the October school vacation, I went to Hiroshima and visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in front of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, with the Atomic Bomb Dome straight ahead of it. I had the perfect opportunity to listen to the experience of a Hibakusha,…

  • Yumi Moriguchi

    K05, Yumi Moriguchi ‘02, Fumiko Nakano, Grandmother, 1913, China, Korea, Nagasaki, Yokohama: Naka-ku On November 5, 2000, I interviewed my grandmother, Fumiko Nakano, who is 87 years old. My grandmother wasn’t directly involved in combat in World War II, because she was living in Kyūshū, but she had an interesting experience in China before the…

  • Freddie Jinzaki

    M01C, Freddie Jinzaki ‘06, Grandmother, 1936, Hyōgo My grandmother was born in 1936 and experienced the war when she was in elementary school. She lived in Kōbe, as the oldest child of her family, and she remembers quite a lot about this time period. She remembers very clearly the keihō warning sirens. There were two…

  • Miyu Kojima

    S03, Miyu Kojima ‘18, Tomō Sugisaka, Family friend, 1926, Hiroshima On November 15, 2016, I interviewed a family friend, Mr Tomō Sugisaka. He is about 90 years old. Q: What were you doing during the Second World War? A: One year before the end of the war, at around the beginning of October 1944, I…