D03, Eika Ōtake ‘91, Nirō Ōtake, Grandfather, 1931, Tōkyō
In November 1989, I interviewed my paternal grandfather about World War II. He was born in 1931 and is now 58 years old.
Q: How old were you when the war broke out?
A: I was about ten years old then, I think.
Q: Where did you live then?
A: I lived in Tōkyō.
Q: Who were your family members?
A: My father, my mother, my brother, and a goat.
Q: What were their jobs?
A: My father was an English teacher and headmaster of a school. My mother was a housewife, and my brother was a middle school student.
Q: What were you doing every day?
A: I went to school when I could, but after the bombing started, I spent most of my time running away from fire bombs. I escaped into the shelter that we built in our garden and spent time there. There were usually announcements from the local government to go to the shelter when there was danger from bombing. Then my house burned down. The houses around ours were saved, but MY house burned down, and I don’t know why!
Q: Did you see a lot of dead people lying on the streets?
A: It was not like Hiroshima. The bombing was not the same. The Americans were trying to burn houses and buildings and cause us trouble. If we were slow to run away, though, we might get killed.
Q: Weren’t you scared?
A: No, not really, because I was inside the shelter all the time.
Q: Did your father or brother die because of the war?
A: They died when I was 18, after the war ended. My father died of a disease on a Tuesday, and on the next Tuesday, my brother died of the same disease.
Q: Is there anything else that you want to add?
A: I think many people have an image of the war in Japan being just like the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. If I were living in Hiroshima, I’m sure that I wouldn’t have survived. I might not be here talking with you about it. Thank God that I was living in Tōkyō instead. If there is another war, I don’t think anyone will survive. What would happen if everything goes wrong?