To Father Kleinsorge, an Occidental, the silence in the grove by the river, where hundreds of gruesomely wounded suffered together, was one of the most dreadful and awesome phenomena of his whole experience. The hurt ones were quiet; no one wept, much less screamed in pain; no one complained; none of the many who died [...]
Entries Tagged as 'History'
Culture in Crisis – “Hiroshima” – John Heresy
December 1st, 2011 · No Comments · Hiroshima, History, Japan, Nuclear Weapons, Uncategorized, War, WW2
Tags:Hiroshima·Japan·Nuclear Weapons·WW2
Flash Burns – “Hiroshima” – John Heresy
November 30th, 2011 · No Comments · Hiroshima, History, Japan, Nuclear Weapons, War, WW2
He was the only person making his way into the city; he met hundreds and hundreds who were fleeing, and every one of them seemed to be hurt in some way. The eyebrows of some were burned off and skin hung from their faces and hands. Others, because of pain, held their arms up as [...]
Doctors in Crisis – “Hiroshima” – John Heresy
November 30th, 2011 · No Comments · Hiroshima, History, Japan, Nuclear Weapons, War, WW2
In a city of two hundred and forty-five thousand, nearly a hundred thousand people had been killed or doomed at one blow; a hundred thousand more were hurt. At least ten thousand of the wounded made their way to the best hospital in town, which was altogether unequal to such a trampling, since it had [...]
Tags:Hiroshima·Japan·Nuclear Weapons·WW2
The Consequences of an Attack on a Civilian Population – “Hiroshima” – John Heresy
November 30th, 2011 · No Comments · Hiroshima, History, Japan, Nuclear Weapons, War, WW2
The lot of Drs. Fujii, Kanda, and Machii right after the explosion—and, as these three were typical, that of the majority of the physicians and surgeons of Hiroshima—with their offices and hospitals destroyed, their equipment scattered, their own bodies incapacitated in varying degrees, explained why so many citizens who were hurt went untended and why [...]
Tags:Hiroshima·Nuclear Weapons·WW2
Children’s Questions – “Hiroshima” – John Heresy
November 29th, 2011 · No Comments · Hiroshima, History, Japan, Nuclear Weapons, War, WW2
The children were silent, except for the five-year-old, Myeko, who kept asking questions: “Why is it night already? Why did our house fall down? What happened?” Mrs. Nakamura, who did not know what had happened (had not the all-clear sounded?), looked around and saw through the darkness that all the houses in her neighbourhood had [...]
Tags:Hiroshima·Nuclear Weapons·WW2
Introducing “Hiroshima” – John Heresy
November 29th, 2011 · No Comments · Ethics, Hiroshima, History, Japan, Journalism, Nuclear Weapons, The Media, WW2
The following note appeared in the NEW YORKER of 31 August, 1946. as an introduction to John Hersey’s article: The NEW YORKER this week devotes its entire editorial space to an article on the almost complete obliteration of a city by one atomic bomb, and what happened to the people of that city. It does [...]
Tags:Hiroshima·Nuclear Weapons·WW1
Influential Journalism – “Hiroshima” – John Heresy
November 29th, 2011 · No Comments · Hiroshima, History, Japan, Journalism, Nuclear Weapons, The Media, War, WW2
It created a first-order sensation in American journalistic history: a few hours after publication the issue was sold out. Applications poured in for permission to serialise the story in other American journals, among them the New York Herald Tribune, Washington Post, Chicago Sun, and Boston Globe. A condensed version—the cuts personally approved by Hersey—was broadcast [...]
Tags:Hiroshima·journalism·WW2
Picnicking at Hiroshima – “Hiroshima” – John Heresy
November 28th, 2011 · No Comments · Hiroshima, History, Japan, Journalism, Nuclear Weapons, The Media, WW2
From the Foreword: On August 31st, 1946, Hersey’s story was made public. For the first time in The New Yorker’s career an issue appeared which, within the familiar covers, bearing—for such covers are prepared long in advance—a picnic scene, carried no satire, no cartoons, no fiction, no verse or smart quips or shopping notes: nothing [...]
The Limitations of Non-Violent Resistance – Reflections on Gandhi from “Fifty Orwell Essays” – George Orwell
November 17th, 2011 · No Comments · Extremism, History, Ideology, India, Non-Violence, Pacifism, Totalitarianism
At the same time there is reason to think that Gandhi, who after all was born in 1869, did not understand the nature of totalitarianism and saw everything in terms of his own struggle against the British government. The important point here is not so much that the British treated him forbearingly as that he [...]
The Horrors of Pacifism – “Reflections on Gandhi” from “Fifty Orwell Essays” – George Orwell
November 17th, 2011 · No Comments · Extremism, History, Ideology, India, Non-Violence, Pacifism, War, WW2
Gandhi was asked a somewhat similar question in 1938 and that his answer is on record in Mr. Louis Fischer’s GANDHI AND STALIN. According to Mr. Fischer, Gandhi’s view was that the German Jews ought to commit collective suicide, which “would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler’s violence.” After the [...]
Tags:absolutism·extremism·pacifism·war·WW2
