Young Hiroshima guide keeps great-grandmother’s atomic bomb story alive

HIROSHIMA, Japan — At 13, Shun Sasaki is only a year older than his great-grandmother was when she survived the world’s first atomic bombing.

More than eight decades later, he spends his free time guiding visitors through Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and sharing the story his family once kept quiet.

Sasaki began giving the free tours when he was 7, after an early attempt to explain the park to foreign visitors exposed gaps in his knowledge.

“I was telling two foreigners about what I knew, but then they asked me lots of questions and I couldn’t answer them,” he told Stars and Stripes on Thursday, the bombing’s 81st anniversary. “So, I came back home and researched the questions, and that’s how I became a proper guide.”

Speaking confidently in English, though not always fluently, Sasaki leads visitors among the park’s memorials and keeps them engaged with multiple-choice quizzes.

Tour guide Shun Sasaki, 13, speaks near the Atomic Bomb Done in Hiroshima, Japan, Aug. 6, 1945, the 81st anniversary of the city’s atomic bombing. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)

“What kind of place do you think it was before the bomb?” he asked while standing near the city’s Atomic Bomb Dome.

The iconic feature was one of the only structures to remain standing within the bomb’s hypocenter and remains a permanently preserved ruin.

Sasaki was in fourth grade when he learned that his family was connected to the bombing. His grandfather told him about his great-grandmother, Yuriko Sasaki, who was a preteen on Aug. 6, 1945.

“She was 12 years old, alone in her house, [1 mile] away from the hypocenter when the bomb exploded,” he said. “She miraculously survived, and she wasn’t burned because she was inside her house. But she was exposed to radiation.”

She later developed breast and colon cancer but lived to age 69, he said.

Sasaki said he was shocked that he had not learned the story earlier. His grandfather explained that Yuriko had asked the family not to discuss her experience because she feared discrimination against atomic bomb survivors and their relatives.

Shun Sasaki, 13, gives a free tour of Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan, Aug. 6, 1945, the 81st anniversary of the city’s atomic bombing. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)

“I think even now, today, there’s some — just a little — discrimination against hibakusha,” Sasaki said, using the Japanese term for survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. “For example, you know, it might be hard for hibakusha to marry other people, even today.”

Despite the gravity of the subject, Sasaki said he finds joy in sharing what he has learned. He said visitors who spot him in the park are welcome to ask for a tour, but he often approaches people himself. It’s also possible to arrange a tour via his Instagram page, @miona1023go.

Sasaki hopes people from around the world will visit Hiroshima or, at minimum, learn what happened here. But he doesn’t want the city to be known only for tragedy.

“It’s not only sad stuff,” he said. “I want them to have fun in Japan and, of course, Hiroshima as well. And I want them to eat okonomiyaki. It tastes really good.”

Still, he hopes visitors make time for Peace Memorial Park.

“If they come to Hiroshima, I want them to come here,” he said. “And if they can, I want to guide them and tell them what happened.”