" The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again...every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably."
- Walter Benjamin
Recently I tried to obtain on the net some info about Hiroshima and Nagasaki A bomb explosion. What struck me as very curious is that is virtually impossible to find any authentic images either of hibakusha (Japanese name for A bomb victims) or actual destruction.
If you go on a Google search with Hiroshima/victims/images you get plenty of links but very soon you realize that every single of these sites have been removed.
Could this be a coincidence? I don't think so, especially in the light of the following:
"Until the mid-1950s, the vast majority of Americans had little or no idea what victims of the A bomb, those the Japanese called hibakusha actually looked like. During the seven years of the Occupation of Japan , the US State Department made sure that all images of atomic survivors were immaculately scrubbed from popular media. In May 1955, the State Department's worst fears materialized. This was the month in which twenty-five young female hibakusha from Hiroshima came to the United States for reconstructive surgery on their disfigured faces and bodies. The young women, who became known as the "Hiroshima Maidens," lived in the New York City metropolitan area for eighteen months."
Is someone still taking care that this biggest crime on the state level in the history of humanity is erased from collective conscience as if it never happened?!
Only recently did I become aware how distorted is the perception of the western world about all the circumstances which precluded deployment of A bombs.
I did not grow up in USA, still the history that was taught in my school stated that A bomb was necessary to end the WWII.
I am quite sure history is taught in this way pretty much everywhere in the world these days.
USA is portrayed as the savior of the world which had no other choice but to use this last measure in order to put en end to the war. In most of the sources you will find that authors are going to great lengths trying to justify this barbaric act by the figures of the American soldiers that perished during the war. As if this wasn't enough, most of these authors also claim that targeting of civilians was common practice during the WWII.
But those who seek further can still easily find accounts like these:
Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in his memoir The White House Years:
"In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives."
Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman:
"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender."
Historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's research has led him to conclude that the atomic bombings themselves were not even the principal reason for capitulation. Instead, he contends, it was the swift and devastating Soviet victories in Manchuria that forced the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945
The list could go on and on but I actually wanted to point out interesting aspect of the whole thing.
Not even an event as big as this one ( directly and indirectly there were approximately 250 000 people dead in course of 6 months)
is too large for psychopaths to cover it up. 60 years after and it seems they are doing a pretty good job.
and this is a scary thought indeed...
O yes, in case u wondering the title of the thread is the title of french movie from 1959, the only western film I know of that deals with Hiroshima/Nagasaki tragedy and not in a direct way
- Walter Benjamin
Recently I tried to obtain on the net some info about Hiroshima and Nagasaki A bomb explosion. What struck me as very curious is that is virtually impossible to find any authentic images either of hibakusha (Japanese name for A bomb victims) or actual destruction.
If you go on a Google search with Hiroshima/victims/images you get plenty of links but very soon you realize that every single of these sites have been removed.
Could this be a coincidence? I don't think so, especially in the light of the following:
"Until the mid-1950s, the vast majority of Americans had little or no idea what victims of the A bomb, those the Japanese called hibakusha actually looked like. During the seven years of the Occupation of Japan , the US State Department made sure that all images of atomic survivors were immaculately scrubbed from popular media. In May 1955, the State Department's worst fears materialized. This was the month in which twenty-five young female hibakusha from Hiroshima came to the United States for reconstructive surgery on their disfigured faces and bodies. The young women, who became known as the "Hiroshima Maidens," lived in the New York City metropolitan area for eighteen months."
Is someone still taking care that this biggest crime on the state level in the history of humanity is erased from collective conscience as if it never happened?!
Only recently did I become aware how distorted is the perception of the western world about all the circumstances which precluded deployment of A bombs.
I did not grow up in USA, still the history that was taught in my school stated that A bomb was necessary to end the WWII.
I am quite sure history is taught in this way pretty much everywhere in the world these days.
USA is portrayed as the savior of the world which had no other choice but to use this last measure in order to put en end to the war. In most of the sources you will find that authors are going to great lengths trying to justify this barbaric act by the figures of the American soldiers that perished during the war. As if this wasn't enough, most of these authors also claim that targeting of civilians was common practice during the WWII.
But those who seek further can still easily find accounts like these:
Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote in his memoir The White House Years:
"In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives."
Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman:
"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender."
Historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's research has led him to conclude that the atomic bombings themselves were not even the principal reason for capitulation. Instead, he contends, it was the swift and devastating Soviet victories in Manchuria that forced the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945
The list could go on and on but I actually wanted to point out interesting aspect of the whole thing.
Not even an event as big as this one ( directly and indirectly there were approximately 250 000 people dead in course of 6 months)
is too large for psychopaths to cover it up. 60 years after and it seems they are doing a pretty good job.
and this is a scary thought indeed...
O yes, in case u wondering the title of the thread is the title of french movie from 1959, the only western film I know of that deals with Hiroshima/Nagasaki tragedy and not in a direct way
