Hiroshima Survivor Shares Her Story 80 Years Later

When the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, eleven-year-old Kazuko Blake was sitting at her desk in sixth grade, about a mile and a half from ground zero.

A bright flash filled her classroom at Funairi Elementary School. The ground shook violently. A ceiling tile struck her back, and when she looked up, the floor had disappeared.

"I was thinking 'I have to get out,' and I crawled out to the hallway," Kazuko recalled during a recent presentation at the Case-Halstead Library in Carlyle, Illinois. Her mother ran to the school playground and grabbed her hand, pulling her home through the devastation.

For 11 days, Kazuko and her family lived in the backyard bomb shelter her engineer father had built. Their house was destroyed, but they survived.

For decades after, Kazuko didn't talk about that day. She married U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Albert Blake, moved to America, became a citizen, and raised three children in the Washington D.C. area. The memories stayed locked away.

Everything changed in 2011 when her granddaughter called from college. She was taking a Japanese culture class and needed to write a paper. Would her grandmother be willing to share her story?

Kazuko said yes. Her daughter Sandra Vega flew to Dallas to record the interview, and the professor immediately recognized its importance. "That was quite an experience and it should be documented," he told them.

Why This Inspires

Kazuko's willingness to finally share her story shows the power of preserving history through personal testimony. In 2019, she returned to Japan for the first time in 62 years and visited the Hiroshima Peace Museum. She was surprised to discover that the city actively works to keep the memory alive, not bury it.

"She thought of it as an event that everyone would like to forget about," Sandra said. That visit inspired them to complete the memoir together.

Now 92, Kazuko lives in O'Fallon, Illinois, where she still gardens, cooks, and practices Ikebana, the centuries-old Japanese art of floral arranging. Her book, "Kazuko: Sixth Grade in World War II Hiroshima," co-authored with Sandra, is available at local bookstores.

Her story reminds us that the most important histories are often carried in the hearts of ordinary people who lived through extraordinary moments.