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Witness History

Hiroshima's trees of hope

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.41.6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2020

⏱️ 10 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When an atomic bomb was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945, hundreds of thousands of people were killed and injured. Despite many survivors believing nothing would grow in the city for decades, 170 trees survived close to the epicentre and are still growing 75 years later. Green Legacy Hiroshima is a project which sends seedlings from those trees around the world, spreading a message of hope. Rachael Gillman has been speaking to Teruko Ueno who survived the bombing of Hiroshima, and her daughter Tomoko Watanabe who is a co-founder of the project.

Photo: one of the trees which survived the atomic bomb. Credit BBC.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless

0:06.8

searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the

0:11.8

telly we share what we've been watching

0:14.0

Cladie Aide.

0:16.0

Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.

0:19.0

Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.

0:21.0

And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less

0:24.9

searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds.

0:31.0

You're listening to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Rachel Gilman.

0:40.0

In 2011 a group of people in Japan began sending out seedlings from trees which had survived

0:47.4

the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, as a way of spreading a message of peace and regeneration around the world.

0:54.8

The Green Legacy Hiroshima Project has its roots in August 1945,

1:00.2

when the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city in an attempt to force Japan's surrender

1:05.6

and bring an end to the Second World War.

1:08.3

Below the boiling mushroom of flame and pulverized earth, revealed here at ground level,

1:16.0

is a trail of devastation such as the world has never known. A single bomber,

1:21.0

one bomb exploding 1500 feet above the target, leaving no crater.

1:27.0

I was outside the nurse's dormitory at the hospital but then came back into the building.

1:37.0

At that very moment the nuclear bomb was dropped.

1:40.0

If I had been one step behind, I would not be here today.

1:44.0

I remember there was a light and then a sound.

1:51.0

After that, I don't know how much time passed. So many things fell on me. After

...

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