Toshiko Saiki

Toshiko Saiki (, ; 24 December 19193 October 2017) was a Japanese anti-nuclear activist. A survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, she was known as the "guardian of the Atomic Bomb Memorial Tower" and the "Great Mother of Hiroshima" due to the years she spent voluntarily cleaning the Atomic Bomb Memorial Tower at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, which housed the unclaimed remains of atomic bomb victims. In addition, Saiki provided testimonies as a hibakusha to contribute to the anti-nuclear movement, as well as the peace movement.

Early life and marriage Saiki was born on 24 December 1919 in Midorii, a village in what is now the Asaminami-ku ward of Hiroshima. She was the sixth child born to Japanese paper makers, with two older brothers and three older sisters. In 1927, Saiki's younger sister was born.

In 1939, Saiki married and moved to Hakushima Kyukencho in Hiroshima; she had her first son in 1941. Following the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1943, her husband was deployed to China. Shortly afterwards, Saiki left her son to be cared for by her sister-in-law in Otsuka, a village on the outskirts of Hiroshima, while she moved in with her mother in Hirose Motomachi.

Following the end of World War II in 1945, Saiki continued to in Hiroshima with her husband, who returned from China; they had a second son in 1947. Saiki was exposed to residual radiation due to the time she spent in Hiroshima in the immediate aftermath of the bombing; she suffered from temporary ill health, including all of her teeth falling out, requiring dentures, and leukopenia, following which her weight dropped to 28 kilograms. At that time, there was no medical assistance provided for hibakusha, and Saiki could not afford medical care. In 1953, following the birth of her third son, Saiki was found to have cancer in several of her organs, and required surgery to remove her ovaries and stomach.

Activism Atomic Bomb Memorial Tower In 1955, the Atomic Bomb Memorial Tower was completed at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. It was built to bury the unclaimed bodies of people killed during the atomic bombing. Initially, it did not receive many visitors, and became overgrown with weeds. Saiki began to visit the park daily in order to clean the tower, including sweeping away fallen leaves, weeding, and tending to flowers that had been left at the tower. Due to the frequency in which Saiki was seen cleaning the memorial, many members of the public assumed she was employed by the city as a cleaner.

The journey from Saiki's home to the memorial took around an hour by bus. While cleaning the memorial, Saiki wore mofuku, a traditional black mourning dress. On the sixth day of every month, Saiki invited a monk to perform a memorial service in front of the tower on the monthly anniversaries of the bombing; the previous night, she would light candles beside the tower and hold a tsuya, a Buddhist ceremony held prior to a funeral.

Identification of bodies In 1970, Saiki was given access to the ossuary, containing the remains of 70,000 people located beneath the memorial and asked if she would clean it in addition to the tower. The ossuary included a notebook containing the names of the identified deceased whose bodies had not been claimed by their families. Saiki began to attempt to make contact with the families of unclaimed victims by identifying details such as surnames and contacting people in phone books with the same name. In the first six months, Saiki was able to get ten bodies claimed by their families; her husband would transport her to the homes of families, while her children picked up household chores in her absence.

As more remains were claimed by their families, criticism of the government of Hiroshima for its "negligence" concerning the management of bodies increased, including newspaper articles stating that Saiki was doing the work that "the city should be doing". Public pressure led to local authorities in Hiroshima in 1975 publishing the list of people whose bodies were interred at the memorial, and posting them out to cities, towns and villages in Hiroshima Prefecture. While the initial response to Saiki's writing was muted, it later came to the attention of the Atomic Bomb Literature Reading Group , which in 1972 published her notes in the form of a magazine entitled Watching the Deaths of Thirteen People . The magazine was popular, which drew greater public attention to Saiki; some schools incorporated her writings into their curriculum. The Atomic Bomb Literature Reading Group's subsequent presence in Tokyo led to her becoming more known outside of Hiroshima, with some Tokyo schools starting school trips to visit Hiroshima.

While her public profile as a hibakusha grew, Saiki did not join any survivor groups or political movements; she publicly stated the Japanese government had never apologised for the deaths of her family members during the war, and added that she wanted to think for herself and not as part of a group. As a result, some members of the anti-nuclear movement and survivor groups described her as "unfriendly".

Other memorials In 1977, Saiki participated in a project in which roof tiles damaged in the bombing where collected from the Motoyasu River. In 1981, Saiki collected buttons from the Motoyasu River from the school uniforms of students who had jumped into the river after being burned in the bombing, building a memorial shrine at the river.

Later life and death In 1988, Saiki's husband died.

In 1998, Saiki experienced a stroke which prevented her from going out and also impacted her speaking; she was unable to continue her daily visits to the Atomic Bomb Memorial Tower and giving talks. She did continue to provide testimonies to people who visited her at her home, where she was recuperating.

By 2016, Saiki was unable to walk and had lost sight in both of her eyes, and was living in a nursing home in Higashi-ku. She continued to be visited, including by outlets such as NHK, and she stated in one of her last interviews "humans are making things that kill humans. I want this kind of foolishness to end with just us. If you want to know about Hiroshima, please visit the memorial tower. Come and listen to the words of the dead. That is my wish". The following year, she featured in a segment of NHK General TV's Ohayo Journal entitled "Do You Know About War? A Message to Children" . Saiki's testimony was featured again in the 1997 documentary Let's Meet Again , which was aired by the Asahi Broadcasting Corporation. The work was featured in a 2008 exhibition of original art inspired by the bombings at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

In 1994, students at Kochi Municipal Fourth Elementary School put on a performance based on Saiki's life, entitled There's No Age Limit in Hiroshima . Between 1996 and 1998, schools in Osaka, moved by Saiki's testimony, raised 320, 000 JPY, which was used for memorial services for victims of the bombing, as well as for peace work.

In 2000, after ill-health prevented Saiki from speaking publicly, Ikuo Teranishi, a former civil servant, began performing There's No Age Limit in Hiroshima. By 2018, Den no Kai, a group comprising Teranishi and three others, regularly performed the piece. They also perform another piece about Saiki's life, entitled Great Mother of Hiroshima, performed since 2001, including annual performances outside the Atomic Bomb Memorial Tower on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

In 2015, Keiko Horikawa published The Atomic Bomb Memorial Tower: 70 Years of Forgotten Remains , chronicling both the life of Saiki as well as the Atomic Bomb Memorial Tower. It won the Grand Prize in the Grassroots Democracy category at the 15th Ishibashi Tanzan Memorial Journalism Awards from Waseda University, as well as Best Book at the 2016 Soichi Oya Nonfiction Awards. It was also given a Special Prize by the Japan National Press Club.

In August 2022, the Hiroshima Fieldwork Executive Committee, a citizens group, published a compilation of Saiki's work, entitled Continuing to Protect the Atomic Bomb Surviving Relics: The Testimony of Toshiko Saiki .