Messages from the Heaven of Hiroshima
Introduction: About us
This is a brief introduction to our project "Messages from the Heaven of Hiroshima. The content has been updated, so it may be a little different from the one in the following introductory video. Please read "About us" below.
About us
Introduction to Messages from the Heaven of Hiroshima
—Messages from the Heaven of Hiroshima for everlasting peace and happiness
We present these series of videos solely to show what impact the atomic bombing had
on the lives of people in Hiroshima, praying for everlasting peace and happiness for all humans. These series of accounts are from two books: One is “Hoshiwa Miteiru” (Stars Are Watching), a collection of family remembrances of their beloved boys from Hiroshima First Middle School, who died from the atomic bombing.
[History]
Hiroshima First Middle School was located about 1km from ground zero. All of its school buildings were destroyed and burned down by the atomic bomb, which claimed the lives of 359 students and 10 staff members.
The photos of the students and school in the videos are provided by the courtesy of Hiroshima First Middle School Alumni Association. However, please note that the figures in the photos are not those who are mentioned in the accounts.
We would like to express our deep gratitude for their courtesy and cooperation for this project.
The other book is from “For Those Who Pray for Peace” published by Hiroshima Jogakuin Alumni Association, in which Jogakuin students who survived the atomic bombing wrote about their real experiences.
The photos of the students in the videos of Hiroshima Jogakuin are also provided by the courtesy of Hiroshima Jogakuin and Hiroshima Jogakuin Alumni Association. However, please note that the people in the photos are not those who are mentioned in the accounts.
[History]
Hiroshima Jogakuin was located about 1.1km from the point of the explosion. All of its school buildings were destroyed and burned down by the atomic bombing, which claimed the lives of 330 students and 20 staff members.
We thank them for their courtesy and cooperation for this project.
We convey the accounts written in these two books to people all over the world,
How do we make the videos?
Our videos are made using the following five steps:
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First, we asked the copyright holders of the two books “Hosiwa Miteiru” (Stars Are Watching) and “For Those Who Pray for Peace” for the permission to use the accounts in these books for our project. These are books that collect writings by the atomic survivors in Hiroshima. They agreed that we can translate any account in these books into English and present the oral readings of the translations on YouTube. The accounts suitable for the project can be selected and shortened as we like, as long as we do not change the content of the stories.
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Second, we select accounts suitable for our project from the books and shorten them when they are too long without changing the words and sentences of the stories. We consider stories less than about seven minutes to be suitable for oral reading.
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Third, we translate them into English. One of the members, a native speaker of American English, who majored in Japanese at the graduate school of Osaka University, is in charge of the translation. A Japanese member helps him, when necessary, since the original stories contain old-fashioned expressions, and checks the translation compared with the original text.
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Fourth, some of the members practice reading the stories to understanding the content deeply, and then express them through English sound.
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Finally, we record our readings, and together with music and pictures we make videos to be uploaded to “Messages from the Heaven of Hiroshima” on YouTube.
Messengers from Hiroshima
Since March, 2022
Six members of us live in Kansai Area of Japan, two in the United States of America.
Please feel free to
ask us any questions or
tell us your thoughts
about our videos and activities.