Dr. Fujii was openly eager to learn foreign languages, such as German and English. Even though Hiroshima was bombed by the Americans, he did not grow
quite hatred toward them. He actually honored them. […] Then he heard about a vacant private clinic in Kaitachi, a
suburb to the east of Hiroshima. He bought it at once, moved there, and hung out a sign inscribed in English, in honor of the conquerors:
M. FUJII, M.D. Medical Venereal.
Quite recovered from his wounds, he soon built up a strong practice, and he was delighted, in the evenings, to receive members
of the occupying forces, on whom he lavished whiskey and practiced English.
Hersey, 1989: 78 His personality is shown clearer in the last chapter of Hersey’s Hiroshima,
‘The Aftermath’, which Hersey wrote almost four decades after the explosion. In this chapter, the narrator shows reader how Dr. Fujii really enjoyed himself. His happy-
go-lucky attitude did well for his health. Dr. Fujii suffered from none of the effects of radiation overdose.
[…] He was compassionate toward his patients, but he did not believe in working too hard. He had a dance floor installed in his
house. He bought a billiard table. He enjoyed photography and built himself a darkroom. He played mah-jongg. He loved having foreign
houseguests. At bedtime, his nurses gave him massages and, sometimes, therapeutic injections.
Hersey, 1989: 128 In 1960s, Dr. Fujii seemed different and was not as happy-go-lucky as before.
His relationship with his wife was growing difficult. In 1963, he was found unconscious in his room. For the next eleven years, he remained in the hospital, fed
through a tube for two and a half years, and then was taken home. Dr. Fujii died in 1973 under his wife’s care in home.
4.2.3.2 Dr. Terufumi Sasaki
He was twenty five years old and was a surgeon at the Red Cross Hospital when the atomic bomb incident. Dr. Sasaki personality that showed in Hersey’s
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Hiroshima was an idealist and ambitious. Many of his actions in Hersey’s Hiroshima represents those points.
Reader can tell the idealist side of Dr. Sasaki when the narrator explains the distress of Dr. Sasaki of the inadequacy of medical facilities in his country town that
made him begun visiting sick people, without a permit. He had been scolded seriously by his fellow doctor about this but nevertheless continued to practice. In the
morning before the bomb was dropped, he hesitated to go to work because he felt sluggish and slightly feverish. But his sense of duty finally forced him to go.
At the moment when the atomic bomb was dropped, Dr. Sasaki was one step beyond an open window and immediately ducked down on one knee. Miraculously,
he was untouched. He found himself as the sole uninjured doctor in the hospital. He could not bother to go back to his house to make sure the safety of his family. Dr.
Sasaki had way too many wounded people who pleaded to be taken care of and he could not ignore his sense of duty.
[…] The people in the suffocating crowd inside the hospital wept and cried, for Dr. Sasaki to hear, “Sensei Doctor,” and the less
seriously wounded came and pulled at his sleeve and begged him to go to the aid of the worse wounded. Tugged here and there in his
stockinged feet, bewildered by the numbers, staggered by so much raw flesh, Dr. Sasaki lost all sense of profession and stopped
working as a skillful surgeon and a sympathetic man; he became an automaton, mechanically wiping, daubing, winding, wiping,
daubing, winding.
Hersey, 1989: 26 Dr. Sasaki worked without method for nineteen straight hours, rested for an
hour before some wounded people complained and asked him to get back to work. For three straight days, Dr. Sasaki worked with only one hour sleep. In the afternoon
at the third day, he got permission to go to check on his mother. He went bed and
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slept for seventeen hours. The following day, he went back to the Red Cross Hospital and worked for another three straight days without much rest.
The ambitious side of Dr. Sasaki is showed when the narrator describes how Dr. Sasaki fights over a woman who later became his wife. The father of the woman
was wary because Dr. Sasaki had a reputation of having been a very bad boy when he was young. He also knew about the illegal treatment patients Dr. Sasaki had done.
But Dr. Sasaki was persistent and eventually won the parent over. Dr. Sasaki was also ambitious to open his private clinic in his country town,
so he decided to quit working for the hospital. The way he went through to complete his ambition was long and rough, but in the end, he became a successful wealthy
man, still with the strong idealism. Every morning, Dr. Sasaki met with the entire staff of the
clinic. He had a favorite lecture: Do not work primarily for money; do your duty to patients first and let the money followed; our life is
short, we don’t live twice; the whirlwind will pick up the leaves and spin them, but then it will drop them and they will form a pile.
Hersey, 1989: 108
4.2.3.3 Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge Father Makoto Takakura
