Study Guide Questions for Hiroshima
Chapter 1: A Noiseless Flash
Mr./Rev. Tanimoto
1. What kind of raid did most Hiroshima residents expect?
2. What kept Rev. Tanimoto up the night before the bombing?
3. What was the first thing noticed when the bomb went off?
4. What protected Mr. Tanimoto from the blast?
Hatsuyo Nakamura
5. Why didn't Hatsuyo move the children when the new air warning went off?
6. How did Hatsuyo's husband die?
7. How did Hatsuyo support herself and her children?
Dr. Masakazu Fujii
8. Why did Dr. Fujii get up early that morning?
9. What was Dr. Fujii's single doctor hospital built next to?
10. Specifically, what did the explosion do to his hospital?
11. How did Dr. Fujii keep from drowning?
Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge
12. What was Father Kleinsorge suffering from the morning of the blast?
13. What did Father Kleinsorge change into for air raid alerts?
Dr. Terufumi Sasaki
14. Why was Dr. Sasaki scolded by another doctor earlier?
15. How many doctors in Sasaki's hospital were unhurt?
Toshiko Sasaki
16. What was Toshiko in charge of at the factory?
17. What large objects were located behind Toshiko's desk?
18. What injury did Toshiko suffer from in the blast?
Chapter 2: The Fire
19. What was designated as a temporary hospital in case of emergency?
20. What was falling out of the sky?
21. What did Hatsuyo go back inside her wrecked home to retrieve?
22. Where did she stash her sewing machine?
23. Where did Father Kleinsorge end up right after the blast?
24. What condition did Father Kleinsorge find his paper mache briefcase in?
25. What is a Molotoffano hanakago?
26. Where did Dr. Sasaki finally obtain eyeglasses?
27. What had the explosion done to clothing patterns on some of the victims?
28. What provided Miss Sasaki shelter after she was pulled from the tin factory rubble?
29. What did the refugees fear the Americans would do?
30. What did the victims fear when it began to rain?
Chapter 3: Details Are Being Investigated
31. Who did Mr. Tanimoto find standing up to their necks in water?
32. How many hours had Dr. Sasaki worked before he tried to sleep?
33. What delighted Hatsuyo Nakamura's children that night?
34. What did Mr. Tanimoto realize when he saw what was in the river?
35. What was the first duty according to the army doctor?
36. How many days was Miss Sasaki left under the lean-to?
37. Where were Miss Sasaki's mother, father, and baby brother when the bomb went off?
38. How many hours of sleep did Dr. Sasaki get during the first three days?
39. What happened at 11:02 am, August 9th?
40. What is a greater moral responsibility to the Japanese than caring for the living?
41. What did the emperor do that Mr. Tanimoto called a "wonderful blessing?"
Chapter 4 - Panic Grass and Feverfew
42. What did Father Kleinsorge believe had a talismanic quality?
43. What did they eventually call the "strange capricious disease" people were coming down with?
44. What covered everything that gave Miss Sasaki the creeps?
45. What was it that Miss Nakamura could not retrieve that upset her greatly?
46. What was the most useful therapy for bomb patients?
47. How many stages did Dr. Sasaki identify in radiation sickness?
48. What group of patients "delighted" Dr. Fujii?
Chapter 5: The Aftermath
Hatsuyo Nakamura
49. What marked the lowest, saddest moment of Mrs. Nakamura's life?
50. What term did the Japanese shy away from when referring to those who went through the blasts?
51. How did non-hibakusha employers treat survivors?
52. What did Mrs. Nakamura take up for pleasure after she retired?
53. What was Mrs. Nakamura's state of mind when she returned home from the Yasukuni Shrine?
54. What happened to Mrs. Nakamura when she danced on the Emperor's birthday 4 decades later?
Dr. Terufumi Sasaki
55. What would be Dr. Sasaki's life work?
56. It took most interns 5 years to get their doctoral degree; how long did it take Dr. Sasaki?
57. What often happened when keloid scars were removed?
58. What disease was much higher in hibakusha than normal?
59. What was Dr. Sasaki's one regret?
Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge
60. What did one of Father Kleinsorge's colleagues jokingly say about him and Japan?
61. What did Father Kleinsorge file for and get?
62. What was Father Kleinsorge's most disturbing complaint?
Toshiko Sasaki
63. What new blow did Toshiko Sasaki experience?
64. What did the surgeries finally do for her legs?
65. Where did Sasaki go when she knew she would never marry?
66. What was her greatest gift?
67. What was one of the happiest moments of her life?
Dr. Masakuzu Fujii
68. What was Dr. Fujii's hobby for years?
69. How did her obtain penicillin for his patients?
70. How did Dr. Fujii deal with psychological effects of the bomb?
Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto
71. Where did anger of many hibakusha "modulate" toward?
72. What did Rev. Tanimoto realize he needed to build?
73. What did American occupation personnel do to supply depots?
74. Where was Rev. Tanimoto invited to raise money?
75. What show did Mr. Tanimoto find himself featured on?