スピーチ(英文)
<8月6日のスピーチ英文>I first learned about the Atomic bomb from a Documentary I saw in Elementary school. In the film we saw people with charred faces and backs. The Documentary showed the realism of the effects of the Atomic bomb. I was eleven years old and the Documentary made me sick and I never wanted to see it again. The images in the documentary were burnt into my memory and I still carry them with me even now. When I returned home from school I told my mother about the Documentary and she, for the first time, told me about her experiences during the bombing of Nagasaki. Listening to her story I felt that war is not only history but real, because it happened to my mother. My mother is a very positive person so she told me her story very simply without any of the heavy details. She did not want to relive the experience.When I heard about this opportunity here today to talk about the attack on Nagasaki I phoned my mother last week to get more information about what she went through.On the phone she told me because the experiences were so horrific she has tried for last 60 years to erase them from her mind but tried to relate her story to me. In Japan it was like everywhere else during the war. The men were off fighting and the women worked in the factories. My mother was 18 years old and worked in the office of the Mitsubishi Ship Company. On the day of the Atomic bomb my mother saw a bright flash outside window and then heard the explosion.My mother was very lucky, an empty bookcase fell on her and she was small enough to be covered by it.After everything settled down she came out from under the bookcase unharmed and saw that the walls had fallen into each other forming an A-frame with a tunnel underneath. She crawled through the tunnel and found her way to a bomb shelter. Later walking home from to the shelter she said she was extremely frightened and everything was totally black. She recalls seeing the charred remains of a horse and charred human bodies. She tried not to look at the dead bodies but the smell of burning flesh was nauseating. When it began to rain and the rain was black and by the time she got home her throat was sore and she became very sick. The Mitsubishi Ship Company was 1 km from the epicenter of the bomb but many of her friends were closer and became much sicker and lost all there hair. Mother lost her parents from sickness when she was 7 years old and was living with her Uncle’s family at the time. She said “I am so glad the family is safe” when they confirmed that everyone in the family was okay and she said “I will never forget when everyone embraced each other”. The family consisted of 10 people, her Aunt and Uncle and there 5 children all younger than my mother plus my mother her older sister and younger brother. It was a miracle that they were all okay in the midst of such destruction. The people that were present at both Nagasaki and Hiroshima did not talk about the experience. If they did they would not find work or find a marriage partner due to the fear of sickness or deformed offspring due to the effects of the radiation. Everyone became silent and it became a big secret. Now later on as the war generation is approaching the end of their lives and there is more international awareness they are beginning to talk about it. They feel it is important that we remember what happened so that we can make sure it does not happen again. In preparation to speak today I did some research and read some of the stories of the survivors. People talk about seeing a blinding flash and being knocked unconscious. When they woke up their whole world had changed. In an instant their lives and the World had been changed forever. There was one family that was sitting in a circle about to have lunch and after the flash was frozen in time as charcoal figures sitting in a circle. Babies were sucking on the breasts of their dead mothers, people walking around cupping their hands under their eye sockets holding their eyes in their hands a shadow on a wall were someone was standing just moments before. People talk about being so thirsty and having to move dead burnt bodies from the edge of the river in order to get to the water which was obviously much polluted, but they had no choice. Due to the lack of doctors and medical supplies injured people were walking around with areas of their body infested with maggots. After a few days some of the stomachs of the dead being so blotted began to burst and you could hear the sound of these mini explosions through out the city. One man was following a group of people up the mountain to escape the destruction and after awhile turned around to find he was all alone, one by one everyone had died. Families so happy they were all okay only to die the next day from the radiation poisoning. People walking around with what looked like ragged cloths but on closer examination it turned out to be their skin. The stories are endless.Later the US Forces came in with bulldozers to clean up the remains of the dead and one man was taking pictures. An American soldier can over and at gun point told him not to take pictures. The scene after the dropping of Fat Man and Little Boy goes beyond horror, the flash of the bomb was the same temperature as the surface of the sun and the ones that died instantly in some cases were the lucky ones.There are many pictures and film footage of the aftermath of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki so it is not hard to imagine the horror of the Atomic bomb.I believe that anyone that survives a war can not view it as a good thing.. I believe war is human error. I know there are places in the world where the main concern is finding enough to eat and I consider myself lucky that to have the freedom to think about higher level concepts such as world peace. My mother taught me that life is precious and I consider it my responsibility to pass this on to my daughter. It is very important what we pass on to future generations.The person that stands before you now is a result of generations of individuals. I am the result of all that has gone before me. I believe the human race is evolving and we have to learn from our mistakes. We have to move beyond our racial and religious discriminations and consider the world as our home and all people our family. World Peace begins with loving and respecting the person standing beside you. When my mother said “I am so glad the family is safe” this is something all families would like to be able to say. Would it not be great if we could say “I am so glad the World is safe”.