Return to Hiroshima
In November 2023, I was finally able to return to Hiroshima and bring a circle that began there more than 30 years ago to completion. That is when I first followed my father’s footsteps there to try to understand what his time filming in the atom-bombed city had meant to him and what it had done to him. That is when I first met the survivors (hibakusha) whom he had filmed and felt compelled to preserve and spread their stories as well. Now I brought with me on my return my book sharing those stories in the hope that these truths may help us all step back from the looming dangers of nuclear war today. I was invited by the World Friendship Center to make a presentation to a large group in a room overlooking Peace Park and was honored to provide copies of the book for the archives of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. You can watch the NHK-TV coverage of my visit either in the original Japanese, or in a shorter version translated into English for NHK World below.
Retracing a Father’s Footsteps in Hiroshima
Documentary now Available
NHK has also made available a digital copy of the short documentary Ningen wo Kaese. This film was produced by the Ten-Feet Campaign using footage from my father’s crew along with interviews of survivors seen in the footage speaking about how the bomb affected their lives and about how they wished for an end to nuclear weapons.
The title comes from a poem of the same name by Sankichi Toge and means (roughly) “Bring back humanity.”
An English version of the documentary was produced under the title The Lost Generation and can be viewed here.
NOTE: Be aware that the scenes of human suffering in the aftermath of atomic bombing are graphic and disturbing.
By Leslie A. Sussan
Choosing Life
My Father’s Journey in Film from Hollywood to Hiroshima
In 1946, with the war over and Japan occupied, 2nd Lt. Herbert Sussan received a plum assignment. He would get to use his training as a cinematographer and join a Strategic Bombing Survey crew to record the results of the atomic bombings in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. From his first arrival in Nagasaki, he knew that something novel and appalling had happened and that he had to preserve a record of the results, especially the ongoing suffering of those affected by the bomb (known as hibakusha) even months later. When the U.S. government decided that the gruesome footage would not be “of interest” to the American public and therefore classified it top secret, he spent decades arguing for its release.
His last wish was that his ashes be scattered at ground zero in Hiroshima. The author, his daughter, followed his footsteps in 1987, meeting survivors he had filmed more than 40 years before. And on that journey she found a father she had never really known in life.
This book recounts Herbert Sussan’s experiences (drawn directly from an oral history he left behind), his daughter’s quest to understand what he saw in Japan, and the stories of survivors whose lives touched both father and daughter.
AVAILABLE NOW!
Author
Leslie A. Sussan
Over a long career as an attorney, she litigated for the U.S. Department of Justice, represented migrant farmworkers and abused children, and has now served for fourteen years as an administrative appellate judge for the federal government.
She attends Bethesda Friends Meeting. She and Kendra lived in Hiroshima for a year in 1987-88.
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What people are saying about Choosing Life
This book belongs in our archives as a companion to the records of nuclear conflict . . . I prize this book as both a source of answers and questions.
This biography / memoir, part history/part photo essay will leave a lasting impression on you . . . it’s a story about humanity and how it is fragile yet strong it is at the same time. . . . Choosing Life is a book of substance. Read at your own risk.
The bombing of Hiroshima happened before I was born and I never really thought much about it but this has opened my eyes to an important event in world history which should never be repeated.
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