Korean Victims of Hiroshima Still Carry the Scars
At 08:15 on August 6, 1945, Lee Jung-soon was walking to school when a nuclear bomb fell on Hiroshima. Now 88, she recalls the chaos, tears, and the unimaginable destruction. Bodies melted, people screamed, and lives changed forever.
Lee was one of the Korean victims of Hiroshima, a group often left out of mainstream history.
Nearly 140,000 Koreans were living in Hiroshima at the time, many forced into labor under Japan’s colonial rule. Around 70,000 Koreans were exposed to the bomb. By the end of 1945, nearly 40,000 had died. Those who lived were left with lifelong scars, physically, emotionally, and generationally.
From Silence to Stigma: The Hidden Struggles
After Korea’s liberation, survivors returned to places like Hapcheon, later dubbed “Korea’s Hiroshima.” But instead of support, they faced shame and exclusion from their own people.
Shim Jin-tae, now 83, remembers cleaning up dead bodies with dustpans.
“It was mostly Koreans doing the worst work,” he says.
Even worse, survivors and their children suffered mysterious illnesses, cancer, kidney failure, and birth defects. Yet for decades, no one officially acknowledged their pain. Not the U.S., not Japan, not even Korea.
Justice Delayed for a Forgotten Generation
Second-generation survivors like Han Jeong-sun live with illness and rejection.
“My son has cerebral palsy. They blamed me. Said I ruined the family,” she shares, voice heavy with pain.
Despite some government studies, proof of radiation-linked diseases is still demanded, leaving families in limbo. Meanwhile, Japan’s official visit to Hapcheon in 2025 came without an apology, angering both victims and activists.
“Peace without apology is meaningless,” says Junko Ichiba, a Japanese peace advocate.
Survivors say acknowledgment, not just money, is what they want most.
For them, the memory of August 6 still burns, and the silence surrounding Korean victims of Hiroshima must finally be broken.
