The 73-year-old woman was a schoolgirl on Aug. 6, 1945, when an American warplane dropped over Hiroshima the first of two nuclear bombs used against Japan.
She traveled to New Mexico this past week for the 60th anniversary of the atomic tests at Trinity to ask scientists to stop nuclear warfare.
"I want to talk to their hearts and beg them not to do it," she said Friday.
Hiroshima survivor Shigeko Sasamori, 73,
recounts the day that her city had the first atom bomb
dropped on it as she visits with reporters
in Albuquerque, N.M., Friday, July 15, 2005.
When the bomb exploded, Sasamori said she and a friend were preparing to join a work crew to clear a city street less than a mile from ground zero. Her 13-year-old companion was killed in the blast.
"I saw that everybody looked so terrible, just like they came from hell," she said. "No one was talking. No one was screaming."
She believes now that she was in shock as she followed the crowd to escape the burning city. Five days later, Sasamori's mother found her in a nearby school.
One-fourth of Sasamori's body was burned. Her fingers were scorched to the bone, and she had as many as 30 operations to repair the damage. Three years ago, she underwent surgery for intestinal cancer. Doctors now suspect she has thyroid cancer.
Sasamori was one of 25 "Hiroshima Maidens" brought to the United States for reconstructive surgery in 1955 by American editor and author Norman Cousins, who she describes as her adoptive father. She eventually settled in the U.S. and became a nurse.
Sasamori, who now lives in Marina del Rey, Calif., said she is not angry with Americans for how World War II ended, but hates war itself and is saddened by the actions of those who made the bomb.
But she was upset about a $125-per-ticket event at the National Atomic Museum [called "Blast from the Past?!"] in Albuquerque on Friday.
Participants were given a secret identity at the door of the museum, a gimmick meant to recall the top-secret project to develop the bomb. Guests were treated to food, a cash bar, a 1940s fashion show, slides of the Trinity test and a panel discussion by historians and test participants. On Saturday, they were taken to the test site in southern New Mexico for a tour.
"Many people are dead. Those people's souls aren't happy. Why are you celebrating?" Sasamori said. "You are making a weapon to kill us. So, I feel that's not appropriate to celebrate."
A museum spokeswoman did not return a voice mail message, and no one answered several phone calls to the museum.
On Aug. 6, Sasamori said she will mark the 60th anniversary of the attack on Hiroshima with a more subdued ceremony: a moment of silence in her hometown to remember the dead.
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