Hiroshima (book) - Aftermath

Aftermath

Modern editions of the book contain a final, fifth chapter, The Aftermath, written forty years after the original article. In it, Hersey returned to Japan to discover what happened to the six people he originally interviewed in the ensuing years:

• Masakazu Fujii was poisoned one night in a gas leak while he slept. He spent 11 years in a coma before he died on January 12, 1973.
• Wilhelm Kleinsorge became a Japanese citizen and took a Japanese name, Makoto Takakura. He died at St. Luke's Hospital in Kobe on November 19, 1977.
• Despite her lasting radiation sicknesses, Hatsuyo Nakamura was able to earn an income working the industrial line of a mothball factory. Nakamura retired after thirteen years of employment, and began to rediscover peace and joy in her life.
• Toshiko Sasaki cared for her three younger siblings, and later became a nun in the Society of the Helpers of the Holy Souls and took the name Sister Dominique Sasaki.
• Dr. Terufumi Sasaki had prospered with his own private clinic, and several experiences, such as a bad operation for lung cancer and his wife's death, had developed his outlook on life and death.
• Kiyoshi Tanimoto had become the "celebrity" of the group, touring the United States to raise money to rebuild his church, help young girls injured in the blast with things such as reconstructive surgery, and establish the Hiroshima Peace Center. On one such visit, described in detail, he appeared on the popular television program This Is Your Life where he was placed in the uncomfortable position of meeting with Captain Robert A. Lewis, copilot of the Enola Gay, which dropped the bomb on the city.