>> american history tv is on social media. follow us at c-span history. on august 6, 1945, the united states dropped an atomic bomb on hiroshima, japan instantly killing more than 100,000 of the roughly the hundred thousand resident. hotries and radiation what the city for decade. up next, "the spirit of hiroshima." this documentary was made to promote the 50th anniversary of the bombing and highlight the survivors. young family tries to make sense of the tragedy.

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the cards have been winning a

lot. they have won the last three games, this time they won 12-4. >> look, we are going to the ceremony today. >> people are already there and lining up? >> this is a picture of last year's ceremony. it is amazing how even after the bomb was dropped the hiroshima dome did not collapse.

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thehe night before august 6 enemy planes were constantly flying over hiroshima. around 7:30 the next morning there was a siren indicating the planes had retreated from here oshima. all the students and teachers started to go to school.

at 8:05 the teachers gathered the students on the playground to start the morning. i rang the bell and students started to line up in front of the podium. today, we have this modern steel podium. then, we only had a wooden one.

i would stand on this and say good morning and say a little .ach to everyone ♪ >> in the shade of the willow tree there were two or 3/6 raid boys. one of the boys started to look at the bright blue sky, like this. that image was burned into my mind.

later on i realized that child must have seen or heard the flame that came from the island. the flame that brought the atomic bomb to hiroshima. >> why do you think there is a ceremony? >> because of the war and the bomb. it was something like 8:00 in the morning? tell me what happened. the atomic bomb was dropped on hiroshima. do you understand? >> yes, i do. >> are you sure? ♪

>> in that direction where the sun is coming true there was a blinding light, like a magnesium flash. it looked like lightning.

i was thrown about 15 from where i'm standing. brokenere a lot of bricks, polls, and would. it was very, very dark. i realized i was thrown somewhere by a bomb explosion. it hit me, i was not dead. i was alive. it was during the summer, a very hot time. something we warm fell from my forehead down to my face. i realized that must have hurt my head. thought i would lose consciousness and eventually died. .

i thought i had to get out while my mind was clear. i pushed him wrong thinking if i could not get out, i would die. finally, i managed to pry myself out from under the rubble. ♪ >> luckily in our family we don't have anybody that suffered from the bomb. grandma was far from where the bomb was dropped. where's that? >> a little bit further. even they are of the windows broke.

>> did she think it was a typhoon? uchshe said it was most worse than a typhoon.

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>> when i got out i told the children to stop writing, that i was there. the children to sit still while i ran out to look help. everywhere i looked was strange and desolate. it was almost as dark as night and i kept seeing all of these broken houses. that a bomb had dropped on my school. as far as i could see, everything was destroyed. i kept wondering, where did the bomb drop? when i finally reached the rescue station, there was nobody there so i ran back to the school.

there were many students buried under the school building, crying in pain. we started to pull them out. onlyes myself there were two or three other women to help. all the other teachers were lying on the ground unconscious. we managed to get all of the students out but when we reached two young second-grade girls, they did not have a pulse anymore. i remember thinking children should not have to die. there was one young girl who had a very serious head injury. it looked like a split

pomegranate. i thought the poor girl, she will probably die here tonight without ever seeing her parents again. that girl with a little weak to pesaid teacher, i have e, i need to go to the bathroom. i said you are too hurt to move. you go line down, don't worry, it is all right. the way i spoke to that child and cared for her before she died, i still remember it like yesterday.

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been working in the building about 10 minutes when a sudden flash of light made me think there was a bomb in the building. the students already way and were scattered. i went to the riverbank to see what was happening. after standing there for a while four or five of the student to ran away saw me and yelled teacher, helpmate. the image of those student will never leave my mind.

running over to me, hair all wild, hollow and dirty faces. helplessly waving their arms at me. that scene led me to make a painting called scream.

>> these paintings are not actually based on what i have images of what i hiroshima harbor would have been like. i painted while thinking of things like that.

sad or they would be lonely. whether they would be angry at the people who drop the atomic. i would think of these things while imagining and painting the bones at the bottom of the harbor. i don't know where most of my student disappeared to. bodies imagine their floating down some river and ending up at the bottom of your of hiroshima harbor.

>> then i heard stories about another flame and another bomb. i tried to run away. by chance, i found my wife as she was trying to escape with our 1.5-year-old child, which

coincidence.co-woo our child was thirsty and asking for water. i thought if i could get water my child would live. water,s leaving to get the child just died. for some reason i can't remember 's face when he died.

>> the left half of my face was all burned and also my hand. my arm from here to halfway down knees. and both my mouth would not open and for mehile they had to feed liquid. ,any people who were burned

like my wife, would get these red spots on their skin. their hair would fall out if you brushed it. andr teeth would loosen fall out, too. around.y got when that started to happen, you would die soon after. my wife started to get the red spot and her hair began calling out. ffalling out. i begin to worry that she would die soon and got this feeling of horror. this feeling of being so close to death but having no medicine, no health.

that is how we live. ♪

♪ >> i have received this afternoon a message from the japanese government which testifies the unconditional surrender of japan. on august 15, hearing the emperor's announcement on the radio my spirits felt they shot. my immediate reaction was that i had been. deceived. so many things have been said

that i believed. tot this was a holy war, build a strong asian community. it was actually a war of aggression.

>> i would think more about this later on. i came to believe this invasion the atomiccaused bomb to be dropped on hiroshima. all of those desperate and sad

s were the result of this war that we caused. ♪ >> i personally feel i must

become a person who will not be deceived. as an educator, i constantly think how to teach students so they won't be deceived. educate students so they want.

>> when i was in school they had a lot of classes, a lot more that may have now. there was a movie we saw at school the other day. a movie about the war. in the beginning of the movie, a little pony was born. bomb drops in hiroshima and the pony tells people to run away. after a few minutes another bomb drops. in nagasaki? >> yeah. >> what happened to the pony? >> it was ok.

>> was it a cartoon? puppetad something like s. puppets but it was more like a movie with regular people. it was something like puppets in a regular movie.

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>> these paintings are titled reaching or peace. the title is not that important. to search and find a brightness in such a dark and indeed round of -- breakdown. i would like to continue painting such as about. it is my conviction.

being a survivor, i always have the hope in my heart of living in a world with no atomic. ♪ the children nowadays, the younger generation all pray for apeaceful world. they must work for it.

with their hands and feet. hoping for peace without taking action will do nothing. this is what i would like to tell the children. ♪

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♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> you can watch archival films on public affairs in their entirety on our series real america. saturday at 10:00 p.m. and

sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern here on american history. this is american history tv on c-span3. each weekend we feature 48 hours of row graham flooring our of programst exploring our nation's past. in this oral history recorded in 2012 by the national world war ii museum, army veteran eugene about the talks manhattan project. the national world war ii museum provided the video. i was born in wilmington, delaware. basically, i grew up in