ABSTRACT
The Urakami Catholic story of the hibakusha is composed of at times overwhelming memory of disempowerment, marginalisation and seemingly unbearable losses; and simultaneously of resilience. Atomic survivors of Urakami make connections to the community’s public history of persecution and link such remembering to the devastation of the atomic bomb. Making sense of a modern hibakusha Mary of Urakami is only possible in conjunction with the sempuku hidden Christian Mary, even as the subtle and major differences between the two are understood. The narration of the Urakami Catholic survivors of the atomic bomb is haunted by their communal narratives of trauma, ‘dangerous’ memory transmitted across generations spanning Edo, Meiji, Taisho, Showa, Heisei and Reiwa periods. The representation of the broken cathedral as ‘dangerous’ memory is not the only icon to be observed in the kaleidoscopic image. The hope of the people is also evidenced in the shining, sparkling rising star.
