ABSTRACT
All the interviewees experienced the bomb as children, teenagers or young adults and remember the bomb through the lens of 70 years of post-war life. Kataoka and Ozaki provide an occasional ‘official voice’, but the survivors are mostly ‘unofficial’ or ‘ordinary’ Catholics. Kataribe is a title given to witnesses of the atomic bombing in Japan with authority born of direct experience to tell their stories and the survivors can claim this role. The survivors are of assorted ages and varying family backgrounds. Their testimony may be put into context by understanding better their situations prior to the bombing. One reason the survivors speak and show their emotions is because they take on the role in Japan as kataribe, or storytellers. Becoming a kataribe is a challenging calling to a public, civil society role. Oral history has expanded quickly, especially since the 1970s and survivor testimonies contributed to Holocaust studies, but also within the historiography of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
