“[dropcap]“Little[/dropcap] Boy” destroyed Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and “Fat Man” pounded Nagasaki on Aug. 9. Within the first two to four months following the blasts, 90,000 to 146,000 Japanese died in Hiroshima and 39,000-80,000 perished in Nagasaki — and roughly half of the fatalities occurred the first day. Japan surrendered to the Allies on Aug. 15. The country finally met an atomic enemy that transcended its steely aspirational intransigence. But the survivors’ suffering was just beginning.

A handful of survivors spoke to the public for the first time in HBO’s 2007 documentary “White Light/Black Rain.” That’s a long time to remain silent. They lost their families, their homes. Disfigured survivors were ridiculed and shunned by society and the government, which provided no financial relief until quite recently. Afraid to be seen in the daylight, they lived in caves like animals. And they were silent.

On Aug. 6, 2015, the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima blast, the Kaballah Experience shared an email on the denosha project in Japan.

Similar to Holocaust survivors, the Japanese children and teens who did not perish on those two fateful days are now approaching death. First-hand accounts dwindle. While a few wrote memoirs, many did not. In the case of Japanese survivors, their private suffering was often a defense against further societal denigration.

The denosha project is based on a more intimate apprenticeship-pupil model. Blast survivors train students one-on-one to be their proxy — their memory keeper. The denosha rescues the survivor from permanent annihilation.

The denosha is required to “shadow” the survivor for at least three years and, with the individual’s consent, tells his or her story in public. To date, only 13 people who lived through Hiroshima and Nagasaki have signed on.

Approximately 200,000 Holocaust survivors are still with us. An estimated 200,000 survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still with us. Compared to the Shoah Foundation’s massive digitized collection of Holocaust interviews, the denosha project isn’t even a dot on the map. But it’s a beginning.

It’s essential for survivors of the Holocaust, genocide and yes, Hiroshima, to find a way to tell their stories while they are alive — for they are the lesson we must learn.

Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News