A Gallery of Oral Histories
Mikiko in World War Two
"I was not really afraid to die - I was more afraid of being alone."
-Mikiko is my Japanese grandmother. She was in her teenage years during World War two,
and experienced the horror of the war first hand in Japan. Her brother was old enough to
enter the service, and she did not want him to die and leave her. She has also told me of days
when she would walk past pools of blood on her way home from her job at a factory, the endless
air-raid sirens, and the fear in her heart when she couldn't locate friends during the scramble
to shelter from the American attacks. I feel very lucky to have gotten a view of the other side
of the tragedy of war - of the innocent victim.
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