絶望から芽吹いた、希望の木の80年。Sprouting from the depths of despair: a tree of hope in its 80th year

8月6日の記憶は、江戸時代に築かれた大名庭園「縮景園」にも息づいています。 爆心地から1,370m離れたこの風雅な庭で、丹精されていた木々は枝も葉も吹き飛びました。「被爆した人がたくさん逃げこんで、水を求めながら池のまわりで息絶えた」。 そう証言する生の声は、あの日から80年たった今、とても希少です。 それは、木も同じこと。園内には、色をなくした庭に小さな緑の芽を吹き返し、人々に生きる希望をくれた３本の被爆樹木があります。 爆風と熱線で葉をすべて失っても、奇跡のような生命力で再生したクロマツ。樹齢300年近いイチョウの大木は、種から芽吹いた２世が世界各地で元気に育っています。そして、京橋川に向かって手をのばすように傾くムクノキは、幹のほとんどが空洞になりながらも懸命に生きつづけてきました。やがて土に還る日が来たら、「よう生きてくれた。ありがとう」と手を合わせよう。
「忘れんよ。これからも伝えていくけえね」と世界中の子どもたちに語り継ごう。 草木と人が、ともに生きぬいてきた80年を、被爆樹木たちは知っています。

The memory of August 6, 1945 lives on in Shukkeien, a garden created for a daimyō feudal lord in the Edo period. When the bomb was dropped, it devastated this refined garden located 1,370 meters from the hypocenter, violently ripping the branches and leaves off of lovingly grown trees. A survivor speaks of what they saw in Shukkeien that day, stating, “There were so many survivors who fled there only to die on the outskirts of the pond, desperately seeking water.” Eighty years after the bombing, voices such as these have become extremely rare. The same can be said for the trees. In the devastated garden, devoid of color, a few small, green buds sprouted from trees thought to have been lost in the bombing. These would grow into three hibaku trees (trees that survived the atomic bombing) in Shukkeien that gave hope to the people of Hiroshima. One is a Japanese black pine that miraculously came back to life after losing all of its needles in the blast wind and heat rays of the atomic bomb. Another is a ginkgo tree that was nearly 300 years old at the time of the bombing. Today, saplings grown from this tree are sent around the world to be cared for as second-generation hibaku trees. Lastly, there is a muku tree that leans over as if extending its arms toward Kyōbashi River. While its trunk is hollowed, the tree continues to live on with strength and resilience. When the time comes that these trees must return to the earth, let us bow our heads and thank them for surviving. Let us tell them that we won’t forget them and will continue to tell their stories to the next generation of children around the globe. For the hibaku trees know better than any of us about the shared 80-year history of survival between the people and greenery of Hiroshima.

Note: The City of Hiroshima registers trees that experienced the atomic bombing within approx. two kilometers of the hypocenter and survived as hibaku trees.