Customer Reviews

Teach Us to Live: stories from Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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Many people will recognize that quote but fail to apply it to their own life and times. Right here. Right now. Historical events have many valuable lessons to teach us, but please do not take my word on it. I'm only 30 years old; I have never experienced a life-or-death disaster or attack. Instead, read the accounts of survivors, hear their stories in their own words, reflect on what they have been through, and stay conscious of the world around you so that you can honestly say "I remember," "I will never forget," and "never again."

Ms. Roose focuses on remembering the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the human cost of using such weapons. Her interviews with the survivors add to the body of oral histories and personal narratives that are invaluable to ensuring that the citizens of the world today remember and work to prevent such tragedies from happening again.

In recommending Teach Us to Live: stories from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a coworker, I mentioned that it reminded me of I Never Saw Another Butterfly, a collection of poems and pictures created by children who were detained in the Terezin Concentration Camp during WWII, and which serves as an historical record of sorts, as many of them did not survive. In both cases, survivors, or the words/images they left behind, tell about horrific events from their point of view.

If I were making a list of such books, I'd also include: Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport(Mark Jonathan Harris, Deborah Oppenheimer), I Dream of Peace: Images of War by Children of Former Yugoslavia (James P Grant), Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors(Dith Pran; Kim DePaul), Never Forget: An Oral History of September 11 (Mitchell Fink; Lois Mathias), Escape or Die : True Stories of Young People Who Survived the Holocaust (Ina R Friedman), Remember Pearl Harbor: Japanese And American Survivors Tell Their Stories (Remember)(Thomas B Allen), and Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival (Jen Marlowe; Aisha Bain; Adam Shapiro; Paul Rusesabagina; Francis Mading Deng).

[List compiled using the WorldCat database; copyright 1997-2007 OCLC]

These personal accounts, many of which are related by children who lived through hellish ordeals, are as voices shouting out to anyone willing to listen: This is what happened to me. Never let it happen again. Never again.

These stories are so moving, and the voices reading them aloud add such a richness to the experience. What a lot of work these interviews entailed and what a mitzvah the author has done for all of us who will read this important book and realize more deeply the consequences of our actions. In compiling these stories Diana Wickes Roose has given voice to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and put a human face on an event too often discussed in the abstract.

A must read! We Americans haven't really been taught much about the effects of our atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from our History classes in school. In a beautiful style, Diana interviews many Japanese survivors of this bombing, to let them tell their stories and vision for peace in the future without war. All who read the book will be touched in some way. If you are concerned about the world's nuclear threats, this book is a valuable educational tool.