Dr. Masakazu Fujii enjoyed the good life more than the other survivors. He suffered few ill effects from the radiation. Fujii built a clinic in Hiroshima in 1948 — a modest structure in comparison with his earlier hospital — and he raised a family of five children. His life was filled with pleasure. He loved the gaudy entertainment district of Hiroshima, and he was getting a reputation as a playboy.
His remaining life had tremendous highs and lows. When money was raised for plastic surgery for a group of Hiroshima girls who were scarred extensively from the bombing, he went along on their trip to New York as an interpreter, a chaperone, and a social director. He spent time in New York City and enjoyed the company of the doctors of Mount Sinai Hospital. It was a wonderful life. However, 1963 found him back in Japan, where he was melancholy and depressed, and estranged from his wife. He built a new American-style home that was ostentatious and glamorous. But on New Year's Eve, he was found unconscious from a gas heater in his house. It was unclear whether it was the result of an accident or attempted suicide. For 11 years, he was hardly conscious. When he died, the autopsy revealed liver cancer.
The Reverend Tanimoto's life was connected throughout, in one way or another, with politics, the peace movement, and fund-raisers for the hibakusha.
Tanimoto connected with several influential people in America, including author Pearl Buck and the editor of The Saturday Review of Literature, Norman Cousins. With their help, he made three U.S. tours to raise money for the hibakusha. However, Tanimoto was increasingly left out of the Japanese peace movement; and like Mrs. Nakamura, he stayed away from political celebrations of the bombing. In 1982, Mr. Tanimoto retired. It seemed that forty years after the bombing, his memories of that day were not as clear as they had been earlier in his life. The world's memory of that day was fading as well.
