Tōge Sankichi

Tōge Sankichi ( Japanese 峠 三 吉 , real name: Tōge Mitsuyoshi (with the same spelling); born February 19, 1917 in Toyono (today: Toyonaka ), Osaka Prefecture ; † March 10, 1953 ) was a Japanese poet. He survived the atomic bombing on Hiroshima and died in 1953 of the aftermath. He is a co-founder of the so-called atomic bomb literature . His work is part of the first generation of atomic bomb literature, that is, of those writers who experienced the drop themselves.

Life

Tōge was born the son of a tile manufacturer Kiichi Tōge in Toyonaka. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Hiroshima, his father's hometown. He attended business school there and began to write poetry. From childhood he suffered from a disease of the bronchi that plagued him all his life. On August 6, 1945, about three kilometers from the hypocenter , he witnessed the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima. In 1951 his documentary collection of poems “Atomic Bomb Poems” ( 原 爆 詩集 , Gembatsu shishū ) was published, which is characterized by the direct experience of the drop . In 1949 he joined the Communist Party of Japan . On the way to a meeting of the New Japan Literature Society in Tokyo in 1952, his health deteriorated and he was hospitalized. Eight years after being dropped, he underwent an operation. He died on the operating table in 1953 at the age of 36.

Works

Tōge's collection of poems, published in 1951 and completed a year later, is also his most important and best-known work. The collection is introduced with the words:

“Dedicated to the people who were robbed of their lives by the atomic bombs that fell on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and on Nagasaki on August 9; Dedicated to people who have suffered agony to this day, and to people who will never forget what they have experienced during their life; dedicated to those who hate the atomic bomb all over the world. "

- Sankichi Tōge : Jürgen Berndt

One of his most famous works, written in Hiragana and translated in many ways, is the programmatic poem "Give me the people back", which is also engraved on a memorial stone in Hiroshima for Sankichi Tōge:

Japanese	transcription	German transmission	English translation
ちちをかえせははをかえせ としよりをかえせ こどもをかえせ わたしをかえせわたしにつながる にんげんをかえせ にんげんのにんげんのよのあるかぎり くずれぬへいわを へいわをかえせ	chichi o kaese haha ​​o kaese toshi yori o kaese kodomo o kaese watashi o kaese watashi ni tsunagaru ningen o kaese ningen no ningen no yo no aru kagiri kuzurenu e iwa o heiwa o kaese	Give me my father, my mother back Give me back grandpa and grandma Give me my sons and daughters Give me back myself Give me back the human race As long as life lasts, this life Give us peace that never ends	Give back my father, give back my mother; Give grandpa back, grandma back; Give my sons and daughters back. Give me back myself, give back the human race. As long as this life lasts, this life, Give back peace That will never end.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 峠 三 吉 . In: デ ジ タ ル 版 日本人 名 大 辞典 + Plus at kotobank.jp. Retrieved May 18, 2013 (Japanese). 
2. ↑ Jürgen Berndt: On that day, p. 270
3. ^ Monument Dedicated to Sankichi Toge. Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, 2011, accessed May 20, 2013 (with an image of the memorial stone). 
4. ↑ 65 Years of Hiroshima: Poems by a Survivor. (No longer available online.) Evangelisch.de, August 6, 2010, archived from the original on December 26, 2013 ; Retrieved on May 20, 2013 (this is more of a transmission based on the English translation). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ↑ Yoshiteru Kosakai: Hiroshima Peace Reader . Ed .: Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation. 1983 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).

literature

• Jürgen Berndt (Ed.): On that day. Literary evidence about Hiroshima and Nagasaki . 1st edition. People and World, Berlin 1985.
• E. Eichhorn: Materials for the lecture Genbaku Bungaku - atomic bomb literature. (PDF; 174 kB) Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin, 2012, accessed on May 20, 2013 (includes Jürgen Berndt's translations of some of Toge's poems). 

Web links

• Urszula Styczek, Tomoko Nakamura, Toko Nakamura: Atomic Bomb Literature: A Bibliography. Hiroshima Literature Museum, accessed May 20, 2013 . 
• Poetry collection "Atomic Bomb Poems" at Aozora Bunko (Japanese)

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus, Tōge is the family name, Sankichi the first name.