HAPCHEON: Bae Kyung-mi was five years old when the Americans dropped “Little Boy,” the atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Like thousands of other ethnic Koreans working in the city at the time, her family kept the horror a secret. Many feared the stigma from doing menial work for colonial ruler Japan, and false rumors that radiation sickness was contagious. Bae recalls hearing planes overhead while she was playing at her home in Hiroshima on that day. Within minutes, she was buried in rubble. “I told my mom in Japanese, ‘Mom! There are airplanes!’” Bae, now 85, told AFP.

HAPCHEON: Bae Kyung-mi was five years old when the Americans dropped “Little Boy,” the atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Like thousands of other ethnic…

When the atom bomb was dropped, 140,000 Koreans were in Japan's Hiroshima city, many as forced labour.