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Dr. Terufumi Sasaki
A clerk in the East Asia Tin Works corporation, and one of the six central characters of Hiroshima, Toshiko Sasaki is the character whose life is arguably most overtly changed by the Hiroshima bombing. Sasaki endures a horrific injury to her leg after the explosion throws a heavy bookcase on top of her. She is engaged to be married, but (largely because of her injury, it’s implied), her fiancé abandons her. In the hospital, Dr. Terufumi Sasaki (no relation to her) operates on her leg, and later on, she regains the ability to walk normally. Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge visits her in the hospital and inspires her to embrace Catholicism, with the result that she becomes a nun. In the aftermath of an unspeakable tragedy, in other words, Sasaki copes with misery and pain by turning to religion. She ultimately finds the spiritual strength to live a long, rewarding life spent helping other people.
Toshiko Sasaki Quotes in Hiroshima
The Hiroshima quotes below are all either spoken by Toshiko Sasaki or refer to Toshiko Sasaki. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1
Quotes
At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning, on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk.
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There, in the tin factory, in the first moment of the atomic age, a human being was crushed by books.
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Chapter 4
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"My child," Father Kleinsorge said, "man is not now in the condition God intended. He has fallen from grace through sin." And he went on to explain all the reasons for everything.
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Chapter 5
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Her greatest gift, she found, was her ability to help inmates to die in peace. She had seen so much death in Hiroshima after the bombing, and had seen what strange things so many people did when they were cornered by death, that nothing now surprised or frightened her
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Toshiko Sasaki Quotes in Hiroshima
The Hiroshima quotes below are all either spoken by Toshiko Sasaki or refer to Toshiko Sasaki. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1
Quotes
At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning, on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk.
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There, in the tin factory, in the first moment of the atomic age, a human being was crushed by books.
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Chapter 4
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"My child," Father Kleinsorge said, "man is not now in the condition God intended. He has fallen from grace through sin." And he went on to explain all the reasons for everything.
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Chapter 5
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Her greatest gift, she found, was her ability to help inmates to die in peace. She had seen so much death in Hiroshima after the bombing, and had seen what strange things so many people did when they were cornered by death, that nothing now surprised or frightened her
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