"Love Saves from Isolation": Ozaki Tōmei and His Journey from Nagasaki to Auschwitz and Back

Abstract

<p>The postatomic Catholic suburb of Urakami, at the hypocenter of the Nagasaki atomic bombing, is frequently epitomized by the work of Nagai Takashi, author and doctor, whose contributions are also highlighted in this collection. Beyond Nagai, though, there are other significant stories and biographies that are continuing to come to light today. Another Catholic contemplative, Ozaki Tōmei, was drawn in the years after the atomic bombing to journey on a pilgrimage to Auschwitz. Ozaki was attracted to the story of the Polish founder, Maximillian Kolbe (1894–1941), of the Seibo no Kishi orphanage in Nagasaki. Here Ozaki had himself found a footing once again after he lost his mother in the atomic bombing at the age of seventeen. Ozaki traveled to Poland a number of times, meeting the man saved by Maximilian Kolbe. Originally Tagawa Kōichi, Ozaki Tōmei took on his new name when he became a Franciscan monk in postatomic Nagasaki. He took on the name of one of the twenty-six martyrs executed by Hideyoshi in 1597. By raising the story of Kolbe in Auschwitz, and re- remembering Ozaki's mother, Ozaki reflected richly upon his own experience, journeying from Nagasaki to Auschwitz and back to his roots in Nagasaki. Drawn to the stories of his ancestors, he reflected deeply on the loss of his mother, an Urakami Catholic, and his father's birth into a Hidden Christian family of Sotome. Ozaki Tōmei proved himself a prolific writer, and in his eighties and nineties he kept an online blog. This chapter reflects on his work as a <i>kataribe</i> (a storyteller of the bombing) and on his motto that Life Is Isolation and Encounter (<i>kodoku to deai</i>). Ozaki published his autobiography, and his story was told in a manga and an NHK documentary. His journey to Auschwitz and back fed into his own search for identity and his civil and communitarian work in postatomic Nagasaki.</p>