Hiroshima

Hiroshima Plot Summary

Introduction

At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the world entered the atomic age when an American B-29 bomber dropped the first nuclear weapon used in warfare on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. In an instant, approximately 80,000 people died, and tens of thousands more would perish in the days, weeks, and years that followed. But beyond the shocking casualty figures lies a more profound story—the human experience of nuclear devastation as witnessed through the lives of ordinary people caught in an extraordinary moment of history. This groundbreaking narrative follows six survivors whose lives were forever altered on that fateful summer morning. Through their intertwined stories, readers gain intimate insight into the immediate impact of nuclear warfare, the lingering physical and psychological effects of radiation, and the remarkable resilience of the human spirit in the face of overwhelming tragedy. Rather than focusing solely on political or military considerations, the text illuminates the deeply personal dimensions of this pivotal historical event—revealing how ordinary citizens experienced an unprecedented catastrophe, how they struggled to rebuild their lives amid the ruins, and how their experiences continue to resonate as a warning about the terrible consequences of nuclear weapons.

Chapter 1: The Atomic Blast: Six Lives Forever Changed (1945)

At precisely 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, a blinding flash of light burst over Hiroshima, Japan. In that moment, six ordinary people—Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk at the East Asia Tin Works; Dr. Masakazu Fujii, relaxing on his hospital porch; Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura, a tailor's widow watching a neighbor through her kitchen window; Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German Jesuit priest reading in his room; Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, a young surgeon walking through a hospital corridor; and Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a Methodist pastor—were going about their morning routines, unaware that their lives were about to be irrevocably transformed. The atomic bomb exploded approximately 1,900 feet above the city with a force equivalent to 12,500 tons of TNT. The temperature at the hypocenter reached 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit, creating a fireball that incinerated everything within a mile radius. Buildings collapsed, fires erupted across the cityscape, and a mushroom cloud rose ominously into the morning sky. Of Hiroshima's 350,000 residents, approximately 100,000 were killed instantly or died shortly afterward, while another 100,000 were injured. The six survivors, each located between three-quarters of a mile and two miles from the hypocenter, survived through random chance—a split-second decision to move, a protective building, or simply being in the right place at the wrong time. In the immediate aftermath, confusion reigned. None of the survivors understood what had happened. Dr. Fujii found himself pinned between two timbers in the river where his collapsed hospital had fallen. Miss Sasaki lay trapped beneath bookcases and debris at her workplace. Mrs. Nakamura struggled to free her three young children from their collapsed home. Father Kleinsorge wandered dazed through the mission garden in his underwear. Dr. Sasaki found himself the only uninjured doctor in a hospital suddenly overwhelmed with thousands of wounded. Reverend Tanimoto, relatively unhurt, immediately began helping others despite his own shock and confusion. What made the atomic bombing fundamentally different from conventional air raids was not just its devastating power but the invisible, lingering effects of radiation—a concept most survivors had never heard of. As they navigated the ruined city in the hours after the blast, they were unknowingly exposed to deadly radiation that would continue to affect their bodies for decades to come. Their immediate experiences of the bomb were characterized by disorientation, physical trauma, and the struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible scope of destruction surrounding them. Each survivor's first actions revealed the instinctive human response to catastrophe. Reverend Tanimoto, despite his own safety concerns, helped ferry wounded people across a river to escape spreading fires. Mrs. Nakamura focused entirely on protecting her children. Dr. Sasaki worked for days without rest, treating an endless stream of injured people with minimal supplies. Their individual stories of that first day demonstrate how ordinary people can respond with extraordinary courage and compassion when confronted with unprecedented horror. The bombing marked not just the end of World War II but the beginning of the nuclear age, forcing humanity to confront the terrible power it had unleashed. Through these six survivors, we see how history's pivotal moments are experienced not as abstract events but as deeply personal catastrophes that forever alter individual lives. Their stories would continue to unfold in the difficult days ahead as they struggled to survive in a devastated city.

Chapter 2: The Immediate Aftermath: Survival Among Ruins

In the chaotic days following the bombing, Hiroshima had become a landscape of nightmare and devastation. Fires raged uncontrolled for hours, consuming what remained of wooden structures throughout the city. The survivors faced immediate challenges that were almost incomprehensible in scale—finding water, securing food, locating lost family members, and seeking medical attention for injuries in a city where nearly 90% of medical personnel had been killed or wounded. The remnants of civil authority had collapsed, leaving people to rely primarily on their own resourcefulness and the help of strangers. Water became the most precious commodity in the burning city. Thousands of injured survivors, their skin hanging in strips from radiation burns, gathered along the seven rivers that flow through Hiroshima, desperately seeking relief from their pain. Mrs. Nakamura led her three children to Asano Park, a designated evacuation area, where they joined thousands of other refugees. There, they drank river water that made them violently ill—an effect of both psychological trauma and radiation poisoning. Father Kleinsorge, despite his own injuries, carried water to dying victims who bowed in gratitude even as their lives ebbed away. Reverend Tanimoto worked tirelessly, using a small boat to ferry survivors across the river away from advancing flames. Medical care was virtually nonexistent relative to the overwhelming need. At the Red Cross Hospital, Dr. Sasaki worked mechanically for nineteen hours straight, bandaging wounds without pause, his white coat soon stiff with blood. He later described becoming "an automaton, mechanically wiping, daubing, winding, wiping, daubing, winding." Meanwhile, Miss Sasaki lay unattended for days under the collapsed building, her broken leg becoming increasingly infected. Dr. Fujii, having escaped from the river where his hospital had fallen, found himself unable to help the many injured people he encountered as he sought his own path to safety. A surreal quality pervaded the city as survivors moved through streets rendered unrecognizable. Buildings were reduced to skeletal frames, streetcars stood frozen in twisted metal, and everywhere lay the dead and dying. The most disturbing aspect for many survivors was the eerie silence that hung over the devastation—few cried out, most suffering in quiet dignity or shock. Father Kleinsorge observed that the overwhelming silence among hundreds of grievously wounded people was "one of the most dreadful and awesome phenomena of his whole experience." Within days, many survivors who initially seemed unharmed began showing strange symptoms—hair loss, purple spots beneath the skin, high fevers, and uncontrollable bleeding from gums and other orifices. These were the first signs of acute radiation sickness, a medical phenomenon that local doctors had never encountered and struggled to treat. Many victims who had survived the initial blast died mysteriously in the following days, their bodies overwhelmed by radiation damage to their bone marrow and internal organs. Despite official Japanese radio announcements describing only "considerable damage" from "a new type of bomb," survivors began piecing together their own understanding of what had happened. Rumors spread about poisonous gas or sprayed petroleum, while some accurately suspected something unprecedented had occurred. Their collective experience became the world's first encounter with nuclear warfare, forcing medical professionals and victims alike to confront an entirely new category of human suffering for which there was no established treatment protocol or historical reference point.

Chapter 3: Medical Realities: Radiation's Hidden Toll

By late August 1945, Japanese doctors began recognizing patterns among the thousands of patients suffering mysterious ailments following the bombing. They identified three distinct stages of what would later be called radiation sickness. The first stage had occurred immediately after the explosion, killing many victims who appeared externally uninjured. The second stage, beginning approximately two weeks after exposure, manifested as hair loss, fever, and severe drops in white blood cell counts, leaving survivors vulnerable to infection. The third stage involved the body's reaction to these assaults—either recovery or deterioration leading to death from various complications. Physicians working in Hiroshima's overwhelmed medical facilities observed symptoms they had never encountered before. Patients developed purplish spots on their skin (petechiae) caused by bleeding under the skin. Women experienced ceased menstruation. Pregnant women exposed to radiation frequently miscarried or gave birth to children with developmental abnormalities. Most disturbingly, many survivors who seemed to be recovering suddenly developed leukemia and other cancers months or years later. Dr. Sasaki noted that "the drop in the number of white blood corpuscles reduced the patient's capacity to resist infection," creating a deadly cycle where even minor wounds could become fatal. The medical community's understanding evolved through desperate trial and error. Working without adequate supplies, Japanese doctors administered what treatments they could—liver extract injections, blood transfusions when possible, and vitamins, especially B1. Allied doctors who arrived after Japan's surrender found plasma and penicillin to be effective in treating secondary infections. However, for the fundamental radiation damage to bone marrow and other tissues, there was no remedy. Patients with white blood cell counts below 1,000 (normal range is 4,000-7,000) rarely survived. Scientific investigations of the bombing's aftermath revealed disturbing realities about radiation exposure. Japanese physicists entering the city with Geiger counters mapped the patterns of radioactivity, finding that levels near the hypocenter were over four times normal background radiation. They discovered permanent shadows cast on buildings and sidewalks—silhouettes of people and objects that had blocked the bomb's heat and light at the moment of the flash, leaving ghostly impressions as everything around them was scorched. These findings confirmed the bomb's unprecedented power and the invisible contamination it had left behind. What made radiation particularly insidious was its delayed and unpredictable effects. Many survivors who appeared healthy in 1945 developed serious conditions years or even decades later. Mrs. Nakamura, who initially suffered only mild symptoms, experienced chronic fatigue and weakness for years afterward, making it difficult to support her children. Father Kleinsorge's health deteriorated gradually, with recurring bouts of illness that doctors struggled to diagnose definitively as radiation-related. The uncertainty created psychological trauma among survivors, who lived with constant fear about what might happen to their bodies in the future. Perhaps most consequential for future generations was the discovery that radiation had affected the genetic material of survivors. While immediate concerns about widespread mutations proved largely unfounded, scientists did eventually document chromosome aberrations in Hiroshima survivors. This finding raised profound ethical questions about the long-term consequences of nuclear weapons—not just for those directly exposed, but for their descendants and potentially for the human genome itself. The medical realities of radiation exposure transformed survivors' understanding of their bodies, creating what one doctor called "a new concept of life and death" in which the invisible effects of a single moment of exposure could manifest throughout a lifetime.

Chapter 4: Personal Struggles: Recovery in a Shattered City

By the autumn of 1945, Hiroshima was slowly emerging from its initial state of chaos, though conditions remained dire for most survivors. Food shortages were severe, with many people subsisting on emergency rations of wheat and sweet potatoes. Basic utilities remained disrupted—clean water was scarce, electricity functioned only sporadically, and sanitation systems had collapsed. For the hibakusha (explosion-affected people), the challenges of daily survival were compounded by ongoing health problems and the psychological trauma of their experiences. Each survivor faced unique personal struggles during this period. Mrs. Nakamura, weakened by radiation sickness and struggling to care for three young children, sold her late husband's sewing machine—her last valuable possession—to pay for medical treatment when she developed severe intestinal parasites. "She came to think of that act as marking the lowest and saddest moment of her whole life," as it represented the loss of her means to support her family. Miss Sasaki endured months of painful treatments for her badly infected leg, which had been broken in the blast. When her fiancé never came to visit her in the hospital, she faced the additional heartbreak of abandonment, likely because he or his family were reluctant to marry a hibakusha. Housing remained a critical problem as winter approached. Many survivors lived in hastily constructed shacks built from scavenged materials. Reverend Tanimoto, finding his church destroyed, lived in a tent draped over the roofless shell of a damaged house. Dr. Fujii, whose private hospital had been completely destroyed, moved to a colleague's summer home outside the city. Father Kleinsorge and the other German priests built crude living quarters in their destroyed mission compound, using boards and materials recovered from the wreckage. The economic situation for survivors was particularly devastating. Many had lost everything—homes, possessions, family businesses, and documentation proving their ownership of property or financial assets. Banks had been destroyed, and records lost. Mrs. Nakamura, like many others, was forced to take on physically demanding work despite her weakened condition, first delivering bread for a local baker and later collecting newspaper subscription fees. Dr. Sasaki continued working grueling hours at the Red Cross Hospital, which operated with severely limited resources and staff. Beyond physical recovery, survivors faced profound psychological challenges. Many experienced what would now be recognized as post-traumatic stress disorder—nightmares, flashbacks, and overwhelming guilt about having survived when so many others died. Toshio, Mrs. Nakamura's ten-year-old son, had recurring nightmares about a friend who had been killed. Miss Sasaki fell into deep depression, questioning why she had survived when her parents and brother had died. Father Kleinsorge found that his religious faith helped him cope with the trauma, though even he struggled with recurring illness and fatigue that made his pastoral duties increasingly difficult. Most survivors developed what sociologists later called "a curious kind of elated community spirit," similar to what Londoners experienced after the Blitz—a sense of pride in having endured the unendurable. This collective resilience became an important psychological resource during the difficult recovery period. As Reverend Tanimoto wrote in a letter to an American friend: "What a heartbreaking scene this was the first night! But, to my great surprise, I never heard anyone cry in disorder, even though they suffered in great agony. They died in silence, with no grudge, setting their teeth to bear it." This stoic acceptance, captured in the Japanese phrase "Shikata ga nai" ("It can't be helped"), characterized many survivors' approach to their changed circumstances and uncertain futures.

Chapter 5: Rebuilding Lives: Physical and Psychological Healing

By 1946, Hiroshima was beginning the long process of physical reconstruction. The Japanese government designated the city as a focus for rebuilding efforts, and a Planning Conference was established to envision what the new Hiroshima would become. Streets were cleared of debris, utility services gradually restored, and temporary housing constructed for thousands of returning residents. The city government built four hundred one-family "barracks," while some citizens constructed their own shanties from salvaged materials. Yet despite these efforts, housing remained inadequate for the growing population, which reached 137,000 by November 1946—more than a third of its pre-bombing peak. For individual survivors, physical healing proceeded at different rates depending on the nature and severity of their injuries. Miss Sasaki underwent several operations on her badly fractured leg, which left her with a permanent disability—her left leg remained nearly three inches shorter than her right, causing a pronounced limp. Dr. Fujii recovered from his injuries and established a new clinic in Hiroshima by 1948, though it was much smaller than his previous hospital. Mrs. Nakamura continued to experience periods of weakness and illness that limited her ability to work consistently, a common pattern among hibakusha who had received significant radiation exposure. Psychological healing often proved more elusive than physical recovery. Many survivors found that religious faith or philosophical reflection helped them make sense of their experiences. Miss Sasaki, previously not religious, found unexpected comfort in conversations with Father Kleinsorge, who visited her regularly during her hospitalization. When she asked him how a good God could allow such suffering, he explained that "man is not now in the condition God intended. He has fallen from grace through sin." His answers provided her a framework for understanding her experiences that eventually led to her conversion to Catholicism, offering her spiritual solace amid her physical suffering. The hibakusha faced unique social challenges as they attempted to reintegrate into society. Many encountered discrimination in employment, as companies became reluctant to hire bomb survivors due to concerns about their health and longevity. Young women who had been visibly scarred by burns or injuries had particularly difficult prospects for marriage in a society that placed high value on a bride's appearance. Some, like Miss Sasaki's former fiancé, broke off engagements upon learning their intended spouse was a hibakusha. This social stigma created a painful dilemma for many survivors, who often chose to conceal their hibakusha status when possible. For many survivors, finding purpose became an essential part of psychological healing. Reverend Tanimoto channeled his energies into rebuilding his church and later developed a mission to help young women who had been disfigured by keloid scars from their burns. Mrs. Nakamura focused entirely on ensuring her children received education despite their poverty. Dr. Sasaki committed himself to improving his medical skills, working toward a doctoral degree while continuing to treat patients. These purposeful activities helped survivors look forward rather than dwelling exclusively on their traumatic past. Perhaps most striking was the absence of vindictiveness among most hibakusha. When asked about their feelings toward Americans, many expressed a surprisingly philosophical attitude. Mrs. Nakamura simply said, "It was war and we had to expect it," adding the common Japanese expression "Shikata ga nai" ("It can't be helped"). Dr. Fujii expressed a similar sentiment in German to Father Kleinsorge: "Da ist nichts zu machen" ("There's nothing to be done about it"). This acceptance, while not universal among survivors, reflected both Japanese cultural values and the overwhelming nature of the experience itself, which seemed to transcend ordinary human categories of blame and retribution.

Chapter 6: The Hibakusha Experience: Living with Invisible Wounds

As years passed, the term "hibakusha" (explosion-affected persons) emerged as the designation for atomic bomb survivors, preferred over "survivors" because it acknowledged their continuing struggles without suggesting any slight to those who had died. The hibakusha found themselves in a uniquely complex position—marked by an experience that set them apart, yet often invisible in their suffering. Their condition represented a new category of human experience, characterized by what one doctor called "an oppression, a sense of doom" stemming from the knowledge that radiation's effects might manifest decades after exposure. Daily life for many hibakusha was dominated by persistent health concerns. Mrs. Nakamura struggled with chronic fatigue that forced her to rest for two days after every three days of work. Father Kleinsorge experienced mysterious fevers, wounds that wouldn't heal, and dangerously low white blood cell counts that required repeated hospitalizations. Dr. Sasaki noted that many patients developed what doctors came to recognize as symptoms of atomic bomb disease: anemia, liver dysfunction, reproductive problems, and accelerated aging. Most frightening was the elevated incidence of leukemia and other cancers, which appeared at rates ten to fifty times normal among those who had been close to the hypocenter. Economic hardship compounded these health challenges. For more than a decade after the bombing, the Japanese government provided no special assistance to hibakusha, apparently reluctant to acknowledge responsibility for injuries caused by American weapons. Many survivors, like Mrs. Nakamura, lived in dire poverty, unable to work consistently due to illness yet receiving no compensation or medical support. It wasn't until 1957 that the A-Bomb Victims Medical Care Law finally passed, providing health books that entitled hibakusha to free medical treatment—twelve years after the bombing that had caused their conditions. The psychological burden of being a hibakusha included living with uncertainty about future health. Every unexplained symptom raised fears about latent radiation effects. Parents worried about genetic damage affecting their children. Survivors who appeared healthy lived with the knowledge that those exposed to radiation often developed serious illnesses decades later. Father Kleinsorge told a researcher, "If a person says to me that he is weary, if it is a hibakusha who says it, it gives me a different feeling than if he is an ordinary person. He doesn't have to explain...He knows all of the uneasiness—all of the temptation to lose spirit and be depressed." Social stigma created another dimension of suffering. In Japanese society, hibakusha often faced discrimination in employment and marriage prospects. Potential employers feared they would be unreliable workers due to illness. Parents were reluctant to allow their children to marry hibakusha out of concern about genetic effects or the burden of caring for a potentially sick spouse. Many survivors chose to conceal their status when possible, moving to new communities where their history was unknown. This secrecy, while protective, often increased their sense of isolation. Despite these challenges, hibakusha developed remarkable resilience. Many found meaning through their experiences, becoming advocates for peace and nuclear disarmament. Others focused on telling their stories, ensuring that future generations would understand the human consequences of nuclear weapons. As Father Kleinsorge observed of his fellow survivors, many displayed "just those qualities in the uneasy days before the bomb fell...boyish and yet wise, weak and yet fiery." This paradoxical strength in vulnerability became characteristic of many hibakusha, who turned their suffering into a powerful testimony against the weapons that had transformed their lives.

Chapter 7: Four Decades Later: The Survivors' Journeys

By 1985, forty years after the atomic bombing, the six survivors whose stories we have followed had traveled widely divergent paths, yet remained connected by their shared experience of August 6, 1945. Their long-term fates revealed both the lasting impact of nuclear exposure and the remarkable resilience of the human spirit in the face of unprecedented trauma. Now in their sixties and seventies, they had lived entire adult lives in the shadow of that single moment that had divided their existence into "before" and "after." Mrs. Hatsuyo Nakamura had emerged from years of poverty and struggle to find relative stability. After working numerous physically demanding jobs while battling radiation-related fatigue, she eventually secured employment at a chemical factory making mothballs, where she remained for thirteen years. Her children had grown up and established their own lives—her son became a teacher, and both daughters married. In her later years, she received modest government support through the A-bomb victim assistance programs and devoted herself to traditional Japanese folk dancing. "It is as if I had been given a spare life when I survived the A-bomb," she reflected. "But I prefer not to look back. I shall keep moving forward." Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge's devotion to Japan led him to become a Japanese citizen in 1949, taking the name Father Makoto Takakura. Despite suffering from chronic radiation illness that required repeated hospitalizations, he continued his pastoral work with extraordinary selflessness, often pushing himself beyond his physical limits to serve others. In 1961, weakened by his condition, he was assigned to a small church in a rural town where he lived modestly in a room "no more than six feet square and as bare as a monk's cell." He died in 1977, his body finally succumbing to the accumulated effects of radiation exposure and years of overwork in service to others. Dr. Terufumi Sasaki, having left the Red Cross Hospital, established a successful private clinic specializing in geriatric medicine. He treated hundreds of patients daily and became one of the highest taxpayers in Hiroshima Prefecture. Unlike many hibakusha, he rarely spoke about his bombing experience and seemed determined to distance himself from that day. A near-death experience in 1963, when his lung was removed due to a shadow that appeared on an X-ray, proved more transformative to him than the bombing. "After all," he reflected, "medicine is the art of compassion," a principle he embraced in his later years after decades of emotional detachment. Miss Toshiko Sasaki found meaning through religious devotion after her conversion to Catholicism. In 1957, she became Sister Dominique Sasaki, joining the Society of Helpers. Despite her permanent disability from her leg injury, she served for twenty years as director of a home for elderly people, where she discovered her greatest gift was "her ability to help inmates to die in peace." Her experience in Hiroshima had given her unique insight into human suffering and the "terrible solitude" of death. Rather than being defeated by her trauma, she transformed it into compassion for others, telling a gathering in 1980, "I shall not dwell on the past... I shall keep moving forward." Dr. Masakazu Fujii, who had enjoyed a convivial lifestyle after rebuilding his medical practice, suffered a tragic turn when he fell unconscious from gas poisoning on New Year's Eve 1963. He remained in a vegetative state for eleven years until his death in 1973. His case illustrated how even those hibakusha who seemed to have fully recovered remained vulnerable to health complications, though his final condition was not directly attributable to radiation exposure. After his death, his family engaged in bitter disputes over his property, a sad ending to the life of a man who had once been known for his generosity and good spirits. Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto channeled his energies into peace activism and helping other victims. He made several fundraising trips to America, where he appeared on the television program "This Is Your Life" in a surreal encounter with Captain Robert Lewis, co-pilot of the Enola Gay. He established a "peace center" in Hiroshima and helped arrange plastic surgery for young women disfigured by keloid scars. By the 1980s, in his seventies, he had retired from his pulpit but remained committed to the belief that Hiroshima's legacy should transcend politics: "The appeal of Hiroshima...has nothing to do with politics. When foreigners come to Hiroshima, you often hear them say, 'The politicians of the world should come to Hiroshima and contemplate the world's political problems on their knees before this Cenotaph.'"

Summary

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima represents a pivotal moment in human history when mankind first confronted the terrible power of nuclear weapons not as an abstract concept but through the lived experiences of ordinary people. Through the interconnected stories of six survivors, we witness how a single moment of unprecedented destruction rippled through individual lives across decades, creating patterns of suffering, resilience, and meaning-making that illuminate the true human cost of nuclear warfare. The central tension that emerges is between the technological achievement the bomb represented and the profound moral questions it raised—questions that continue to haunt our collective conscience as nuclear weapons proliferate around the world. The legacy of Hiroshima extends far beyond its historical significance as the first use of an atomic weapon or its role in ending World War II. It serves as a powerful reminder that technological progress without ethical consideration leads to catastrophic human consequences. The survivors' journeys demonstrate that the true impact of nuclear weapons cannot be measured merely in blast radius calculations or casualty statistics, but must include the decades of physical suffering, psychological trauma, social stigmatization, and economic hardship experienced by those who lived through that fateful morning. As nuclear arsenals grow more sophisticated and widespread, Hiroshima's warning becomes increasingly urgent—that in contemplating the use of such weapons, we must remember not just their military effectiveness but their profound and lasting human cost. The hibakusha's testimonies offer us an essential perspective that should inform all discussions of nuclear policy: that behind every strategic calculation lie real human lives, vulnerable to forces that, once unleashed, cannot be controlled and whose consequences extend far beyond the moment of detonation.

About Author

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John Hersey

John Richard Hersey, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer, earliest practiced the "new journalism," which fuses storytelling devices of the novel with nonfiction reportage. A 36-member panel under the aegis of journalism department of New York University adjudged account of Hersey of the aftermath of the atomic bomb, dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, as the finest piece of journalism of the 20th century.

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