Twelve-year old Sadae Kasaoka (birth name Hiraoka), a first-year student at a girls’ high school, was at home with her grandmother on Aug. 6, 1945, enjoying a beautiful morning and doing housework because she had not been mobilized for war work.

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki three days later brought a scale of destruction the world had never seen. Many who survived the blasts died in the weeks, months and years that followed.