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Death and music: A survivor's taleMemory of brother lost in Hiroshima carries on in woman's sonFrom Atika Shubert  An estimated 140,000 people died in the nuclear attack on Hiroshima. RELATEDYOUR E-MAIL ALERTSHIROSHIMA, Japan (CNN) -- Hiroko Yamashita remembers August 6, 1945. Her parents told her to stay at home in the Japanese city of Hiroshima and mind her younger brother, Yusaku. She was 18 years old; he was six. At 8.15 a.m. that day, the U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay released its payload -- an atomic bomb named "Little Boy" -- above the city of 350,000 people. Hiroshima was charred and leveled beyond recognition, with some 140,000 people dying in the attack. Hiroko's home was only 900 meters -- about half a mile -- away from where the bomb fell. She awoke from under a pile of rubble. "I remember the figure of my little brother coming home from our neighbor's house, silhouetted in a white flash," Hiroko said. Her three-story home collapsed around her but she had only one thought. "I had to protect my brother. I struggled to get free and crawled up the pile of debris. I did not think of the pain. "My brother saw me first and climbed up to me. We held each other and cried for a long time. We're OK, is all we could say, over and over." Devastation surrounded them. Burned skin hung from survivor's bodies. Yusaku seemed unhurt but Hiroko suffered serious burns and gaping wounds that exposed her bones. She had to get help immediately. "I still remember the voices of the dying calling out 'help, help us,' but we could not help them." "I wonder where I found the power to move on. If I did not have my little brother with me, I am sure I would have died right there. I think my brother was the one who rescued me, after all." Hiroko guided her brother to a nearby military airfield, a place where she thought she would die. "I crawled to a long line of victims, waiting in the open sun for treatment. Many died while they were waiting on line." "I was careful not to let go of my brother's hand because I knew I would lose him. I saw many people lying around us, looking very close to death. One mother was still nursing her child, but she looked dead." The pair was saved when some of Hiroko's co-workers, who were looking for survivors, discovered them and brought them to her parents. Hiroko seemed worse than her brother. But then Yusaku suddenly fell ill. "He collapsed, bleeding from his nose. We used towel after towel to staunch the bleeding. I have never seen so much blood. You would not believe that such a small body could hold so much blood," she said. Like so many radiation victims, his hair fell out. To ease his pain, they played his favorite songs -- classical music forbidden by Japan's wartime government. "He would press his ear up against the speakers, waving his hands to the rhythm as the music filtered out." Her brother died in the bed next to her. Days later, Hiroko's hair also began to fall out. Her mother collected each strand in preparation for the moment her daughter would die. "They told us, once you lose your hair, you will die. I did not have any will to live, honestly, because my little brother had already died. And I wondered why I was allowed to live," she said. Hiroko's body slowly recovered, her hair grew back. She still suffers recurring cancer. But in the postwar years, she defied her doctors to have a baby boy, a son who grew up to be a symphony conductor with the same love of music that her brother had long ago. "I often think how lucky I am that the spirit of my brother exists in my son today." The strands of hair her mother lovingly saved for her funeral are now on display at the Hiroshima Peace Museum. Her suffering -- like that of so many survivors -- is now a part of history. 
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