Early life and acting career Midori (Japanese for "green") Naka was born in the
Nihonbashi district of
Chūō, Tokyo in
Japan, the third of four daughters of a military officer. She graduated from
Osaka Jogakuin College, before joining the Asakusa samurai drama group in 1928. In 1931, she entered the newly formed
Tsukiji Shokekijo (
Tsukiji Little Theater) and distinguished herself as an actress of the
Shingeki style, especially for her performances as the titular character in the production of
Lady of the camellias. In the mid-1930s, she helped her sisters run a coffee shop in the Asakusa district in Tokyo. In 1940, the Tsukiji troupe was shut down by the police. She joined the
Kuraku-za (Pain and Pleasure) theater company in 1942. Tokyo air raids made activity difficult, and the troupe disbanded in January 1945. In March 1945, Naka became lead actress in the
Sakura-tai (Japanese for "Cherry Blossom Unit"), a newly formed mobile theater group organized by actor Sadao Maruyama. The nine members of the troupe rented a house that was located about from the ground zero of the atomic bombing of August 1945. They shared this house with members of another theater troupe of six members, the
Sangoza. Naka and sixteen of her colleagues were at the house in Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, when an atomic bomb detonated over the city. Thirteen of the seventeen actors were killed instantly. Naka survived, along with Sadao Maruyama,
Keiko Sonoi and Shozo Takayama. Naka later described her experience: When it happened, I was in the kitchen, since it was my turn to make breakfast for the company that morning. I was wearing a light housecoat, colored red and white and had a scarf tied about my head. When a sudden white light filled the room, my first reaction was that the hot water boiler must have exploded. I immediately lost consciousness. When I came to, I was in darkness and I gradually became aware that I was pinned beneath the ruins of the house. When I tried to work my way free, I realized that apart from my small panties, I was entirely naked. I ran my hand over my face and back: I was uninjured! Only my hands and legs were slightly scratched. I ran just as I was to the river, where everything was in flames. I jumped into the water and floated downstream. After a few hundred yards, some soldiers fished me out.
Illness and death A few days later, thanks to her fame as an actress, Naka was able to find a seat into one of the rare trains that were then travelling to the capital. On August 16, Naka voluntarily entered the hospital of
Tokyo University where she was examined by some of the foremost radiation experts in Japan at the time. Naka provided the first testimony of the Hiroshima bombing to be widely publicized in the media. ==Legacy==