Hiroshima, the movie, is based on the book, Children of the Atomic Bomb, which is a collection of stories by child survivors. Over 90,000 Hiroshima residents, many of them hibakusha (a term referring to the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), labor unions and a head of a university volunteered to help make the movie (without financial compensation), as no commercial entity or studio would touch it. The Japanese teachers' Union financed the film to promote peace. The movie depicts the period during World War II prior to and during the atomic bombing and the physical and social aftermath. The focus of the film is the children, in particular students from a school, one of whom we learn right away has something typical of the post-war period namely leukemia which she, her fellow students and teachers call 'atomic bomb illness.' She confesses to her friends that she doesn't want to die. The students are studious, but also in varying forms of denial, shock and ignorance.