Shortly after the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant was crippled by the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, Sascha fled to Germany with his wife and daughter, a move that would split the family apart to this day.
Shortly after the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant was crippled by the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, Sascha fled to Germany with his wife and daughter, a move that would split the family apart to this day.
While Sascha has since returned to Tokyo alone to continue his work as a radio disc jockey, his wife, Terumi, and their 4-year-old daughter, Leiya, remain in Germany.
Sascha, 35, who identifies himself only by his first name, was unconvinced that radiation levels in Japan would not have an adverse impact on the health of his family.
Nine months after leaving Japan, Terumi, 39, who can speak very little German, often struggles with basic day-to-day procedures. And she’s not the only one feeling the stress of living in a foreign land. Leiya, who attends kindergarten in Munich, showed apparent strains from a new environment, acting out on occasion, for some time.
But the girl lights up when she talks with her father, 9,000 kilometers away, over an Internet phone, despite an eight-hour time difference.
Sascha, born to a German father and a Japanese mother, lived in Germany until around the age of 10. Immediately after he moved to Japan in 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident occurred. Because the former Soviet Union initially would not even admit the existence of the disaster, his relatives in Germany lived through some uncertain, anxious times.
A day after the Great East Japan Earthquake, Sascha’s family threw their futon in the back of the car and headed west from Tokyo. The German Embassy, in e-mails, urged him not to stay in the Tokyo area long and to leave Japan if possible. Sascha received similar e-mails from his friends.
The couple flew to Germany to protect their daughter, even if only temporarily.
In Germany, the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant sparked action on the home front, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets, calling for the suspension of nuclear power plants and carrying green balloons and hand-made placards.
Miranda Schreurs, a professor of environmental policy at the Free University in Berlin, joined the movement in May and also sat on an advisory board for Chancellor Angela Merkel, set up after the Fukushima accident.
In June, the German government decided to shut down all 17 nuclear power reactors in the country by 2022.
Anti-nuclear movements in Germany started in the 1970s and expanded after the Chernobyl accident. While the society was split into two camps, the use of renewable energy has increased sharply.
Schreurs, a U.S. citizen who studied in Japan, came to Japan in December. Neon lights were glittering in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward as if nothing had happened in Fukushima.
While citizens often sway politics in Germany through “people power,” few Japanese are willing to take part in such movements, Schreurs said.
Sascha and Terumi, however, said they cannot sit back and simply do nothing. Terumi has begun collecting signatures for anti-nuclear causes from mothers whose children attend the same Japanese-language school as Leiya.
In Japan, Sascha has been measuring radiation levels with a dosimeter. In October, he traveled to Germany to undergo an examination for radiation. Sascha said he wanted to confirm with his own body whether it was safe for his family to return to Japan.
When he reported on a blog that nothing abnormal was detected, many people who were also worried about the impact of radiation on their children’s health wrote that they felt reassured.
Some frowned on the couple’s decision to flee, although they certainly weren’t the only ones to leave Japan after March 11. It will take time before they can tell whether it was the right or wrong decision. The couple said they will take responsibility for their decision either way.
One day in December, as Terumi walked home with Leiya from her kindergarten, Leiya playfully threw snowballs at her mother. Terumi says Leiya has grown quite a bit since coming to Germany.
When Sascha greeted the New Year in Tokyo without them, he recalled his daughter’s crying face when he left her back in Germany.