slight to the sacred dead

In referring to those who went through the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, the Japanese tended to shy away from the term “survivors,” because in its focus on being alive it might suggest some slight to the sacred dead. The class of people to which Nakamura-san belonged came, therefore, to be called by a more neutral name, “hibakusha” – literally, “explosion-affected persons.”


Hiroshima by John Hersey. Vintage Books. 1989. p.92