During her summer holiday, she takes the ferry to her hometown Hiroshima to visit the graves of her parents and younger sister, who were killed in the Atomic bombing.

The film was commissioned by the Japan Teachers Union and was based on first-person testimonies gathered by Japanese educator Arata Osada, collected in the 1951 book Children of the Atomic Bomb.

[3] The end of the post-war occupation of Japan by American forces allowed the production of works addressing the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagaski.

The union then commissioned another film, Hiroshima (released in 1953), by director Hideo Sekigawa, which was far more graphic in its depiction of the bombing's aftermath and far more critical of both American and Japanese leaders who had brought about the disaster.

The beauty of the compositions in Children of Hiroshima — the clarity of focus, the graceful balance within the frames — provides some relief from the grimness of his subject.

[11] The film commemorates the hibakusha people and highlights how they were ostracized in Japanese society through characters who are refused work due to their visible injuries caused by the bombs and the radiation.

The film displays the victimization of Japan in flashback scenes of the bombing, where children cry over their dead mother's bodies, representing a broken bond of life.

[12] The film’s emphasis on the destruction that followed the bombing resonates with the anti-war and pro-democracy messages of several social interest groups, including the Japan Teachers Union.

[13] Children of Hiroshima was screened at a 2012 retrospective on Shindō and Kōzaburō Yoshimura in London, organised by the British Film Institute and the Japan Foundation.