On August 6, 1945, the atomic bomb 'Little Boy' detonated over Hiroshima, killing approximately 80,000 people instantly and destroying everything within a one-mile radius. Within that radius — about eight blocks from the hypocentre — stood a Jesuit rectory of the parish of Our Lady of the Assumption, where eight priests lived: Fr. Hugo Lassalle, Fr. Hubert Schiffer, Fr. Wilhelm Kleinsorge, and five others.
The rectory remained standing while every surrounding building was levelled or burned. All eight priests survived. Examinations over the following years and decades found that none of them suffered the radiation sickness that killed so many other survivors. Fr. Schiffer lived until 1982; he gave detailed testimony at the 1976 Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia.
When asked why he and his fellow priests had been spared, Schiffer answered consistently: 'We believe that we survived because we were living the message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that house.' This account is widely repeated in Catholic literature; rigorous historical and scientific examination is limited, and the case is best treated as remarkable tradition rather than canonically investigated miracle.