Father Hubert F. Schiffer, S.J. (1915 in Gütersloh – March 27, 1982 in Frankfurt, West Germany) was a German Jesuit who survived the atomic bomb "Little Boy" dropped on Hiroshima. Hiroshima bombing Schiffer was one of several Jesuit priests who were at their mission compound, less than from ground zero when the explosion occurred.Schiffer started the Myth of the Miracle of Hiroshima by the Apparition of Mary in Fatima. Jesuits and their location Many retellings of the event state there were eight Jesuit priests (or missionaries), who were eight blocks from ground zero. John Hersey, in his contemporary 1946 account Hiroshima, lists four Jesuit priests (Father Superior LaSalle [sic], Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, Father Cieslik, and Father Schiffer) and places them "from the center." Schiffer himself states there were four Jesuit priests — "Father Hugo Lassalle, Superior of the whole Jesuit Mission in Japan, and Fathers Kleinsorge, Cieslik, and Schiffer" — and describes his own location as "within the most deadly one-mile radius." Schiffer also notes the name of their church — "the Jesuit Church of Our Lady's Assumption." Explosion According to the 1946 account of Jesuit priest Father John Siemes, who had been on the outskirts of the city: Schiffer's own account describes the explosion: Survivors All four Jesuit priests survived the explosion. Quoted in 1950, Schiffer said, "Of 14 clergy and laymen we lost only one, a Japanese." The Jesuits were in a building stronger than most surrounding buildings, as noted by Hersey and Siemes, respectively: They were not the only survivors close to ground zero; an estimated 14% of people within of ground zero survived the explosion. Other survivors included ten people in a streetcar from ground zero, and a woman in a bank away from the blast. One person survived at a distance of just , protected in the basement of a building while looking for documents. Religious aspects The survival of the priests has sometimes been referred to as a miracle. In 1951, Schiffer said: Similarities with Nagasaki are sometimes highlighted, where a Franciscan friary established by St. Maximilian Kolbe was "unaffected by the bomb which fell there", as "the friary was protected from the force of the bomb by an intervening mountain". Later life Schiffer met both the pilot and co-pilot of the B-29 that bombed Hiroshima, the Enola Gay. In New York City in 1951, Schiffer met co-pilot Robert A. Lewis. Schiffer invited Lewis