October 1985. I am visiting my friend Masumi at her
Tokyo home. The two of us, 21 year olds, have spent a crazy day at Tokyo
Disneyland, enjoying ourselves like 8 year olds with permission to wander
alone. We get home at midnight to a note from her parents. They have bought
tickets for us to go to Hiroshima. We will leave just a few hours by the
Shinkansen (Bullet-train). I am overjoyed and touched. For a person who decided
at 7 she was going to work for world peace, this is a pilgrimage she has hardly
dreamt that she would make.
A visit to the Hiroshima Peace Park begins at the
Atomic Bomb Dome. This was the building upon which the bomb was dropped. The
vertical walls survived. Nothing else within or in the area did.
There are photos of us before the dome. We are not
smiling. We are not smiling in most of the Peace Park photos. How could we be?
The Peace Park is full of monuments to various
groups of people who were killed--in this locality, from that profession, of that
ethnicity--but those were the days of 24-exposure film and I have photographs
of just a few.
This is the Prayer for Peace Statue. The plaque next to it bears a poem by Shinpei Kusano. Translated from the Japanese:
Over the crescent moon in the sky
A tangible statue of a
mother and her child stands.
This is the symbol of
lasting peace.
Dear little child,
embraced in your mother' s love, play the gold trumpet.
Sound the clear tunes
of peace over the earth and to heaven.
Puffing up your
cheeks, play the gold trumpet, the tunes of No More Hiroshimas,
No matter what our
future will be like.
This was the memorial to students mobilized for the
war effort. In 1944, there was a grave labour shortage and the government
required middle and high school students to work in munitions and ordnance
factories. 6300 died on the day of the bombing. (Source)
We were students ourselves. I had just got my MA in
International Relations and Masumi was studying at Waseda. Older than the
students who died but close enough in age to feel terrible anguish. On the
other hand, who wouldn't feel anguish?
This is the Children's Peace
Monument. Sadako's story is well-known. She was two when Hiroshima was
bombed. Nine years later, she was diagnosed with leukaemia, an effect of being
exposed to radiation.
It was believed that folding a
thousand origami cranes would help cure any illness, so Sadako folded cranes
tirelessly. Still, she died. Children (and adults) now bring cranes to the Children's Peace
Monument in her memory.
This is the cenotaph to those who died in the atomic bomb attack. Through the arch, you can see the A-Bomb dome.
As if one atomic bomb were not horrific enough, a
second was dropped over Nagasaki three days later, on August 9, 1945. This
Peace Bell is a gift from the people of Nagasaki to the people of Hiroshoma.
Every year, the Mayor of Hiroshima reads a peace
declaration on August 6. The Declaration is then placed in the Peace Museum.
This is the one from 1985, the fortieth anniversary year. Here is what
it says:
"No more
Hiroshimas.
It was forty years ago today during the hot summer
that the heat waves, fiery blast, and radiation emitted by the first nuclear
weapon ever used against a human target burned all living things in a blinding
flash and turned the city of Hiroshima into a plain of scorched rubble.Standing
in the ruins, we, the citizens of Hiroshima, foresaw that any war fought with
nuclear weapons would mean the annihilation of humanity and the end of
civilization - and we have consistently appealed to the world for the total
abolition of nuclear weapons.
Despite these untiring efforts, more and more
nuclear weapons have been produced; they have been made more and more
sophisticated; and they have been deployed ready for strategic and tactical
use. Humankind continues to face the threat of nuclear annihilation.Although
the nuclear superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, finally
resumed their long-suspended negotiations on nuclear disarmament this March,
the talks have made deplorably little progress as the superpowers use the
facade of negotiation to jockey for advantage while they expand the nuclear
arms race into outer space.
Today's hesitation leads to tomorrow's destruction.In
order that Hiroshima's inferno never be repeated anywhere, we strongly urge the
United States and the Soviet Union, who hold the fate of humankind in their
hands, to halt all nuclear testing immediately and to take decisive steps at
the summit talks in Geneva toward the total abolition of nuclear weapons in the
interests of all humankind.
As the only country to have experienced nuclear
devastation, Japan and the government of Japan should steadfastly adhere to its
three non-nuclear principles policy and should take the initiative in seeking
the elimination of nuclear weapons. A census of A-bomb victims is being
conducted this year, and it is our sincere hope that all due measures will be
taken to mitigate the suffering of A-bomb survivors on the basis of the
principle of national indemnity, taking into consideration the distinctive
characteristics of ailments induced by atomic bombing.
Along with these efforts, Hiroshima, an A-bombed
city, has been devoting itself to building a city dedicated to peace - a living
symbol of the ideal of lasting world peace. It is in this spirit that we are
hosting the First World Conference of Mayors for Peace through Inter-city
Solidarity this year, for it is our hope that all the cities of the world
aspiring to lasting peace will be able to develop inter-city solidarity
transcending national boundaries, ideologies and creeds and will impart added
momentum to the international quest for peace.
This year also marks the International Youth Year.
We hope that the young people of the world - the leaders of the twenty-first
century - will inherit the Spirit of Hiroshima, strengthen friendship and
solidarity among themselves, and exert their utmost efforts in the cause of
peace.The fates of all of us are bound together here on earth. There can be no
survival for any without peaceful co-existence for all. Humankind has no future
if that future does not include co-prosperity. In order to save this verdant
planet from the grim death of nuclear winter, we must draw upon our common wisdom
in overcoming distrust and confrontation. Sharing our planet's finite resources
in the spirit of mutual understanding and cooperation, we must eliminate
starvation and poverty.
No more Hiroshimas.
We must strengthen the bonds of friendship and
solidarity among all peoples so as to save the world from the evil of war.
Today, on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary
of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, we pray for the souls of the A-bomb victims
and rededicate our lives to the eradication of nuclear weapons and the pursuit
of lasting peace.
August 6, 1985
Takeshi Araki
Mayor
The City of Hiroshima"
This sculpture marks the 1981
visit of Pope John Paul II to the Peace Museum. The sculpture bears an excerpt
from his address:
"War is the work of man.
War is destruction of human life.
War is death.
To remember the past is to commit
oneself to the future.
To remember Hiroshima is to abhor
nuclear war.
To remember Hiroshima is to commit
oneself to peace."
***
"To remember Hiroshima is to commit oneself to
peace."
Nothing left to be said, is there?
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