Accepting Nobel Peace Prize, Hidankyo Cochair Tanaka Urges Unity to Head Off Nuclear Apocalypse

By Kyoko Mine and Daiki Komatsu / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers

19:14 JST, December 11, 2024

OSLO — Terumi Tanaka, cochair for Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations), on Tuesday urged people to work together to prevent humanity from destroying itself with nuclear weapons. He was giving the Nobel Prize lecture in Oslo for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize as a member of Hidankyo.

Tanaka, 92, an atomic-bomb survivor from Nagasaki, also said that in this era when international tensions are eroding the “nuclear taboo,” survivors are determined that no one should experience the terrible suffering they had to endure.

Standing at the podium looking tense, Tanaka started his lecture with “friends around the world striving to abolish nuclear weapons.” He touched on the current international situation, which has seen an increased risk of nuclear warfare, and said, “I am infinitely saddened and angered that the ‘nuclear taboo’ threatens to be broken.”

He then related how in his first year of junior high school he lost five of his relatives, including two aunts and a grandfather, to an atomic bombing.

When the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, Tanaka was at home, 3.2 kilometers from ground zero. He said he was surprised by a bright white light and felt a strong shock wave immediately after he got down on the floor, covering his eyes and ears.

He has no memory of what happened after that, but miraculously he was unhurt.

Three days later, Tanaka went to the area around ground zero to look for his two aunts. The area had been turned into blackened ruins. The bodies of the dead were being left around burnt-down houses.

“I became almost devoid of emotion, somehow closing off my sense of humanity,” he said. He found the charred body of one of his aunts lying in the ruins of her house.

“Even in a war, such killing and maiming must never be allowed to happen,” insisted Tanaka, who had wanted to be a soldier as a boy.

He said that those who survived the bombings had to endure loneliness, illness, poverty, prejudice and discrimination, and that many survivors had never talked about being an atomic bomb victim.

However, the movement against nuclear arms grew after an incident in March 1954, when a Japanese fishing boat and its crew were exposed to radiation from a U.S. hydrogen bomb test.

In August 1956, Tanaka attended the second World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs in Nagasaki. Hidankyo was established during the conference. In its founding declaration, Hidankyo expressed its determination to “save humanity from its crisis through the lessons learned from our experiences, while at the same time saving ourselves.”

During Tanaka’s lecture on Tuesday, he carefully explained what the organization had accomplished since its founding.

Hidankyo conducted a survey in 1985 on the damage caused by the atomic bombings. The survey, with more than 13,000 respondents, was the first research into the mental health of survivors.

Tanaka said that the damage caused by the bombings affected the lives, bodies, livelihoods and minds of the survivors.

He added that, with the survey results, survivors grew even more determined “that no one in the world should again be allowed to experience the horrific suffering they had gone through.”

Activities by survivors and others led to Japan’s enactment of the Atomic Bomb Survivors Relief Law in 1994 and the U.N. adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017.

During his lecture, Tanaka also strongly criticized the Japanese government for its inadequate compensation of atomic bomb victims.

“It is the heartfelt desire of the Hibakusha [survivors] that … we must not allow the possession of a single nuclear weapon,” he said. Tanaka has served as a cochair for the organization since 2017, leading the movement together with the younger generation. He also served as Hidankyo’s secretary general for a long period.

Nuclear weapons have not been used in a war since the bombing of Nagasaki. The Norwegian Nobel Committee offered strong praise for the organization, saying, “the extraordinary efforts of Nihon Hidankyo and other representatives of the Hibakusha have contributed greatly to the establishment of the nuclear taboo.”

However, the average age of atomic bomb survivors is now over 85, and many of the people who laid the foundation for Hidankyo alongside Tanaka have passed away. At the same time, there is growing concern in the international community that nuclear weapons could be used again.

Before his lecture, Tanaka worked over his speech with senior Hidankyo members and others to ensure that people would understand that this issue concerns everyone, regardless of one’s generation or nationality, since anyone may become a victim of an atomic bombing, or even find themselves perpetrating such a bombing.

He concluded his 20-minute lecture by saying, “Let not humanity destroy itself with nuclear weapons! Let us work together for a human society, in a world free of nuclear weapons and of wars!” The audience gave a standing ovation.