Nobel Committee Chairman Visits Hiroshima, Japan, for the First Time; Jorgen Watne Frydnes Tours Peace Memorial Museum, Meets Survivors

The Yomiuri Shimbun

20:00 JST, July 23, 2025

Observing the passage of 80 years since atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, 40, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which selects the Nobel Peace Prize, made his first visit to the Peace Memorial Park in Naka Ward, Hiroshima, on Tuesday.

After touring Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, he placed flowers at the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims and met with A-bomb survivors. He said he was deeply impressed by the survivors’ testimonies and the exhibits at the museum.

Last October, the Oslo-based committee selected Nihon Hidankyo (the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations) as the winner of the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize.

Frydnes spent about an hour at the museum on Tuesday, gazing intently at exhibits like a panoramic display recreating the moment of the atomic bombing. In the museum guest book, he wrote in English, “we pay tribute to all who were lost, to all survivors — and to all those who turned pain into hope, and memory into a force for peace.”

Afterward, he met with about 20 people, including Hidankyo representative Toshiyuki Mimaki, 83, who attended the award ceremony in Oslo last December, and children of A-bomb survivors and high school students. Frydnes said that he was encouraged by the opportunity to meet with those who are teaching new generations about the reality of the atomic bombings. “We are aiming for a world without nuclear weapons, and I hope that you will convey this message to the world from Norway as well,” said Mimaki.

Frydnes told the press that he hopes the world will once again listen to the voices of the A-bomb survivors saying that nuclear weapons must never be used again.