Hiroshima Witnesses: Hibakusha Win Nobel Prize / Next Generation Carries on Will of Hibakusha; Work Toward Abolition of N-Weapons Must Continue After Peace Prize Win

The Yomiuri Shimbun

6:00 JST, October 21, 2024

Next year will mark the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of the two cities. Looking back on the steps taken by the atomic bomb survivors, known as hibakusha, we will consider the challenges of the coming age without them in a series of articles. This is the second and last installment of a series.

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HIROSHIMA — “One day, the hibakusha [atomic bomb survivors] will no longer be among us as witnesses to history,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said during the Oct. 11 announcement of Nihon Hidankyo, or Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, being selected for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The number of people with atomic bomb survivor’s certificates is likely to fall below 100,000 in 2025 — 80 years after the atomic bombings.

The figure has decreased by about 86,000 over the past decade. As the “era without atomic bomb survivors” is approaching, how can the horror of that day be passed on to the next generation so work toward the abolition of nuclear weapons can continue?

The day after the Nobel Peace Prize was announced, a workshop on peace was held at the Nagasaki prefectural government office.

Third-generation hibakusha Mitsuhiro Hayashida, 32, told 17 high school students from Nagasaki and Hiroshima who attended the workshop: “There are people in the world who see nuclear weapons as ‘heroes.’ Hibakusha have been appealing for a long time for this perspective to change.”

Hayashida, whose grandfather was exposed to the atomic bomb in Nagasaki, has been involved in activities such as petition drives for the abolition of nuclear weapons since high school. He went on to study at university in Tokyo, where he met Terumi Tanaka, 92, a cochairperson of Nihon Hidankyo from Niiza, Saitama Prefecture.

At the age of 13, Tanaka was 3.2 kilometers from the hypocenter in Nagasaki and lost five of his relatives. As Hayashida developed a closer relationship with Tanaka, he was moved by his strong desire to continue talking about his experience of the atomic bombing, even though it must have been something he wanted to forget.

Hayashida spearheaded the international petition drive for nuclear abolition launched by Nihon Hidankyo and other organizations that collected more than 13 million signatures over about four years to the end of 2020.

He returned to Nagasaki in 2021 and founded a general association to develop peace education in his hometown. He focuses on activities such as guiding visitors through bombed-out ruins and giving lectures at educational institutions.

“Receiving the peace prize should increase interest in hibakusha. I want to increase the number of people who continue to think about peace and nuclear abolition as something that concerns them personally,” he said.

Lasting effects

The passion with which hibakusha speak about their experiences has the power to be an inspiration to people.

Yuta Takahashi, 24, is the representative director general of the incorporated association Katawara based in Yokohama, which advocates against the threat of nuclear weapons.

When he was in the third year of junior high school, he met Sunao Tsuboi, who was then chairperson of Nihon Hidankyo and already close to 90 years old. Takahashi said he was overwhelmed by the sight and passion of Tsuboi as he put his all into talking about the devastation caused by the atomic bomb. Tsuboi died in 2021 at 96.

Takahashi interviewed Tsuboi directly over two days and created a booklet about his experiences when he was in his second year of high school.

When Tsuboi, who usually spoke with his back straight, talked about the discrimination he experienced when looking to marry, he hunched over and began to cry. Seeing this, Takahashi realized that the atomic bomb had not only caused direct damage, but also continued to inflict deep emotional scars on people’s hearts.

Takahashi recently said he was shocked to overhear a group of high school girls talking about how they did not like grotesque things such as the exhibitions at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The Nobel Peace Prize was announced soon after.

“I felt that I will have to tell the story in a way that invokes the faces of hibakusha in the minds of the audience,” he said.

‘Never again’

Efforts that transcend generations and borders are essential to move closer to a “world without nuclear weapons.”

Haruko Moritaki, 85, plans to hold the World Nuclear Victims Forum in Hiroshima in the autumn of next year, inviting not only Japanese victims but also people from around the world who suffered as a result of nuclear testing during the Cold War.

Haruko is a daughter of Ichiro Moritaki, an atomic bomb survivor who is known as the “father of the antinuclear movement.” He died in 1994 at the age of 92.

Ichiro, who lost sight in his right eye due to the atomic bombing, used to sit with his back to the Atomic Bomb Victims Cenotaph at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park every time a nuclear test was conducted. He did so about 500 times.

Haruko remembers her father saying, “I carry the souls of the victims on my back,” when asked by overseas media why he did it.

“We must not be satisfied at receiving the Peace Prize. We must remember the all-out efforts of our predecessors. Now is the time to make the world aware of the horror of nuclear weapons and to take steps toward their abolition,” Haruko said.

Nihon Hidankyo, in its founding declaration in August 1956, declared, “Humanity must never again inflict nor suffer the sacrifice and torture we have experienced.”