Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims share their stories with Brooklyn students

Peace Pole dedicated at Brooklyn Friends School

April 28, 2015 By Mary Frost Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Seventy years after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Japan, Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors of the blasts visited Brooklyn Friends School to dedicate a Peace Pole, and speak to students about the effects of atomic weapons. Photo by Mary Frost

Share this:

Seventy years after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Japan, elderly Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors of the blasts visited Brooklyn Friends School (BFS) in Downtown Brooklyn to dedicate a Peace Pole, and speak to students about the horrendous effects of atomic weapons.

A Peace Pole is a slim monument that displays the message and prayer “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in different languages on each side. Participants from the U.S. and Japan joined hands around the monument and prayed for peace.

The average age of the survivors – called Hibakusha, or “bomb-affected-people” in Japanese – is 79, so it is likely that today’s students are among the last to hear their first-hand testimony, the organizers, Hibakusha Stories, said.

Nonviolent resolution of conflict is a Quaker tradition, said BFS Head of School Larry Weiss. He spoke about the enormous destruction and suffering caused by the bombs, as a translator repeated his words in Japanese for the visiting delegation.

“Some had hoped that through the United Nations, and through this destructive period, peace would be established in the world. Seventy years later, this hope has not been fulfilled,” he said.

“We have been very close to using nuclear weapons again,” Weiss said. “When I was 13, the day the Cuban Missile Crisis started and we were told to go home, we never knew if there would be a nuclear war.”

Generals on both sides of that conflict advocated for the use of nuclear weapons, and many more generals have access to them today, he said.

“As the Hibakusha get too old to share their message easily, it’s up to us to keep alive the word about the importance of avoiding that destruction,” he added.

Dr. Masao Tomonaga, who was 2 years old when the bombs dropped, spoke on behalf of the Nagasaki victims.

“While the total number of weapons is less, we need to eradicate them totally,” he said. “The world is still not free of bombs. Together, let’s promote this movement. Younger generations must be free of war.”

With those words, Tomonaga and members of the delegation waved to the BFS history students watching the proceedings from the second floor balcony.

Clifton Truman Daniel, grandson of President Harry Truman, who authorized the bombings at the close of WWII, said he feels he is “living in two worlds.”

“I love and respect my grandfather, but I have friends today who were hurt by his decision.”

Daniel went to Japan with his son Wesley, where they conducted dozens of interviews with survivors. “They came to us in friendship,” he said. “They only asked that my son and I continue to tell their stories so we never do this again.”

Hibakusha paerticpants Reiko Yamada, Shigeko Sasamori, Nobuko Sugino, Toshiko Tanaka, Jong-keun Lee and Kunihiko Bonkohara spoke to BFS students after the ceremony and shared their stories.

The survivors have also presented their appalling memories to Hibakusha Stories.

Reiko Yamada, who was a young girl in Hiroshima when the bomb dropped roughly two miles from her school, wrote, “I looked up and saw the silver-shining B29 plane flying high in the blue sky, drawing a white arc with its vapor trail. ‘That’s pretty,’ I thought. The next moment I felt a white flash. As I began to rush for an air-raid shelter, the hot sand from the sandbox blew strong against my back and pushed me down on the ground…

She continued, “A good friend of mine in the neighborhood was waiting for her mother to return home with her four brothers and sisters. Later, she told me that on the second day after the bombing, a moving black lump crawled into the house. They first thought it was a black dog, but they soon realized it was their mother; she collapsed and died when she finally got to her children…”

Accompanying the Hibakusha were Robert Croonquist, executive director of Hibakusha Stories, and Kristen Iversen, author and survivor of nuclear contamination. Norboru Tasaki, representing the Nagasaki Delegation was a guest speaker.

The Hibakusha will be visiting other school in Brooklyn next month. These include Bushwick School for Global Justice, New Utrecht High School, Magen David Yeshivah High School and Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies.

On May 17, they will be appearing at Brooklyn Friends Meeting House from 1 to 2 p.m. for a public program. The Meeting House is located at 110 Schermerhorn St. in Downtown Brooklyn.