Column: Commemorating Nagasaki’s suffering and the horror of war

Aug. 6, 8 and 9, 1945, are auspicious days to include in your memory bank: In the closing days of the Pacific War in World War II, the world changed.

On that Aug. 6, the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

On Aug. 8, President Harry S. Truman signed the United Nations Charter and the United States became the first nation to complete the ratification process and join the new international organization.

Aug. 9 was a busy day in the history of World War II. America dropped a second plutonian bomb on Japan, devastating the city of Nagasaki. The Soviet Union, following through with an agreement made earlier in WWII, declared war on Japan, as well as the beginning of the “Cold War.”

The two cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have been fused in memory, to the point that we use the term “the bomb” to refer to both events.

What kind of trauma does this annual commemoration relive for the “hibakusha,” the survivors of the bombs? What does it mean to people who have only read of war? Have our young people seen so much of war that they are desensitized?

Iccho Itoh, the former mayor of Nagasaki Prefecture, once wrote, “Decades have passed since that day. Now the atomic bomb survivors are advancing into old age and their memories are fading into the mist of history. The question of how to inform young people about the horror of war, the threat of nuclear weapons and the importance of peace is therefore a matter of pressing concern. The citizens of Nagasaki pray that this miserable experience will never be repeated on Earth. We also consider it our duty to ensure that the experience is not forgotten but passed on intact to future generations.”

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. In addition, it is not enough to believe in it. One must work at it.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his “Letter from the Birmingham Jail”, 1963: “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.”

Therefore, every year since 1990, when the Nagasaki Peace Bell was given to the people of Honolulu from the Hibakushas of Nagasaki Prefecture, we have commemorated Aug. 9 in memory of the people of Nagasaki. We did so again this past Friday.

There are two other peace bell monuments of the same design, which were given to the city of Leningrad (once again St. Petersburg), Russia; and to a city in Manchuria, which felt the brunt of the Japanese military action. In 1996 the Nagasaki Hibakusha reaffirmed their commit- ment to the spirit of the bells by sending each of the three cities a gift of $10,000 for the maintenance of the monuments.

At the base of the monument is a plaque inscribed with this message: Nagasaki, the city devastated by the bitter tragedy of a nuclear bomb, dedicates this Nagasaki bell as a symbol of the rebirth of Nagasaki and the desire of its citizens for peace in the future through sincere reconciliation and reflection on the folly of war.

We must never forget the horrors of war, and the need for enduring peace. We must tell this story to everyone in every generation. Not winning or losing, but the catastrophe of conflict, the devastation of death and destruction, the inescapable sufferings of war as well as the people who died that day. Some were just at the beginning of their lives, like so many of our young people here in Hawaii.

Marsha Joyner is a longtime civil rights activist in Honolulu.