Remembering Hiroshima & Nagasaki, 69 years later

Candles and paper lanterns float on the Motoyasu River in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome at the Peace Memorial Park, in memory of the victims of the bomb on the 63rd anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb on August 6, 2008 in Hiroshima, Japan.Commemorations of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945 are taking place all around the world.

Both atom bombed cities are holding their annual commemoration ceremonies, while continuing to call for the abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide, as through the Mayors for Peace campaign they initiated.

A commemoration was held at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall, by the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Committee in Washington, D.C. Featured speakers included: Mr. Toshiyuki Mimaki, a Hiroshima Hibakusha, who serves as Vice President of Hiroshima Prefectural Hidankyo, and a former Executive Board member of Nihon Hidankyo, The Confederation of A & H Bomb Survivors Organizations; Ms. Fumie Kakita Nagasaki, a second-generation Hibakusha, who serves as Assistant Secretary General of Nagasaki Council of A-bomb Sufferers; and Dennis Nelson, Director of Support and Education for Radiation Victims (SERV) U.S.A., himself a Downwinder from St. George, Utah. Beyond Nuclear was invited to give an update on the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe.

A commemoration was also held at the Henry Moore sculpture at the University of Chicago, marking the very spot where Enrico Fermi initiated the first chain reaction, as part of the Manhattan Project, on Dec. 2, 1942. Speakers included Dave Kraft, Director of Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago (NEIS). (Beyond Nuclear joined with NEIS, and Friends of the Earth, to mark the 70th year since that infamy, on Dec. 2, 2012, with a "Mountain of Radioactive Waste 70 Years High" conference.)

Physicians for Social Responsibility has compiled a listing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemoration events.