Chugoku Shimbun
Hiroshima 2003 (Japanese) | Top page

Aug 6th, 2003
Alarm bell sounded against the "rule of power"
Hiroshima's "Day of Prayer"
Today is Hiroshima's Day of requiem. It has been 58 years since a single atomic bomb burned this city to the ground. "Rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil." Before dawn, people began walking up to the A-bomb Memorial Cenotaph in Peace Memorial Park, the hallowed ground in Naka-ku, Hiroshima City.

Following the terrorist attacks on the U.S., the 21st century turned into another "century of war," more chains of violence and revenge. After it bombed Afghanistan, the U.S. waged war on Iraq, going so far as to use depleted uranium rounds, which are radioactive weapons.

With the world racked by war, in the Peace Declaration that he read at the Peace Memorial Ceremony, Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba stressed the need to replace the rule of power with the rule of law based on international law, and to move toward reconciliation.

Mourn, inherit, then communicate peace. The times change, but the mission of the A-bombed city never changes. But now that the average age of the hibakusha in Hiroshima is over 71, our task of inheriting August 6, 1945 is more urgent than ever.
2003/08/06/00:20
"My job as a parent is to tell my children about Hiroshima. We come before dawn every year." With his two sons, company employee Tadashi Tochika (35) of 2-chome Yoshijima Shin-machi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima City, places his hands together in prayer before the Memorial Cenotaph.
2003/08/06/00:40
"We came this year too." Self-employed Tsuneshi Nishioka (53) and his wife Yuriko (52) of 3-chome Higashino, Asaminami-ku, Hiroshima City, light incense as a prayer offering for the soul of his grandfather.
2003/08/06/00:55
Just after midnight on the morning of the 6th, people bearing flowers or incense begin coming up to the Cenotaph for the Atomic Bomb Victims to pray for the souls of their relatives.
2003/08/06/06:25
"Are you ready to go? Don't you think it's time to go?" A woman repeatedly asks her mother's permission to wheel her away from the Cenotaph. The mother tells us, "I had to walk over corpses to get away."
2003/08/06/06:40
People walk past the "witness to the atomic bombing" on their way to the Peace Memorial Ceremony, bathed in hot sunlight reminiscent of "that day."
2003/08/06/06:55
One after another, children and teenagers come up to the Children's Peace Monument to offer paper cranes. In a sad incident at the start of August, someone set fire to cases of 140,000 paper cranes standing near the monument.
2003/08/06/08:05
Tears and sweat roll down cheeks, when 40,000 attend the Peace Memorial Ceremony. What the survivors and their families seek is true peace.
2003/08/06/08:15
At 8:15 a.m., the time the bomb exploded, the participants quietly close their eyes and pray for the peaceful repose of the victims and lasting peace.
2003/08/06/08:15

Kazuyo Tanda (87) lost four people to the war and the atomic bombing: her husband, two younger sisters, and her mother-in-law. "I cannot forget about that day.

Reciting a sutra at the room for prayer, elderly watching the representatives of the children recite the Commitment to Peace and listening "Not violence, but dialogue." on TV while nodding repeatedly. (Funairi Mutsumien, Hiroshima A-bomb Survivors Nursing Home; Naka-ku, Hiroshima)

2003/08/06/08:15

When the driver says, "It is 8:15 a.m.," the 19 passengers fall into silence together. The streetcar is headed from Hiroshima Station toward Eba. (at the Tokaichi intersection in Naka-ku, Hiroshima City)
2003/08/06/11:00

Trying to imagine how the hibakusha felt, participants in "Arukingu" silently climb a steep hill. (1-chome, Tagata, Nishi-ku, Hiroshima City)
2003/08/06/12:20
What is the atomic bombing, that it can implant a feeling of guilt in those who managed to survive it? The play Ladder to the Stars performed by the theater club at Funairi High School raises sobering questions. (YMCA's Hall, Naka-ku, Hiroshima City)
2003/08/06/19:40
Mother, I came again this year." "For a peaceful world." Coloful lanterns written with messages like these adorned the surface of the river. (Banks of the Motoyasu River, Peace Memorial Park)