Observations from the Peace Ceremony in Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 2006
The 61st Anniversary of the first use of atomic weapons against human beings
By Terry Taylor, Executive Director, Interfaith Paths to Peace, a Louisville-based non-profit organization.
At 8:15 a.m. local time 61 years ago today, anyone occupying the space where I sit typing these words would have been instantly killed. It is a sobering thought.
I am in a hotel room about 500 yards from where the atomic bomb exploded 1,200 feet above this city one August morning at the end of WWII.
This morning I attended the annual ceremony at the Peace Park in Hiroshima marking the anniversary of that atomic bombing. I traveled here at the invitation of Tadatoshi Akiba, the Mayor of Hiroshima, who visited Louisville as the guest of Louisville peace groups in April of 2005.
I began my day in front of the now famous skeletal remains of the A-bomb Dome that has been preserved by the Japanese people as the perpetual symbol of atomic warfare.
Today dawned much like that day in August of 1945. Although the ceremony didn’t officially begin until 8 a.m., I arrived at the Park at 6:45. The sky was clear and blue. It wasn’t quite hot yet where I sat in the shade watching thousand of citizens from around the world pour into the Park.
The only noticeable sound was the rhythmic chorus of cicadas humming a mourning song like 61-year-old ghosts. The sense of ghostly presence is very real here, both in the haunting images and artifacts of the atomic bombing that I saw in the Peace Museum yesterday, and in the eyes of the atomic bomb survivors I have spoken to both in Louisville and in Hiroshima.
The ceremony itself lasted only 45 minutes. There were the usual carefully worded speeches from dignitaries including the Japanese Prime minister and my friend Mayor Akiba. But what had the greatest impact on me were the rituals and wordless sounds and images I observed.
Before the ceremony began, pure water from 16 different locations in and around Hiroshima was offered to the spirits of the atomic bomb’s deceased victims who in their agony sought so desperately to quench their fiery thirst. Those victims now number nearly 250,000.
At precisely 8:15 this morning, those attending the ceremony were asked to rise and pray silently for those victims as a bell was tolled and tolled again. After each strike, the bell’s sound resonated in waves that could have been mistaken for the wailing warning of an air raid siren.
As I prayed silently, I thought of the young man from Columbus, Ohio, I sat next to on the plane bringing me to Japan just two days ago. He told me he was in the Navy. He said he was on his way to join the crew of the aircraft carrier Enterprise where his job would be to make bombs. I’m guessing that some of those bombs he will be making are atomic.
And then the doves.
Near the end of the program hundreds of doves were released as a sign of hope. This year they left the podium area, flew in the direction from which the bomb blast had come six decades ago, and as if realizing that, turned back and flew over the crowd.
One lone white bird left the disappearing flock and returned to circle the Peace Park one more time, as if to remind us that each of the quarter million victims of the atomic bombing was an individual with a family, and hopes and plans that would never be fulfilled.
Perhaps that dove wanted to remind us that what happened here, and three days later at Hiroshima’s sister city of Nagasaki, should never happen to any city ever again.
The 61st Anniversary of the first use of atomic weapons against human beings
By Terry Taylor, Executive Director, Interfaith Paths to Peace, a Louisville-based non-profit organization.
At 8:15 a.m. local time 61 years ago today, anyone occupying the space where I sit typing these words would have been instantly killed. It is a sobering thought.
I am in a hotel room about 500 yards from where the atomic bomb exploded 1,200 feet above this city one August morning at the end of WWII.
This morning I attended the annual ceremony at the Peace Park in Hiroshima marking the anniversary of that atomic bombing. I traveled here at the invitation of Tadatoshi Akiba, the Mayor of Hiroshima, who visited Louisville as the guest of Louisville peace groups in April of 2005.
I began my day in front of the now famous skeletal remains of the A-bomb Dome that has been preserved by the Japanese people as the perpetual symbol of atomic warfare.
Today dawned much like that day in August of 1945. Although the ceremony didn’t officially begin until 8 a.m., I arrived at the Park at 6:45. The sky was clear and blue. It wasn’t quite hot yet where I sat in the shade watching thousand of citizens from around the world pour into the Park.
The only noticeable sound was the rhythmic chorus of cicadas humming a mourning song like 61-year-old ghosts. The sense of ghostly presence is very real here, both in the haunting images and artifacts of the atomic bombing that I saw in the Peace Museum yesterday, and in the eyes of the atomic bomb survivors I have spoken to both in Louisville and in Hiroshima.
The ceremony itself lasted only 45 minutes. There were the usual carefully worded speeches from dignitaries including the Japanese Prime minister and my friend Mayor Akiba. But what had the greatest impact on me were the rituals and wordless sounds and images I observed.
Before the ceremony began, pure water from 16 different locations in and around Hiroshima was offered to the spirits of the atomic bomb’s deceased victims who in their agony sought so desperately to quench their fiery thirst. Those victims now number nearly 250,000.
At precisely 8:15 this morning, those attending the ceremony were asked to rise and pray silently for those victims as a bell was tolled and tolled again. After each strike, the bell’s sound resonated in waves that could have been mistaken for the wailing warning of an air raid siren.
As I prayed silently, I thought of the young man from Columbus, Ohio, I sat next to on the plane bringing me to Japan just two days ago. He told me he was in the Navy. He said he was on his way to join the crew of the aircraft carrier Enterprise where his job would be to make bombs. I’m guessing that some of those bombs he will be making are atomic.
And then the doves.
Near the end of the program hundreds of doves were released as a sign of hope. This year they left the podium area, flew in the direction from which the bomb blast had come six decades ago, and as if realizing that, turned back and flew over the crowd.
One lone white bird left the disappearing flock and returned to circle the Peace Park one more time, as if to remind us that each of the quarter million victims of the atomic bombing was an individual with a family, and hopes and plans that would never be fulfilled.
Perhaps that dove wanted to remind us that what happened here, and three days later at Hiroshima’s sister city of Nagasaki, should never happen to any city ever again.
posted by Interfaith Paths to Peace at 9:20 PM
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