Nihon Hidankyo Marks 70 Years of Founding

Tokyo, Aug. 10 (Jiji Press)–The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, or Nihon Hidankyo, the country’s only national organization of hibakusha atomic bomb survivors and the 2024 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, marked on Monday 70 years since its establishment. Survivors of the August 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of the western Japan city of Hiroshima and the southwestern city of Nagasaki in the closing days of World War II have called for the abolition of nuclear weapons both at home and abroad, saying, “We will save humanity from the crisis through our experiences.” Among them was Mikiso Iwasa, who served as Nihon Hidankyo co-chair and died in 2020 at the age of 91. Iwasa, who lost his mother in the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing of Hiroshima, had said, “We must make use of the negative legacy of nuclear weapons as a lesson for the future.” When the bomb exploded, Iwasa, then 16, was in the garden of his house about 1.2 kilometers from the hypocenter. He was knocked to the ground but did not suffer serious injuries. He soon realized that his house and neighborhood were gone. “I despaired, seeing the world of death,” Iwasa recounted. He saw her mother trapped under the collapsed house. Iwasa tried to save his mother, but an approaching blaze hampered his rescue efforts. “Leave here now,” the mother told her son, and Iwasa ran away, telling her, “I will come to you soon.” Iwasa incinerated his mother’s body himself a couple of days later. Over the month afterward, Iwasa searched for his younger sister, who was near the hypocenter of the blast, but could not even find her body. He himself fell ill due to acute symptoms caused by radiation from the bomb. His father had died before the atomic bombing. Iwasa visited his maternal aunt and told her in tears, “I killed my mother.” After the end of the war, Iwasa got a job thanks to the support of the aunt. But he opted to study at Nagoya University in the central Japan prefecture of Aichi because of advice from people around him and later became professor at Kanazawa University in Ishikawa Prefecture, also central Japan. Nihon Hidankyo was established in August 1956. Iwasa founded in Ishikawa an organization of people affected by the atomic bombings in 1960 and also started to take part in Nihon Hidankyo’s activities. He engaged in surveys on hibakusha’s physical and mental conditions and negotiations with the government. He also spoke about his experience in Britain, a nuclear weapons state. Iwasa became co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo in 2011 and then its adviser in 2017. While suffering from diseases including prostate cancer, he continued efforts to realize hibakusha’s goal of eliminating nuclear weapons, saying, “I don’t want anyone to die like my mother and sister.” Iwasa spent his later years nurturing his successors. In 2011, he set up the No More Hibakusha Project-Inheriting Memories of the A- and H-Bomb Sufferers and became its leader. “Understanding the lives of hibakusha and telling others that nuclear weapons should not exist” is the job of a successor, he said. Iwasa said: “Hibakusha are like teachers who give guidance in the nuclear age, such as how humans should fight atomic bombs. We must make use of the negative legacy for the future.” Nihon Hidankyo helped the establishment of a law on support for hibakusha and served as a driving force for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The organization was given the Nobel Peace Prize in 2024 for its great contributions to the establishment of the norm called “nuclear taboo,” which says the use of nuclear weapons is morally unacceptable. Due to the aging of hibakusha, however, its regional organizations have been disbanded in some prefectures. Nihon Hidankyo is slated to decide by June 2027 to maintain or dissolve itself. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]