Hiroshima is home to landmarks dedicated to peace, including the Peace Boulevard, Peace Bell, and Peace Memorial Park.
On a recent summer afternoon near the Flame of Peace, elementary students wearing cotton hats and neat uniforms folded origami cranes at the Children’s Peace Monument. This tradition honors Sadako Sasaki, a young girl who folded a thousand paper cranes in hope of healing from radiation sickness caused by the atomic bombing code-named Little Boy. Despite her efforts, she succumbed to radiation poisoning.
The American atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, resulted in approximately 140,000 deaths by the end of that year and helped bring an end to Japan’s imperial conquests and the deadliest conflict in human history.
Today, Hiroshima stands as a global symbol of peace. Along with Nagasaki, bombed three days later, the city was rebuilt from the devastation. Survivors, many scarred by radiation, embraced forgiveness and integrated pacifism into the city’s identity, representing a nation that renounced its imperial past.
Since the enactment of the Peace Memorial City Construction Law in 1949, Hiroshima has hosted numerous events—conferences, concerts, and performances—all promoting peace. In 2024, a group representing atomic bomb survivors was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of their efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons.
Yet, eight decades after the nuclear attacks, Japan’s peace is fragile. Its neighbors China, Russia, and North Korea possess nuclear arsenals, while global conflicts persist from Ukraine to Gaza. In the Pacific, China’s rising influence contrasts with waning American power, and the imminent expiration of major arms control treaties raises concerns.
Bound by a postwar constitution imposed by the United States that renounces war and restricts Japan’s military to defensive purposes, the nation remains divided. Some uphold pacifism as a core national value, while others argue for a stronger military stance. The recent Nobel Peace Prize for atomic bomb survivors was seen by some as outdated in an increasingly perilous world.
Noriyuki Kawano, director of the Center for Peace at Hiroshima University, describes Japan as being at a crossroads, noting a growing sentiment—especially among youth—that peace as an abstract ideal is no longer sufficient. He warns that Hiroshima’s unique peace legacy risks isolation if the country fails to confront current realities.
Surveys by the Center for Peace reveal an increase in Japanese students who accept nuclear deterrence—the belief that nuclear-armed states are less likely to engage in war.
The Japanese expression “shoganai,” meaning “it can’t be helped,” reflects resignation toward regional security challenges: China’s assertiveness in contested waters, pressures on the U.S.-Japan security alliance, and the fading memory of Hiroshima’s devastation.
Atomic bomb survivors, known as hibakusha, are now mostly octogenarians and older. This year’s anniversary may be the last to feature firsthand testimonies of the bombing’s horrific consequences—burn injuries, radiation sickness, and lifelong health effects.
While Hiroshima markets peace-themed products like mochi and hand towels, the nearby port city of Kure presents a contrasting image. Once the largest Imperial Navy base, Kure now benefits from Japan’s military expansion, hosting the country’s largest warship and transforming former industrial sites into naval facilities. At a military museum, origami cranes from Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park are repurposed into fans adorned with images of the Yamato, the famed World War II battleship sunk by American forces.
Masanari Tade, son of a Hiroshima survivor, asserts that peace will not be achieved by prayer alone. As head of Nippon Kaigi in Hiroshima, an ultranationalist group advocating revision of Japan’s pacifist constitution, he argues the current lack of peace and nuclear disarmament proves the failure of Hiroshima’s peace symbolism.
Personal Stories from the Fallout
Eighty years ago, high school student Chieko Kiriake was conscripted to work in war factories, cleaning weapons and uniforms.
On the morning of August 6, 1945, as she rested beneath a building’s eaves, a blinding flash engulfed Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m., plunging the city into darkness.
Emerging from the ruins, Kiriake found her familiar city obliterated. She cared for fellow students wounded by the blast, many of whom died. In a ritual, she collected the cremated remains of a friend whose pinkish bone fragments resembled cherry blossoms.
She recalls feelings of guilt for surviving while others perished, wishing they had died together.
On August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender in a formal speech that was difficult for ordinary citizens to understand.
Now 95, Kiriake is a passionate advocate for peace, dedicating years to educating younger generations about war’s horrors and nuclear devastation. She emphasizes that Hiroshima was a military hub before the bombing and that militarism permeated society.
Former Hiroshima mayor Takashi Hiraoka, aged 97, expresses frustration that Japan has not joined the global Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. He criticizes recent political moves to increase defense spending, accusing the country of veering rightward and embracing militarism.
Conversely, ultranationalists like Tade advocate moving beyond the war’s legacy, dismissing documented Japanese war crimes as Western fabrications. He describes the narrative of Japanese wartime guilt as a justification for the atomic bombings.
In June, Tade joined thousands in Hiroshima welcoming Emperor Naruhito, whose pacifist reign contrasts with that of his grandfather who led Japan into war. Supporters held lanterns and chanted “banzai,” a cheer still linked to Japan’s militaristic past, as the Emperor and Empress acknowledged the crowd.
Defending Japan in a Changing World
Following World War II, the U.S. helped draft Japan’s constitution, which renounces war and prohibits a traditional military. Under the American security umbrella, Japan has maintained peace while hosting U.S. forces. However, the alliance is increasingly questioned by leaders in both countries.
Japan’s Self-Defense Forces were established in 1954 amid Cold War tensions. In 2024, Parliament approved nearly a 10% defense budget increase, bringing annual spending to about $57 billion and positioning Japan among the world’s top military spenders.
Kure, adjacent to Hiroshima, has become a center for military buildup. It was designated the command hub for maritime logistics protecting Japan’s southern islands and strategic sea lanes near Taiwan and the South China Sea. A former steel plant is being converted into an ammunition depot.
The city attracts military enthusiasts, with a $33 million renovation underway at the Yamato Battleship Museum. Visitors can observe modern submarines, a stealth frigate, and Japan’s largest warship, the helicopter carrier Kaga.
Captain Shusaku Takeuchi of the Kaga emphasizes Japan’s need to defend its surrounding seas amid regional challenges.
Lieutenant Yusuke Murakami, serving on the Kaga and a Hiroshima native with family lost in World War II, expresses a personal connection to flying machines that symbolize peace, stating, “Japan is a peaceful country; war belongs to the past.”
However, some Kure residents oppose the military expansion, recalling the city’s heavy bombing during the war.
Activist Takashi Koretsune warns that reviving the military industry could be self-destructive.
Preserving Memory and Reckoning with the Past
The atomic bomb destroyed nearly 70% of Hiroshima’s buildings. The hypocenter, beneath the blast, is now marked by a modest parking lot near a medical clinic, seldom visited by tourists.
Nearby, the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall remains as a skeletal reminder of the bombing’s impact.
A local museum chronicles the city’s suffering, leaving visitors in somber reflection. Peace-themed symbols—dove motifs, anti-nuclear stickers, and garlands of origami cranes—are found throughout Hiroshima.
The city’s art scene reflects its legacy; punk musician Shinji Okoda uses his music to advocate denuclearization and condemn current global conflicts.
Hiroshima’s official narratives often use passive language to describe the bombing, omitting the deliberate human decisions behind it. Exhibits only briefly acknowledge the U.S. pursuit of atomic weapons and geopolitical pressures influencing the bombings.
In 2016, then-U.S. President Barack Obama visited Hiroshima—the first sitting American president to do so—though he stopped short of offering an apology.
Takashi Hiraoka continues to campaign for nuclear disarmament and acknowledges Japan’s wartime responsibilities. He also insists the United States must confront its role in the bombings as a necessary step toward eliminating nuclear weapons.
Isamu Nakakura, now 100, trained as a draftsman for the Imperial Navy and later collaborated with American scientists studying radiation-related illnesses among survivors. He expresses concern over the weakening of Japan’s pacifist ideals.
Nakakura stresses that peace requires more than the absence of war and calls for deeper public engagement in peace diplomacy.
Hiroshima’s peace narrative also overlooks the suffering of Korean laborers forcibly brought to Japan during imperial rule—about 85,000 in Hiroshima alone—many of whom perished in the bombing.
Kwon Joon Oh, whose father survived the blast but died of lung cancer, highlights the double hardship faced by Koreans and the lack of official recognition of their losses.
For decades, many Japanese families concealed the pain of atomic bomb casualties. Toshinori Tetsutani recounts how his family secretly buried his brother and a neighbor’s child in their garden to avoid the stigma of mass burials. Years later, the children’s tricycle was donated to the Hiroshima Peace Museum, symbolizing personal loss amid collective memory.
Yoshiko Konishi, Tetsutani’s daughter, now shares these stories with younger generations. However, some Hiroshima schools have ceased commemorating the bombing anniversary as survivor numbers dwindle.
She admits a sense of unease about the possibility of forgetting the past, even in Hiroshima.
Kiriake remembers the disbelief that anything could grow in Hiroshima’s devastated soil after the bombing. Yet, the following spring, seedlings pushed through and pink oleander blossoms appeared. She planted a cutting from one such tree near the bomb’s impact site in her garden, where it continues to bloom.
She recalls feeling hopeful at the sight of green returning to the charred city, believing life would endure.
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