Warning: This story contains a link to video some people might find disturbing.
It’s 40 years since I visited Hiroshima, just after the August 6 anniversary of the day the first nuclear bomb was dropped on that densely inhabited city.
In 1985, I was spokesperson for the Auckland Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and heavily engaged with the large network of peace groups across the country. David Lange was prime minister and, at the beginning of the year, a visit from a nuclear weapons-capable warship, USS Buchanan, had been rejected.
Activists continued work to get local councils to make a nuclear-free declaration and professional groups such as doctors, scientists and engineers were supporting the anti-nuclear cause. I was invited to visit Japan by a coalition of youthful peace activists. The Aotearoa peace movement was flavour of the month with peace activists internationally: how had we manged to persuade our government to ban nuclear weapons-capable warships and commit to establishing a nuclear-free nation? There was an air of hope as we shared campaign ideas and planned for future exchanges.
How could I not be moved by the silent testament of the Hiroshima dome (Genbaku), preserved in the same state as it was immediately after the bomb dropped? The crumbling brick and steel structure is surrounded by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, which includes a statue of Sadako Sasaki, who died of leukaemia from the radiation at just 12 years of age.
Sadako had been told of the legend that the gods would grant the wish of one who made 1000 paper cranes. Sadako devoted herself to the task and although she reached her goal she could not be saved. The peace crane became a powerful symbol of hope. On the day of my visit, the memorial was bedecked with thousands of paper cranes. At the base of the statue the inscription translates as, “This is our cry, this is our prayer: to build a world of peace.”
The displays at the nearby Hiroshima Peace Museum convey the reality of the cataclysm while honouring the personal stories of individual victims. It is sobering to contemplate the shadows etched into concrete – the only mark left behind by people who were atomised by the blast. The museum opened in 1955, but it was not until 1970 that newsreel footage of the bomb’s aftermath was available to Western audiences and then only because a diligent US Army cameraman, Daniel McGovern, kept copies of the footage he and his team of Japanese and American cameramen shot at the time. The Pentagon suppressed the information and apparently lost the footage.
In 1970, the grainy documentary Hiroshima-Nagasaki 1945, emerged, and it is still accessible atarchive.org/details/hiroshimanagasakiaugust1945. Just 16 minutes long, it has a simple factual commentary. Our National Film Library was reluctant to make it available to schools back then because it was so disturbing.
During the years, I have often joined the debate about whether the bomb saved lives by ending the war. The justification doesn’t hold up in the light of historical evidence that Japan was already putting forward surrender proposals and US leaders were aware of those.
Today, contemplating the shocking carnage in Gaza, all I can think is why do some lives matter more than others? If the 140,000 men women and children who died cruel deaths in Hiroshima and the 70,000 victims of the bombing in Nagasaki three days later had been New Zealanders would we have said the “price was worth it”? Hiroshima’s “never again” message reverberates at a time when our world is spiralling into a new cycle of lawless violence.
Maire Leadbeater is a peace and human rights activist and former spokesperson for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Auckland.
