Memories That Will Never Float Away

Remembrance ceremony in Nagasaki, Japan. Photo: International Herald Tribune

Note: Information in this blog post is based on the View from Asia, Aug. 9, 2012 article by Mark McDonald

Today is the day, 67 years ago, that Nagasaki was destroyed by an atomic bomb. Three days earlier, the city of Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atomic bomb attack in history. On those two days, 210,000 people died instantly, but many more died later from radiation sickness and other related illnesses. This can never be forgotten.



I was very moved when I saw this picture of a Japanese boy in Nagasaki placing his floating paper lantern in the water. He is participating in the memorial ceremony that takes place every year in Nagasaki on this date. Are his thoughts of someone he never knew? His grandfather could have been a baby when that bomb fell. Perhaps his father was one of those who did not survive? Generations have passed, and today it is possible that the boy in the picture is the great-great-grandson of someone who died that day.
I don't know anyone who was there when the attacks occurred. I am thinking of my late uncle who served in Japan during WWII. He was so eager to get out there and defeat the enemy that he lied about his age and joined the Army at sixteen. He didn't use language like "defeat the enemy"; what he said was far less polite.
At the Hiroshima gathering, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said: “As the only country to be victimized by an atomic bomb and experiencing its ravages, we have the noble responsibility to the human race and the future of the Earth to pass on the memories of this tragedy to the next generation.”