From the darkness of Hiroshima emerged a commitment to peace. We must honor this legacy by ensuring that the light of diplomacy and dialogue prevails over the shadows of conflict.
Pope Francis
In 2017 I joined a Peace Pilgrimage organized by All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church of Washington, DC. We went to Hiroshima, Japan, as guess of the Rissho Kosei-Kai's Hiroshima Dharma Center.
Since tonight marks the anniversary of the dropping the A bomb, I wanted to revisit our Peace Pilgrimageand share with you. So join me in hope and prayers for Peace and No More Hiroshimas.
The connection between Hiroshima and All Souls began shortly after the atomic bomb was dropped and Japan surrendered. A picture in the Washington Post showed officials at the Defense Department celebrating with a party. World War II was over. Featured in the picture was a party cake in the shape of a large atomic mushroom cloud.
The minister at the church publicly expressed outrage. How could the U.S. government celebrate peace with a symbol of utter death and destruction?
On August 6th, 400 children of Honkawa Elementary School were filing into classes. At 8:15, in a blinding flash, their lives ended. Only the concrete skeleton of the school building remained.
Moved by the tragedy and eager to help, the families of All Souls UU decided to take action. Learning that classes were being resumed at the elementary school, they launched a school supply campaign, collecting over half a ton of supplies, including pencils, paper, crayons, games, and more.
Months passed, and surprisingly, the surviving children of Honkawa Elementary School sent back their own drawings made with the supplies. The art captured happier times – normalcy. It was a generous way of saying, “Thank you."
Learn more about this amazing story by searching online for Pictures from a Hiroshima Schoolyard.
Today, I’m in the presence of Hibakusha. Hibakusha (被爆者) is a unique Japanese word that literally means “explosion-affected people”. These individuals experienced first-hand the devastating aftermath of the atomic bombs. They are survivors.
I didn’t know it at the time, but for some of the Hibakusha, our meeting today is the first time they have publicly spoken of those horrific events. We are divided into small groups so that our conversations are direct and personal.
With much courage, the Hibakusha are speaking with us Americans.
The depth of feeling is difficult to express. After all, they were only children on that August morning of 1945. For all their lives, they have lived with that nightmare. So with a sense of immense appreciation, I’m privileged to transmit Yukoh Tamagawa’s story. Brace yourself for a glimpse of horror. May the echoes of his narrative resonate with resolve—No More Hiroshima.
On Monday morning, August 6, 1945, Yukoh Tamagawa was thirteen. The air raid sirens blew as the Enola Gay, a B-29 bomber, approached the city. Soon, everything he knew would be engulfed in devastation never seen before.
The air raid sirens saved him, not because he escaped into a shelter—there was no way to escape the atomic blast. He was saved because the siren delayed the streetcar that would have taken him to school where the bomb dropped. He was still 2.5 kilometers away from ground zero. His other classmates were not so fortunate. They were instantly vaporized.
Yukoh begins, “Suddenly, I feel a bluish flash of light that’s like a spark caused by a short circuit, except it electrifies everything. Then I guess I lose consciousness.”
Yukoh lies there. Is he alive or not? Pitch-black darkness surrounds him. The world, or what’s left of it, is crumbling. Sounds of collapsing buildings reverberate across what had been a streetcar stop. A vortex of debris begins swirling through the darkness.
"I can feel. I’m thinking. I must still be alive,” Yukoh recalls. “I was blown 20–30 meters away from where I had been standing. My head throbbed. Blood oozed out of my body. The right side of my face and the back of my hands blistered. Arms too.”
He stumbles around, bewildered. His mind struggles to make sense of a world reshaped by the blast.
It’s so frightening. As the clouds lift, the landscape becomes visible. Where familiar homes and shops stood, nothing remains. A shadow of a tree imprints on a sidewalk, but the tree itself no longer exists. Gone is everyday normality, replaced by utter horror.
Yukoh sees a man half-trapped under a collapsed house. “He was floundering around and crying for help. I was quite at a loss as to what to do.” Yukoh says, “I just ran and ran. Ran away.”
There is no escaping. “So many people were burned beyond recognition. The sight of a soldier gave me the most intense shock. He was so badly burned all over. His skin hung in shreds dripping from his arms. The soldier was groaning, screaming in pain.” Even now, Yukoh’s voice quivers in the retelling of this awful memory.
After many hours of stumbling through the dead and dying, this thirteen-year-old boy finds his way home. “My mother did not recognize me. I was burnt so much.” For days, he struggles to survive. Infections invade his body, and a fever brings him to the edge of delirium.
Yukoh remembers, “A Korean man came to my aid with a folk remedy. Every day, he brought a liter of cow’s blood from the butchery. Every day, as the blood separated in the bottle, I drank the thicker liquid.” The liquid was composed of plasma and white blood cells, a high-quality protein.
What makes this lifesaving kindness so remarkable is the widespread enmity that existed between Japanese and Koreans. During the Japanese occupation, Koreans were dehumanized and forced into demeaning slavery. They hated the Japanese, and in turn, the Japanese considered Koreans less than human. Yet, here was this Korean man coming to the rescue of Yukoh Tamagawa.
“I am very ashamed of having despised Koreans whose fellow countryman now showed great kindness,” recounts Yukoh. “In spite of the unfair treatment of Korean people, he overcame divisions of nationality and brought the best medicine available to me day after day for three weeks. He saved me.”
Years after the bombing, Yukoh tells another remarkable story during the American occupation. “My ill feelings for Americans are deeply rooted. I have much anger. Americans are frightful, brutal for the inhuman act of dropping the bomb. I hate them."
Then, in 1958, Yukoh had an accident. An American tank truck collided with his jeep. He was in bad shape, suffering from multiple fractures and a serious compound fracture of the thigh.
Feeling responsible, the Americans wanted to evacuate him to Okinawa, an occupied territory at the time. But authorities objected vigorously. No one had permission to go without a passport and special authorization.
Yet, the Americans risked arrest and took emergency action. They flew a helicopter to Okinawa Hospital with Yukoh inside. “I was in the hospital for forty-five days. I had many operations—more than I can remember. I needed lots of blood. American soldiers volunteered their own blood for me. American blood is in me”
“So I had to transcend my country’s hatreds. They risked a lot. I’ve come to see Americans in a new light. Americans saved my life.”
There’s a Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima centered on the spot where the A-bomb was dropped. We peace pilgrims wander its grounds.
In the distance, the skeletal A-Bomb Dome looms. It’s not just the remnants of a building, but a witness to the inferno that once engulfed the city. Seeing it is like staring at a ghost of history, frozen in concrete and twisted steel. No more.
Walking further and around a bend, we’re confronted with a huge green mound—16 meters in diameter. Green grass now covers rows and rows of collected anonymity lying below. Known as the Mound of the Unknowns, it’s a final resting place for those whose body parts went unclaimed. Some life stories never find their identity. We pause in silence, remembering.
We’re drawn towards flashes of color fluttering in the breeze. The Children’s Peace Monument is draped with thousands of handmade paper cranes. Each small, delicate bird is folded into a spectrum of vibrant colors. They come from around the world. Maybe each carries a child-like wish for peace. Give peace a chance. Yes, give peace a chance.
The Korean Memorial was not built until 1970. Enmity between Japan and Korea continued after the bombing, even though 20,000 Koreans were among the dead. Attitudes needed to change, and national reconciliation had to begin. In time, both nations recognized the need for healing. Construction began. The memorial portrays the human experience of suffering and our equally human yearning for reconciliation. May it be so.
We keep walking. In the distance, there's the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. With floor-to-ceiling windows and a facade on stilts, the museum has a sweeping view of the entire park.
Inside, the windows bathe the space in light, while the exhibits are dark, personal, confrontational, and heartbreaking. Pictures on the walls and artifacts in glass cases expose human failure, laying bare a horrific story. Yet within this stark reality, there are glimpses of rebuilding efforts and survival heroism. Look at Hiroshima today. It’s proof of human resilience and steadfast commitment to world peace.
I’m drawn to the art of Kichisuke Yoshimura. He was 18 years old at the time of the atomic blast. He summarizes his pictures by saying, “On the riverbank, I saw figures that seemed to be from another world. Ghost-like, their hair falling over their faces, their clothes ripped to shreds, their skin hanging. A cluster of these injured persons was moving wordlessly toward the outskirts." His images have stayed with me. I urge you to see them online.
So I end this pilgrimage, not with words, but with my own painting inspired by Kichisuke Yoshimura’s work. For me, making it etched a message into my soul.
No more Hiroshima. Please, no more Hiroshima.
