Youth Hold Events to Mark 79th Anniversary of Atomic Bombings

From late July to early August 2024, a series of events were held in Japan to commemorate the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On July 28, Soka Gakkai youth from Nagasaki held a peace forum at the Soka Gakkai Nagasaki Peace Center. Shizuko Mitamura, vice chair of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivor’s Notebook Friend’s Association, shared her own testimony as a hibakusha.

On August 3, an event was hosted by Soka Gakkai youth from Hiroshima, which featured the hibakusha testimonies of a husband and wife, Hironobu and Hiroko Maekawa, a tour of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and the offering of flowers at the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims. On the same day in Nagasaki, youth participated in a peace walk through the city. They also visited Shiroyama Elementary School Peace Memorial Hall, where they viewed an exhibition of photographs taken immediately after the atomic bombing.