Jiro Hamasumi, one of the youngest survivors of the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, shared his reflections on his life as a survivor with the Slippery Rock University community via Zoom on April 13.
“Nuclear weapons have not been used for the past 80 years,” Hamasumi said. “However, it is up to us to ensure that they are not used again. For this reason, the voices of the hibakusha, the survivors of atomic bombing, are incredibly important.”
Hamasumi, now 81 years old, is an in-utero “hibakusha,” which means that he was exposed to the radiation of the A-bomb while still in his mother’s womb. The blast also resulted in the death of his father and the burning and subsequent scarring of many members of his family.
In response to this tragedy, Hamasumi is now the secretary general of the 2024 Nobel Prize-winning Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots organization of survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that advocates for the elimination of nuclear weapons on a global scale and for the support of living survivors of nuclear attacks.
The full version of Hamasumi’s message of peace and resilience is available below.
This event was sponsored by the SRU College of Liberal Arts and the Academic Affairs Division.
