Individual testimony can increase nuclear threat awareness and inspire action towards arms control and nonproliferation. Selected audio and video testimonies from Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombardments are listed below.
- Kikue Shiota, who was 21 years old at that time of the detonation, shares her experience of being exposed to the A-bomb attack at her home just 2 kilometers from the hypocenter. Learn more on the Smithsonian magazine.
- Setsuko Thurlow was a schoolgirl in Hiroshima at the time and recalls her memories of the event. Her daughter also suffered radiation late effects.
- Pok Soon Kwak was 900 meters from the hypocenter in Hiroshima. She often gives talks about her experience and always concludes by saying: “Please care for people around you. Then you will be cared for. If you speak ill of others, you debase yourself. If you hurt others, it leaves a wound inside you. Spread love and care around you. This is how we can all engage in peace activism.”
- 1945 is a documentary project by photographer Haruka Sakaguchi, which began as a portrait series of atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 1945 is now a web project with in-depth testimonies that can be accessed at this link.
Photo credit: https://www.1945project.com/