News/Articles

For Breaking news and updates,
please visit our Facebook page

New York Benefit 2013

Hibakusha Stories hosts a New York Benefit on May 4, 2013 , billed as an evening of music and Friendship with Shigeo Sasamori, Reiko Yamada, Lee Jong-keun, Clifton Truman Daniel & Cynthia Miller with music by Sam Sadigursky. Hosted by Blaise Dupuy, Alex Dupuy & Jennifer Burrell to benefit the Hibakusha Stories Initiative of Youth Arts New York. READ MORE >>

Truman's Grandson, Bomb Survivors Spread Message of Peace
by Kara Seymour for Newtown Patch

In an effort to prevent nuclear warfare from ever happening again, two survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings joined President Harry Truman’s grandson for an educational forum Tuesday. About 100 people attended the event at Bucks County Community College’s Newtown Campus. Bombing survivors Setsuko Thurlow and Yasuaki Yamashita shared the stage with Clifton Truman Daniel, the oldest grandson of President Truman, who authorized use of the atomic bombs. READ MORE >>

Learning To Fear The Bomb: Atomic survivors teach Brooklyn students the horrors of war
by Danielle Furfaro for Brooklyn Daily

Two survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic attacks — and the grandson of the man who ordered the bombings — moved a classroom of high school students to tears with an impassioned plea to bring an end to the nuclear age. Setsuko Thurlow and Yasuaki Yamashita visited Downtown’s Brooklyn Friends School along with Clifton Truman Daniel, the grandson of President Harry S. Truman, on Oct. 18 to share their stories of the catastrophic bombings, which changed their lives — and the course of human history — forever. READ MORE >>

A Bomb Survivors Tell Their Stories in Brooklyn
by Tom Robbins for the Village Voice, NYC

You cannot go wrong peddling tales about zombies and the undead these days. Last week, a crowd of teenagers sat in the basement gym of a Brooklyn high school listening to a story about the real thing, their jaws slack and eyes wide. Setsuko Thurlow, 78, a native of Japan, leaned forward in her plastic folding chair, speaking in a halting, quiet voice. “They didn’t look like human beings,” she was telling the group crowded around her. READ MORE >>

Kathleen Sullivan In The News

Kathleen Sullivan is named Nagasaki Peace Correspondent by the city of Nagasaki, August 9, 2012. READ MORE >>

Hibakusha Stories at Bayside High School

Hibakusha Stories at Bayside High School recorded by C-SPAN American History Channel. Clifton Truman Daniel, a grandson of President Truman, and atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki met with students from Bayside High School in New York City. They talked about the decision to use atomic weapons during World War II and what it was like to live through an atomic attack. After presentations, the students directed questions to Mr. Daniel and the survivors. WATCH >>

Hibakusha Stories at the U.N.

Hibakusha Stories conducts Professional Development Day for NYC high school teachers at the UN. Each year, Election Day is also Staff Development Day for teachers at New York City Public Schools. They are given a half day to participate in continuing education activities. On 6 November 2012, Hibakusha Stories in collaboration with Peace Boat and the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) organized a workshop at United Nations Headquarters on nuclear disarmament. READ MORE >>

Hibakusha Stories Collaborates With Peace Boat

Together with the New York based NGO, Hibakusha Stories, Peace Boat executive committee member, Akira Kawasaki, spoke about the importance of civil society's role in Disarmament Education. Also, in an event sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Mexico to the United Nations, Hibakusha Stories and Peace Boat worked in collaboration with the UNODA (United Nations Office on Disarmament Affairs) and Japanese Film Director, Shinpei Takeda, who gave a presentation about his film “Hiroshima Nagasaki Download” and the artwork he has created as an educational tool to share the stories of survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki through artistic expression. Read more in the Peace Boat Activities PDF. DOWNLOAD (PDF)

Sharing Hibakusha Stories

At a workshop onboard Peace Boat, Kathleen Sullivan asked participants to think about what they love most about life. Many mentioned their families, friends, the outdoors, and more. Then Ms Sullivan asked participants to think about the possibility of losing all of those things. "Everything that we love is threatened by nuclear weapons," she said. Ms Sullivan has brought the stories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors to thousands of New York City high school students. Her hope is that future generations will become guardians of their stories and will join the struggle for nuclear disarmament. READ MORE >>

Meeting of Reconciliation

On December 10, 2011, Hibakusha Stories hosted a visit with Mr. Clifton Truman Daniel, grandson of United States President Harry Truman, and Setsuko Thurlow, hibakusha from Hiroshima, Yasuaki Yamashita, hibakusha from Nagasaki, and Hiroko Sakaguchi, second generation hibakusha from Nagasaki. The meeting was coordinated by Kazuko Minamoto of the Japan Society and Kathleen Sullivan and Robert Croonquist of Hibakusha Stories. The purpose of the unprecedented meeting was to initiate a conversation of reconciliation. READ MORE >>

United Nations Honors Hibakusha Stories

Hibakusha Stories is pleased to receive a letter of recognition and honoring from the United Nations Headquarters, written by Sergio Duarte, the High Representitive for Disarmament Affairs. The February 2012 letter, was addressed to Program Director Kathleen Sullivan. READ MORE >>

UN Podcast Hibakusha Stories Fellow Ms. Setsuko Thurlow

United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs podcast with Hibakusha Stories Fellow Ms. Setsuko Thurlow, Atomic Bomb Survivor and Special Communicator for a World Without Nuclear Weapons READ MORE >>

Poetry For Peace Contest

The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs held a Poetry for Peace contest from 15 September until 14 October 2011. The winners were announced at a ceremony at UN headquarters in New York. Congratulations to all. READ MORE >>

Poetry For Peace Sharing

British Poet Chris Lawrence shared the following contest entry with Hibakusha Stories: READ MORE >>

Hiroshima survivor: shun nuclear power and weapons?
by Ajai Raj, Daily News, NYC

Hibakusha Stories Fellow Setsuko Thurlow is interviewed in the Daily News “Hiroshima survivor: shun nuclear power and weapons?” by Ajai Raj, Monday, December 12, 2011 READ MORE >>

Towards the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
by ICRC

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. At the 2011 Council of Delegates, 186 National Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) adopted a resolution, as Peter Herby, head of the ICRC's Arms Unit, explains. READ MORE >>

Hibakusha Spoke to JA Students

On Monday, December 5th, during 7th and 8th periods, Hibakusha Yamashita san and Sakaguchi san spoke to Jane Addams school students in the Bronx. READ MORE >>

When the Sky Rained Fire and Death
by Joe Pepenella for the Staten Island Advance

Setsuko Thurlow addressed about 75 students who are studying Japanese at the College of Staten Island High School for International Studies, one of 14 schools she will visit this week to give her horrific account, in hopes of seeding peace in young minds and raising awareness about the consequences of nuclear warfare. READ MORE >>

Atomic Bomb Survivors Visit Flushing International High School
NY1 News

Local cable channel NY1 video newscast of survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings visiting the Flushing International High School to speak with students. WATCH >>

Dr. Kathleen Sullivan Featured In Blog

Hibakusha Stories Education Director Dr. Kathleen Sullivan is featured on the Japanese Peace Boat Blog. READ MORE >>

NPT Should Guarantee Access To Renewable Energy Technology Not Nuclear Energy
by Hibakusha Stories fellow Setsuko Thurlow

On August 6, 1945, as a 13 year-old grade 8 student in the Student Mobilization Program I was with about 30 other girls working at the Army headquarters as a decoding assistant. The building was 1.8 km from the hypo center. At 8:15 a.m., the moment I saw a brilliant bluish-white flash outside the window, I remember having the sensation of floating in the air... READ MORE >>

Accounts Of A-Bomb Survivors Change In Aftermath Of Fukushima Disaster
by Akira Tashiro, Executive Director of the Hiroshima Peace Media Center featuring Hibakusha Stories Fellow Toshiko Tanaka

Shrouded in the veil of the “myth of safety,” nuclear power generation has attracted little opposition from the atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki over the years. But the March 11 accident at the Fukushima No. 1 (Daiichi) nuclear power plant operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which threatens the health of many people and has inflicted tremendous damage on Japan’s economy, has greatly altered the awareness of the atomic bomb survivors... READ MORE >>

Hibakusha Stories Program Director Kathleen Sullivan was interviewed for the Japanese Language newspaper SHUKAN NEW YORK SEIKATSU
by Kaoru Komi; translation by Maki Fujita

August 6th, 2011: Her smile, overflowing with affection, changed to a still but a powerful expression when she started talking about disarmament. She became a hard-core activist when she was 18 years old. Over the past 25 years, Kathleen has been vigorously working to actualize a peaceful world... READ MORE >>

ACHIEVING NUCLEAR-WEAPON-FREE WORLD IS POSSIBLE
@ UN News Centre

Standing shoulder to shoulder with survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima, a deeply moved Secretary-General on Friday paid respect to all those who perished there 65 years ago and stressed that the time has come to realize the dream of a world free of nuclear weapons. “A more peaceful world can be ours,” Ban Ki-moon said in remarks to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony held in Japan....
READ MORE >>

UNSAFE AT ANY DOSE
by Helen Caldicott @ NY Times

Six weeks ago, when I first heard about the reactor damage at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, I knew the prognosis: If any of the containment vessels or fuel pools exploded, it would mean millions of new cases of cancer in the Northern Hemisphere. Many advocates of nuclear power would deny this. During the 25th anniversary last week of the Chernobyl disaster, some commentators asserted that few people died in the aftermath, and that there have been relatively few genetic abnormalities in survivors’ offspring. It’s an easy leap from there to arguments about the safety of nuclear energy compared to alternatives like coal, and optimistic predictions about the health of the people living near Fukushima...
READ MORE >>

ZEROHIGASHIDA, A FEW WORDS FROM
DR. KATHLEEN SULLIVAN ON YOUTUBE

A disarmament educator, activist and producer, Dr. Kathleen Sullivan has been engaged in the nuclear issue for over 25 years, during which time she has worked with youth, community organizers, academics, government representatives and nuclear industry officials in Australia, Asia, Europe and United States. In 1998 she received her PhD from Lancaster University UK for her pioneering work on the social, ecological and temporal effects of radioactive materials arising from nuclear weapons and nuclear power production.....
WATCH >>

GLOBAL HIBAKUSHA FORUM STATEMENT
FOR A NUCLEAR-FREE WORLD

"We Global Hibakusha from Japan, Australia and Tahiti came together on Peace Boat from 23 January - 5 February 2011 to share testimony, information and our vision for a nuclear-free future. We have reached consensus on the statement below and will continue to exchange to realise our goals by increasing cooperation and networking"....
READ MORE >>

MAKE A WISH FROM SPACE
TOHOKU-KANTO EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN

In honor of those affected by the Tohoku-Kanto Earthquake in Japan, Russian cosmonaut and Expedition 27 commander Dmitry Kondratyev, European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli and NASA astronaut Cady Coleman are shown in a picture with paper cranes (origami craft), which they folded to be placed in the Kounotori2 H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-2)....
READ MORE >>

CHERNOBYL LEGACY

Over twenty years have passed since the meltdown at Chernobyl. Paul Fusco faces the dark legacy of the modern technological nightmare that continues to plague those exposed to its destructive radiation....
READ MORE >>

THE EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI IN JAPAN
& ITS EFFECT ON FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR POWER PLANT

Our reliance on nuclear power has again proved disastrous. It is time for all nations and people to understand that we cannot manage the splitting of the atom for electricity generation, and indeed for any pretense of 'national security'. Both nuclear weapons and nuclear power create global insecurity through the production of invisible nearly timeless radiation that can cause cancer and mutate the genome. Both need to be stopped...
READ MORE >>

HIBAKUSHA STORIES FEATURED IN NY JAPION

Recently Robert Croonquist and the Hibakusha Stories team were written up in NY Japion, a Japanese-language newspaper here in NYC....
READ MORE >>

N.Y. HIGH SCHOOLERS HEAR FROM HIBAKUSHA

A civic project by New York-based residents has since 2008 been giving local high school students a chance to hear the experiences of those who survived the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Hibakusha Stories project has organized special classes at more than 40 high schools that allow students to listen to atomic-bomb survivors and ask them questions, such as why they think the United States decided to use the weapons...
READ MORE >>

HIROSHIMA SURVIVORS VISIT STUDENTS

With their eyes closed, students from John Bowne High School in Flushing were instructed to imagine the most beautiful place on Earth. “Now think that in an instant it all disappeared and everything around it,” said Robert Croonquist, an activist with Hibakusha Stories, an organization that has assumed responsibility for passing on the legacy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a new generation...
READ MORE >>

A-BOMB SURVIVORS TELL THEIR STORIES IN BROOKLYN

HIROSHIMA SURVIVORS SPEAK TO STUDENTS

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” explained teacher Erin Dowding. About 50 graduating seniors gathered in the auditorium of Flushing International High School on Monday to hear the personal stories of two survivors from the Hiroshima atomic bombing of 1945...
READ MORE >>

LETTER OF COMMENDATION
by Sergio Duarte
High Representative for Disarmament Affairs United Nations

"We are here this evening for a very special event. We are here to recognize an enlightened initiative called Hibakusha Stories, to educate young students of New York City about both the tragic effects of nuclear weapons and the opportunities that exist for building a world free of such weapons—opportunities that provide a basis for hope for a better future, a safer world for ourselves and for future generations."...
READ MORE >>

THE BEGINNINGS OF HIBAKUSHA STORIES

Youth Arts New York had the opportunity to bring Hibakusha to area schools in October, 2008. Dr. Elisabeth Iler, co-director of CUNY’s Gateway Institute for Pre-College Education said of the program we presented in October:

“It was one of the most moving and impressive activities I have seen in our Gateway schools, ever... The students were rapt in their attention to the visitors' stories and asked superb, probing and thoughtful questions. The visitors were visibly moved by the experience as well ... I will never forget it. I think it really did change lives, which is what education should be about!"...

THE "SORROW OF SURVIVAL"
by Ellie Spielberg @ New York Teacher

Hibakusha. It’s a Chinese word adopted by the Japanese that means a person affected by a bomb, expressing not the luck of escape but the great sorrow of survival. No word better describes the survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 at the end of World War II, explained retired UFT member Robert Croonquist...
READ MORE >>

TWO MILLION YOUTH CALL FOR
NUCLEAR WEAPON-FREE WORLD

On May 11, a petition of 2,276,167 signatures from youth calling for the adoption of a Nuclear Weapons Convention which would comprehensively ban nuclear weapons was presented to Ambassador Leslie B. Gatan, adviser to the president of the ongoing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, and UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Sergio Duarte at the New York Culture Center of the SGI-USA Buddhist association. The signatures, collected between January and March 2010 by youth members of Soka Gakkai in Japan, were presented by Youth Peace Committee leader Kenji Shiratsuchi who stated: "Each of these signatures embodies the heartfelt commitment and effort of a young person. We urge you to start debate on a Nuclear Weapons Convention at the earliest opportunity."...
READ MORE >>

NEWS: HIROSHIMA SURVIVORS BRING
THEIR STORIES TO BROOKLYN
by Mary Frost @ Brooklyn Daily Eagle

They walk among us: a group of people who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. In Japan, the aging atomic bomb survivors are called the Hibakusha. Now these survivors tell their stories about one of the most significant events in human history to all who will listen, in order to help people understand the reality of nuclear war....
READ MORE >>

NEWS: NUKE SURVIVORS SHARE STORIES
WITH LOCAL STUDENTS
by Diego Cupolo @ BUSHWICKBK.com

"On Aug. 6, 1945 Hiroshima, Japan became the first city to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon, instantly killing up to 80,000 people. Though the blast is many decades in the past, its carnage still lingers within the dwindling few who survived one of humanity’s darkest days. Tuesday afternoon, a small group of survivors visited the Bushwick Campus High School to share their terrifying stories with about one hundred 10th-grade students"...
READ MORE >>

IMAGINE PEACE, BY YOKO ONO

Yoko Ono writes: We should focus on healing the world we have destroyed, by asking our healing power to come out. Our intent of healing will start to show it’s power by just asking for it. When all of us ask the world to be healed, it will be...
READ MORE >>

IS START REALLY A BEGINNING?
by Lawrence S. Wittner @ History News Network

"Does the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Prague on April 8, really provide a beginning toward a nuclear-free world? That's what Obama implied in a statement two weeks earlier. Speaking to reporters at the White House, he described the treaty as an historic step toward "a world without nuclear weapons."...
READ MORE >>

STATEMENT BY PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA ON THE RELEASE OF NUCLEAR POSTURE REVIEW
by Office of Press Secretary @ The White House

"One year ago yesterday in Prague, I outlined a comprehensive agenda to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to pursue the peace and security of a world without them. I look forward to advancing this agenda in Prague this week when I sign the new START Treaty with President Medvedev, committing the United States and Russia to substantial reductions in our nuclear arsenals.

"Today, my Administration is taking a significant step forward by fulfilling another pledge that I made in Prague—to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy and focus on reducing the nuclear dangers of the 21st century, while sustaining a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent for the United States and our allies and partners as long as nuclear weapons exist"...
READ MORE >>

AFTER ATOM BOMBS’ SHOCK,
THE REAL HORRORS BEGAN UNFOLDING
by Dwight Garner @ The New York Times

When Tsutomu Yamaguchi [see article below] died two weeks ago, at 93, he was eulogized as a star-crossed rarity: a man who lived through two atomic blasts, at Hiroshima and then at Nagasaki. He was a man with very good luck, or very bad luck. It’s hard to decide. But Mr. Yamaguchi wasn’t alone. He was one of as many as 165 people who are believed to have survived Hiroshima only to wind up in Nagasaki when that bomb fell three days later. The stories of these double survivors make up part of Charles Pellegrino’s sober and authoritative new book, “The Last Train From Hiroshima"..."
READ MORE >>

TSUTOMU YAMAGUCHI, SURVIVOR OF 2 ATOMIC BLASTS,
DIES AT 93
by Mark McDonald @ The New York Times

"Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only official survivor of both atomic blasts to hit Japan in World War II, died Monday in Nagasaki, Japan. He was 93.... At a lecture he gave in Nagasaki last June, Mr. Yamaguchi said he had written to President Obama about banning nuclear arms. And he was recently visited by the American film director James Cameron [Avatar director] to discuss a film project on atomic bombs, Ms. Yamasaki said."
READ MORE >>

A FLASH OF MEMORY
by Issey Miyake

In April, President Obama pledged to seek peace and security in a world without nuclear weapons. He called for not simply a reduction, but elimination. His words awakened something buried deeply within me, something about which I have until now been reluctant to discuss...
READ MORE >>

OBAMA'S PRAGUE SPEECH

Last May when a group of Hibakusha visited New York City Schools, they asked us, “What do Americans think of President Obama’s Prague speech? ” We were embarrassed to disappoint them with the news that the vast majority of Americans had no idea what the Prague speech was...
READ MORE >>

THE GREAT ATOMIC FILM COVER-UP
by Greg Mitchell @ The Huffington Post

"In the weeks following the atomic attacks on Japan 64 years ago, and then for decades afterward, the United States engaged in airtight suppression of all film shot in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombings. This included footage shot by U.S. military crews and Japanese newsreel teams. In addition, for many years, many newspaper photographs were seized or prohibited"...
READ MORE >>