Articles
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 Hibakusha who visited New York in May 2009 were there to speak to and participate in the Mayors for Peace Campaign. They gave presentations to the Non-Proliferation Treaty PrepCom at the United Nations, were interviewed by UN Radio, filmed for Japanese National Television (NHK), hosted for dinner by the United Nations Ambassador from Japan, attended the play I Have Seen Hiroshima Mon Amour by Chiori Miyagawa and were honored guests at an event for 350 people at Soka Gakkai International.
They visited schools in three boroughs including Middle College High School, Long Island City High School, Jamaica High School, Packer Collegiate, Poly Prep Country Day School and the High School of Fashion Industries.
In October of 2008 the Hibakusha visited Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn, NY. In an article dated November, 2008, distributed to 2000 Poly Prep parents and posted at their web site, this is what they had to say:
A-BOMB SURVIVORS DELIVER A MESSAGE OF PEACE & HOPE
On Wednesday morning, October 29, in the Library, four survivors of the World War II atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki visited Poly. The United Nations' Office of Disarmament Affairs and PeaceArts, a New York City nonprofit, organized the visit at the behest of Poly's History Department.
Belonging to a rapidly shrinking group of A-bomb survivors known in Japanese as "hibakusha," Mr. Takahashi Morita, Ms. Kikuyo Nakamura, Ms. Setsuko Thurlow, and Mr. Isao Yoshida each told harrowing stories of suffering and survival. Significantly, however, they also delivered a message of peace and hope for a nuclear-free future.
During two separate sessions, each survivor met students in small groups. Two tenth grade history classes; one ninth grade English class; an eleventh grade United States history class; and a twelfth grade law class participated in the visit, along with other interested students, faculty, and staff, including headmaster David Harman.
Ms. Kathleen Sullivan, from the United Nations, led student discussion before and after the survivors offered their testimony. Ms. Sullivan explained that nine countries currently possess nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, China, France, Great Britain, India, Pakistan, Israel, and, most recently, North Korea. The United Nations estimates that, collectively, these countries have amassed an astounding stockpile of 27,000 nuclear weapons. While this figure is somewhat lower than the worldwide total at the Cold War's height, it is still enough, as an Upper School student noted, "to destroy the world many times over..."
