Hiroshima Day, 80 years 

Hiroshima Day is observed every year on August 6 to remember the day in 1945 when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima in Japan. The city was obliterated and about 70,000 people died that day, and many more would die from their injuries and the radiation poisoning. The number of deaths would be doubled by the end of 1945. Most were civilians including school children. The US dropped the second bomb three days later on August 9 on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. An estimated 75,000 people died.  

80 years ago, my family who had been in Canada since the 1800s were forcibly uprooted, dispossessed, and incarcerated. Despite being told by the Canadian military and RCMP, there wasn’t any illegal activity, the government declared all those with Japanese ancestry as enemy aliens.  

As a fourth generation Canadian, I’ve had the privilege of not having to experience the horrific conditions of racism. My family did not talk about the incarceration or the bombing. 

I first learned about the bombing when I visited Japan in 1987. In Hiroshima, I still have relatives and I visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. There were museum exhibits that gave the factual information, but it was the drawings made by the children which haunt me to this day. The crayon drawings showed me what they saw. There were figures with missing limbs, eyeballs dangling from sockets, and the river red with blood from those who sought relief for their burning bodies. There were artifacts such a  child’s tricycle, a watch that was crushed at the time of impact, and a charred black lunch kit. I was overwhelmed with the images. I remember going outside and sitting on the steps. I couldn’t hold back my tears. I wept. 

My mom’s cousin, Katsukuni Tanaka, still lives in Hiroshima. He says the family did not want to talk about what happened. It was only when they were close to death and then they finally wanted to share what happened. He says, “my grandmother, Masayo Nakano, took me to every August 6 ceremony, and to the ceremony honouring post office workers. My aunt Toshie was killed by the A Bomb without any trace. She was 20 years old and working at the Hiroshima Central Post Office, which was very close to ground zero.” 

On August 6, 1945 at 8:15 a.m. Katsukuni was a 20-month-old baby, at home with his mother, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, obliterating the city. Their home was near Hiroshima Station which is about 1.8 kilometres from ground zero. Their home was flattened, but he and his mother survived. His mom, Kimie, held onto him and walked 20 kilometres, east through the rubble, to Kaita, to get him to a safer location.  

Katsukuni says the names of everyone who died is at the Hiroshima Peace Cenotaph. Earlier this year, in May, city officials took the 128 books comprising the register out of the stone chamber to check for any damage. There are 344,306 names of the people who died before August 5, 2024, and the dates of their death. His mother and grandfather, Kurakichi Nakano, died of cancer in their early fifties. He and his remaining family are Atomic bomb survivors or Hibakusha just like Setsuko Thurlow, a family friend. 

Setsuko Thurlow is a Japanese Canadian who accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2017 on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition on such weapons.” 

In 1945 she was a 13-year-old school girl, one of about 7,000 students who were in the heart of the city on the day of the bombing. She said she was on the second floor. “I saw the bluish white flash outside the window. At that moment I had the sensation of floating in the air. That’s the end of my consciousness.” She says she was trapped in smouldering rubble, but many “simply vaporized, practically melted, died.” 

Setsuko is passionate about the survival of the world and an end to nuclear weapons. It has been her life’s work for the past seven decades. She spoke on July 7, 2017 at the United Nations in New York where 122 nations voted to adopt the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. “…let us pause for a moment to feel the witness of those who perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki both at that time, in August 1945, and over these 72 years. Hundreds of thousands people. Each person who died had a name. Each person was loved by someone.” 

If you get a chance, watch The Vow from Hiroshima. It’s a documentary that follows Setsuko’s life – from her survival to her leading the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons (ICAN) and giving the acceptance speech for the 2017 Nobel peace prize. The Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society is hosting a screening on August 9, 2025 at SKAM Theatre, 849 Fort Street, Victoria. Doors open at 2 p.m. Screening starts at 2:30 p.m. Free for VCNS members and $5 for non-members. First come, first served. 

Commemoration of Hiroshima Day underscores a commitment for world peace. It’s an important reminder of the consequences of nuclear weapons, and a call to action for nations to support the treaty ban on nuclear weapons. For Canadians it’s an opportunity to learn more, such as the role Canada played in the building of the atomic bombs, supplying the deadly uranium and the harm that came to the Dene, Indigenous peoples in the Northwest Territories where the mine was located.