We all share the obligation to preserve A-bomb history

How to convey the experience of being witness to the horrors of atomic bombs to the young people of the new century becomes an every more important challenge.

Aug. 6 and Aug. 9 commemorate the dates of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the last century, mankind failed to eliminate nuclear weapons. The United States, the world's biggest nuclear power, refuses to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)-an essential step in implementing the pact-and seems intent on killing it.

It seems that developments in the realm of nuclear arms are working in ways that turn back the clock. Such is the concern we feel as we mark the first of this century's "atomic bomb days." And that is exactly why we must recall the havoc that nuclear weapons bring and must face that reality forthrightly.

Let us turn to the picture book created by Toshi Maruki, who died in January last year at the age of 87. In her book Hiroshima-no Pika (A-Bomb Over Hiroshima), she recalls, "On that day, my mother ran around trying to escape flames, carrying her wounded husband on her back and taking her 7-year-old daughter by the hand. She saw piles of human corpses. Swallows, unable to fly because their wings were burned, floundered at her feet.... The corpses of people, cats and fish flowed downstream. The dark sky thundered, and soon a black, oily rain fell."

What became of those men and women and all the other living things beneath the mushroom-shaped cloud? If we forget the horrible scenes that were acted out on those fateful days of the atomic bombings, are we likely to be blindsided by the perils of nuclear weapons? The questions posed in Maruki's picture book some 20 years ago are still fresh.

At the conclusion, an old woman whispers, "An atomic bomb would not fall unless someone drops it." That is just the message that Hiroshima and Nagasaki have tried to present to the world for more than half a century.

In Hiroshima: Hope, Takashi Hiraoka, former mayor of Hiroshima, declares, "Our resolve to abolish nuclear weapons is sustained by indignation over the human suffering caused by the atomic bombs." Conversely, were we to forget that indignation, which is appropriate to the only nation to be the victim of atomic bombs, the hope of abolishing all nuclear weapons would disappear. We must not abandon that indignation at any cost.

It is certainly difficult to properly convey the message concerning nuclear weapons from the 20th century. But we dare not talk about new horizons of a post-nuclear era unless we can do so. How to convey the experience of being witness to the horrors of atomic bombs to the young people of the new century becomes an every more important challenge.

Those who carry the official designation as hibakusha, as those who suffered the atomic bombings, now total 290,000, and they average 71 years of age. Soon, there will be no one to present his or her firsthand recollections of encountering the hell of the atomic bombs.

How are we to preserve the memories of the tragedy and pass them on to future generations? All of us who live in Japan, the only nation to suffer atomic bombings, must find the answer to this question, and must not leave it solely to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

-- The Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, Japan