Rethinking the Bomb
The official number of dead at Hiroshima, as given at the museum, is "140,000 (plus or minus 10,000)." That takes into account both the estimated 80,000 people who died instantly and the 60,000 more who died by the end of the year from burns, wounds, and other radiation-related causes. For years, many survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, known as hibakusha, did not talk about their memories-both out of fear of discrimination and because they felt a deep-seated guilt for having survived when so many did not. Many also simply wanted to bury the memory of that day along with the remains of their family and friends.
But a legacy of that horrifying past is that this city of 1.2 million people remains deeply pacifist. The just-retired director of the museum, Minoru Hataguchi, was in his mother's womb when the bomb hit. He ticks off a list of the world's nuclear weapons countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan-and, perhaps, North Korea, Israel, and Iran. "The world is moving not toward nuclear disarmament but nuclear development," he says. "And of course, that is not the wish of Hiroshima.... If you forget this experience, the impact of nuclear weapons, that will eventually lead to the extinction of human beings."
However, the question of which nuclear countries pose the greatest threat to the rest of the world elicits a reply that may surprise many in the West. When asked, Iwamoto and her friends reply, "North Korea." And after that? "America."
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