Members of Nihon Hidankyo, Japan’s leading group of atomic bomb survivors that won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, on Monday said they plan to highlight the devastation caused by nuclear weapons and give a boost to movements advocating their abolition when they travel to Oslo for the award ceremony.
The group, also known as the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, held a press conference in Tokyo ahead of its members’ departure for the Norwegian capital. Some 30 Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing survivors are expected to participate in the ceremony on Dec. 10.
“We hope that (our visit) will lead to a larger nuclear abolition movement in Europe, and that people will feel the need to become more active” toward that goal, said Terumi Tanaka, a representative of the organization and survivor of the Nagasaki bombing.
The 92-year-old, who is slated to make a speech at the ceremony, said it took him over a month to distill his thoughts into a concise message for the occasion.
“While talking about the inhumanity of nuclear weapons, not everyone has specific images of the destruction,” Tanaka said. “Even if they understand in words, they don’t understand the essence of it.”
The organization on Nov. 15 launched a crowdfunding page with a target of 10 million yen ($66,500) to help cover travel expenses, which was met in just one day. It has since raised 36 million yen, and will continue the online campaigning through Dec. 15.
“I feel that so many people have expressed their support for us in this way after we won the Nobel prize,” said Jiro Hamasumi, a 78-year-old assistant secretary general of the group and an “in-utero” hibakusha, or atomic bomb survivor, who was still in his mother’s womb when the Hiroshima bomb was dropped.
“It is a massive encouragement,” he said.
The majority of the delegation will leave Japan on Sunday and return on Dec. 13.
The members have a full schedule during their stay, filled with interviews and school visits, while some of the members are also expected to meet members of the Norwegian royal family.
“As a hibakusha from the only country in the world that has experienced nuclear weapons during war, I want to tell the world how we have lived,” said Michiko Kodama, assistant secretary general of the organization.
“I believe it is our duty as hibakusha to hand down to the younger generation what it means to survive nuclear weapons and what war is like, at a time when there are many who do not know war,” the 86-year-old added.
The group, founded in 1956, won the prize “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again,” according to the Nobel committee.
The U.S. atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final days of World War II in August 1945, killing an estimated 214,000 people by the end of the year and leaving numerous survivors grappling with long-term physical and mental health challenges.
