Hiroshima and Nagasaki – ‘Don’t let it happen again’
Veteran peace campaigner Hetty Bower joins Hiroshima survivor at 65th anniversary memorial
Published: 12 August, 2010
by TOM FOOT
A SURVIVOR of the American atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 spoke of his “hope for peace” at a memorial event in Tavistock Square, Bloomsbury, on Friday.
Shoso Kawamoto was speaking in the 65th anniversary of the nuclear attack that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and created a generation of “forgotten children”.
The 77-year-old brought with him a collection of origami-style birds and planes containing the poetry of children whose lives were destroyed by radiation sickness following the explosion.
Speaking through an interpreter, he said: “It’s a great honour and pleasure for me to be here with you. I’m speaking from my own experiences and for all of the Hiroshima children who could not be here. They died – but we persisted.”
Mr Kawamoto presented Mayor of Camden Jonathan Simpson with a book and advised the crowd of 200 in attendance to visit to an exhibition in Friends House. He said: “These paper cranes and planes represent all the dreams that have been condemned. We put the crane at the top of the plane so that their dreams can fly around the world and so that other children can feel the dreams and their wishes.”
Anti-war campaigner Hetty Bower, 104, said: “I am here to ask all of us to give as much as we can in speaking to children and older people about the futility and waste and the actual absurdity of adults killing each other.”
Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn said: “Hetty turns out at demos and speeches and was on the march to defend the Whittington Hospital.
“She wants good public service, peace, and a nuclear-free world.”
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament chairwoman Kate Hudson, who lives in Tufnell Park, said: “There is a groundswell for change and we must do everything we can to ensure no more Hiroshimas or Nagasakis.”
There were poetry recitals by the Purple Poets and opera singer Anthony Flaum sang Peter Seeger’s Where Have All The Flowers Gone?
Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone added: “What could be more wrong than the obsessive cutting of health and education services while spending £100billion over 20 years on a new generation of nuclear weapons.”