80 Years On, Japan Govt Seeking Testimonies from All Hibakusha

   Tokyo, April 28 (Jiji Press)--With this year marking the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan's welfare ministry began this month to collect testimonies from the roughly 106,000 hibakusha survivors of the nuclear attacks.
   It is the first time in 30 years that the government seeks cooperation from all hibakusha over testimony collection. A ministry official expressed hopes for "receiving as many testimonies as possible amid the aging" of those who survived the atomic bombings of the two Japanese cities in August 1945 in the closing days of World War II.
   A leaflet seeking testimonies is being sent to survivors with hibakusha certificates across Japan by mail through prefectural governments. The ministry is also collecting portraits of deceased hibakusha, clothing exposed to the atomic bombs and photographs taken around the time of the bombings.
   Collected items will be stored at the national peace memorial halls for atomic bomb victims, located in Hiroshima, western Japan, and Nagasaki, southwestern Japan. Among them, those for which consent is given from owners will be displayed to the public.
   Efforts to gather testimonies began in 1995, when the ministry asked for cooperation from all of the roughly 320,000 hibakusha who were alive at the time. After that, testimonies were solicited from some randomly selected survivors in 2005 and 2015.

(2025/04/28-13:45)

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