HIROSHIMA, Japan — Shortly before the 80th anniversary of nuclear attack on Hiroshima early this month, several dozen elementary school students met with atomic bomb survivor and farmer Toshiyuki Mimaki to hear his experiences.
Mimaki, 83, is the vice-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, an organization of "hibakusha," or a-bomb survivors, who are working to abolish nuclear weapons. The group was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
They met at the Nakajima community center, about three tenths of a mile from ground zero. Nearly everyone and everything in the neighborhood were obliterated on August 6th, 1945. The bombing killed about 140,000 people in total by the end of 1945.
"Did you know that a nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima?" Mimaki asked the students.
"Yes," they replied.
"Kids like you were all burned to death, because houses caught fire and collapsed, trapping people underneath. Many, many died. Poor kids. They never got the chance to watch TV, because there was no TV at that time, and they never knew about bullet trains," he said.
After Mimaki's talk, 11-year-old Yuri Iwata, who was listening, shared his reaction. "As a kid from Hiroshima, learning about this past tragedy makes me want to tell other people about it," he said. "It could lead to a better future, so listening to Mr. Mimaki was good."
Mimaki survived the bombing on his family's farm, about 10 miles outside Hiroshima , where he now grows buckwheat. He remembers hearing the nuclear explosion and thinking it was a clap of thunder.
Mimaki grew up in poverty. His parents taught him not to waste even a grain of rice. He says it makes him think of kids today in Ukraine and Gaza. "Food is the most important thing for human beings to live," he says.
Surviving the A-bomb at age 3
Mimaki was 3 years old in 1945. Many of his memories of the event come from what his parents told him, such as about the day after the bombing, when he went into the city to look for his missing father, and was irradiated by the nuclear fallout.
"When the a-bomb was dropped, my father was in the basement, changing out of his work clothes," Mimaki explains. "That saved his life. When he came out, he saw the city of Hiroshima was gone."
Mimaki is part of a younger generation of hibakusha. He compares his experience to that of fellow hibakusha and former Hidankyo co-chair Sunao Tsuboi, who was 20 in 1945, and passed away in 2021 at the age of 96.
"It's just incomparable in many ways," Mimaki says. "He was hit directly by the nuclear blast. Parts of his face got burned. He had keloid scars. He remembers all the details. My memories are just bits and pieces."
Now in his 80s, Mimaki is trying to pass the baton from older generations of hibakusha to a younger generation. But he says it's not going so well.
"I give a lecture at the Peace Park, and the kids say the a-bomb was dropped on such a beautiful park," he says. I have to tell them, 'no, that's not it! This area was all houses and grocery stores and shops!'"
Ridding the world of nuclear weapons is not going so well either.
A new arms race in East Asia
The Norwegian Nobel Committee credits Nihon Hidankyo with helping to build a "nuclear taboo." That's the idea that nuclear weapons are so cruel and morally repulsive that nobody has used them for 80 years.
But, by contrast, leaders of nuclear weapons states and self-described "realists" believe it is the deterrent power of nuclear weapons that has prevented their use.
"There's going to be a hardening of these two camps, these two views of the world and their different understanding and value of nuclear deterrence," predicts Toby Dalton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
He notes that East Asian countries are locked in an arms race, with nuclear powers increasing their arsenals. And under the Trump administration's "America first" policies, U.S. allies, including Japan, are increasingly seeking Washington's reassurances that Washington will not remove the "nuclear umbrella" over them.
In January, Toshiyuki Mimaki met with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and asked the government to attend a meeting of signatories to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), if not as a signatory, then as an observer. But Japan did not attend.
The international treaty, which would make it illegal to develop, possess or use nuclear weapons, has been signed and ratified by 73 states parties, none of which are nuclear weapons states. Ishiba has indicated Japan will not sign, because it would essentially be rejecting the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
This puts Japan in the contradictory position of calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, as the only country to have been attacked with them, even as it relies on the U.S. nuclear arsenal for its security.
Toby Dalton says that, at the end of the day, non-nuclear states have no way to compel nuclear weapons states to give up their nukes.
"So ultimately, while the moral authority of the hibakusha is really important," he says, "the change needs to come from within and between the states with nuclear weapons."
Hidankyo's last stand
Meanwhile, the average age of the hibakusha is now over 86. There are fewer than 100,000 of them left, and they're losing about 10,000 a year. Mimaki says he's planning to mount one last big Hidankyo campaign.
"We are getting old, and we aren't so active anymore," he points out. "I have proposed that we get all the surviving members in Japan together, and with all our remaining strength, surround the Parliament building to call for the abolition of nuclear weapons."
Mimaki says he plans to make his move this fall, if he can get enough people together.
Chie Kobayashi contributed to this report.
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