Nobel Prize for Hibakusha

The Nihon Hidankyo – short and Japanese for The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations – has been awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize after having been nominated several times before.

The organization founded on August 10, 1956 is run entirely by hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Their main objective is the prevention of nuclear war and the elimination of nuclear weapons, and they are active world wide. Today, there are roughly 106,000 hibakusha still alive, from 650,000 originally recognized by the Japanese government.

Have a look around their website – the Message to the World written at the inaugural meeting is especially powerful.

And if you ever make it to Hiroshima, visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, not just the first section that talks about the bombing and history in a very detached way (the clock measuring the time since the last nuclear test notwithstanding), but also the second section depicting the impact and suffering of the victims in graphic detail. If you come out of this part without being touched to your core, you’re probably a psychopath.

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