A minute’s silence was held today at the time of the explosion of the atomic bomb, which was thrown by an American bomber in the Japanese city eighty years ago, while the restored church bell tower of the city sounded – for the first time since.
On August 9, 1945, at 11:02, three days after Hiroshima, Nagasaki lived in turn the horror of nuclear bombardment.
About 74,000 people were killed in the city, a large port in the southwestern part of the archipelago ,.
“It’s been 80 years, and who would have imagined that the world would happen? Stop the armed conflicts immediately! “, The mayor of the martyred city, Siro Souzouki during the ceremony, with audiences of one hundred and more countries.
“Conflicts are exacerbated in different places because of the vicious cycle of conflict and division. A crisis capable of threatening the survival of mankind itself, as the nuclear war, is overwhelmed by everyone who live on this planet, “the elected election added, shortly after the heavy rain that was falling all morning was stopped before a minute.
The international participation – record – was particularly marked by the presence of Russia, which did not attend the anniversary after its army invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Israel, whose ambassador had not been invited last year, in protest of the war in the Gaza Strip – which caused a boycott by the ambassadors of other G7 states – gave the present.
That explosion looks like it became “in antiquity, but for the people who lived it, it’s like yesterday. We have to keep the memory of those who were real events alive, “said Atsuko Higuchi, a 50 -year -old Nagasaki resident in Peace Park.
A symbol of this memory ceremony, the Cathedral Campaign, which was destroyed by the atomic bomb: it was restored in the spring by American Christians, and placed next to the existing, before sounding again on the anniversary, for the first time in eighty years.
The imposing cathedral of the Army arrest with red bricks is located on the top of the hill. It was built again in 1959. The building was almost wiped out when the explosion occurred, a few hundred meters from there.
Only one of his two bells was found in the debris.
For the priest of the temple, Kenitsi Yamamoura, the restoration “shows the greatness of human existence”, is “proof that people belonging to a camp that hit another may one day want to be atone”.
The question is not “to forget the traumas of the past, but to recognize and act to heal them, to rebuild, and so to work together for peace,” Mr Yamamoura told the French Agency.
The priest thus wanted to send a message to the whole world, shaken by multiple armed conflicts or was thrown into a crazy race of equipment.
“We must not repay violence by violence, but rather show the way we live, we pray, how absurd it is to deprive someone of someone else’s life, he added.
Professor of American University, whose grandfather had participated in the Manhattan Project – in the development of the first nuclear weapons – used in World War II, was the one who starred in the bell’s restoration venture.
James Nolan, a professor of sociology in Massachusetts, has donated $ 125,000 (107,200 euros) to the US Catholic for the project.
During the presentation of the restored bell, in the spring, “there was a world that was literally crying,” said Mr Nolan.
Many of the American Catholics who met ignored the painful story of Nagasaki Christians. After being converted to Christianity in the 16th century, by European missionaries, they were persecuted by the Japanese Sogun; they had secretly practiced and secretly spreading their faith for over 250 years.
This story was told in his novel Silence by the Japanese Catholic writer Sesako Edo – Martin Scorsese’s 2016 was conveyed to the big screen in 2016.
“We are talking about centuries of martyrdom, torture, illegality, mockery and persecution because of their faith,” Mr Nolan said, referring to the Japanese Catholics.
American Catholics were inspired by “their willingness to forgive and rebuild and dedicate them to prayer,” he added.
The bombings with atomic weapons managed to make the joyistic shot in the Japanese Empire, which capitulated on August 15, 1945, ending World War II.
Historians, however, continue to dispute whether and whether these bombings have allowed lives to be expelled by speeding up the end of the war, in front of the suffering of the chimpanzees -those who survived -who, among other things, were distinguished for the rest of their lives and faced their lives.
