Nihon Hidankyō: An Introduction to the Cochairs of the Group for Atomic Bombing Survivors

An introduction to the three cochairs of Nihon Hidankyō, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, representing the group at the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony on December 10, 2024.

Tanaka Terumi

Photograph taken at a Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan press conference in Tokyo on October 22, 2024. (© Jiji)

Born in April 1932, Tanaka was 13 at the time of the August 9, 1945, atomic bombing of Nagasaki. At 92, he is the oldest Hidankyō representative, but he feels a sense of duty in representing the last generation to clearly remember the tragic event, and makes every effort to convey his experience.

Tanaka was born in Manchuria. When he was five, his father, who was in the military, died of illness, and with the help of relatives, the family moved back to Japan to live in Nagasaki. Their home was 3.2 kilometers from the hypocenter of the bombing. As he went to find other relatives in the Urakami area of the city, he saw countless bodies lying on the scorched earth and many people squatting with burns all over their body, unable to receive medical attention. He discovered his aunt and cousins dead in the remains of their home, which had been reduced to cinders. His grandfather and uncle died later, meaning that he lost five family members in the bombing. To support his family, living in dire poverty, he searched for a job and worked frantically, despite still being of school age.

He became involved in the hibakusha movement around 1970, when he was working as an assistant professor at Tōhoku University. As his own health had not been seriously affected, at first he took on a supporting role. Later, however, his sense that the tragedy of the atomic bombings had not properly reached people around the world led him to actively participate in international conferences, and he played a part in the holding of an exhibition on the impact of nuclear weapons at the United Nations headquarters in New York. After more than 20 years as the secretary-general of Hidankyō, in 2017 he became its cochair.

Tanaka Shigemitsu

Tanaka Shigemitsu was four at the time of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, and lived in Togitsu, six kilometers from the hypocenter. He was playing with his grandfather and younger brother in the garden, when a brilliant white light enveloped the sky; as they ran for the nearby hills, there was a huge explosion and they were hit by a powerful shock wave. Three days after the bombing, his mother went to check on a friend at the hypocenter, which led to repeated hospitalizations due to liver and thyroid problems. His father, who became violent toward her after this, died of liver cancer.

Mimaki Toshiyuki

Mimaki was three years old at the time of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. He was in Tokyo during the March 1945 firebombing, and then evacuated to his father’s hometown of Hiroshima in May. He was playing at the family home in Imuro, 17 kilometers from the hypocenter, when the bomb fell on August 6, 1945. The day after and the following day, his mother took him to Hiroshima while she searched for his father, who worked in the city, exposing him to the residual radiation there.

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo: The Nihon Hidankyō cochairs arrive in Oslo, Norway, on December 8, 2024, ahead of the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony. From left: Tanaka Terumi, Mimaki Toshiyuki, Tanaka Shigemitsu. © Reuters.)