- Friday May 27th 2016, President Barack Obama will be the first sitting President of the United States to set foot in Hiroshima since the atomic bomb devastated that city 71 years ago
- Wednesday October 13th 1948, Helen Keller was America’s First Goodwill Ambassador to Japan after the Second World War
Helen wrote the following letter to her good friend Nella Braddy Henney on a train from Hiroshima to Fukuoka on October 14th, 1948, the day after her visit to the devastated city. The letter powerfully reminds us of the horrors of war and the suffering that war creates.
"…Now I simply must tell you about our visit to Hiroshima yesterday. We are still aching all over from that piteous experience — it exceeds in horror and anguish the accounts I have read. Polly and I went to Hiroshima with Takeo Iwahashi to give our usual appeal meeting, but no sooner had we arrived there than the bitter irony of it all gripped us overpoweringly, and it cost us a supreme effort to speak. As you know, the city was literally levelled by the atomic bomb, but, Nella, its desolation, irreplaceable loss and mourning can be realized only by those who are on the spot. Not one tall building is left, and what has been rebuilt is temporary and put up in haste. Instead of the fair, flourishing city we saw eleven years ago, there is only life struggling daily, hourly against a bare environment, unsoftened even by nature’s wizardry. How the people Exist through summer heat and winter cold is a thought not to be borne. Jolting over what had once been paved streets, we visited the one grave — all ashes — where about 8.30, August 6th, 1945, ninety thousand men, women and children were instantly killed, and a hundred and fifty thousand were injured, and the rest of the population did not know at the moment what an [?] of disaster was upon them. They thought that the two planes — when they bombed, they always came in numbers — were reconnoitering planes; so they were not prepared for the flash of light that brought mass death. As a result of that inferno two hundred thousand persons are now dead, and the suffering caused by atomic burns and other wounds is incalculable. Polly saw burns of the face of the welfare officer — a shocking sight. He let me touch his face, and the rest is silence — the people struggle on and say nothing about their lifelong hurts. We saw a memorial to the ninety thousand who perished — a simple wooden shrine where people of all sects lay flowers, and the Shintoists place food, wine and incense.
And it was to those people that I made the appeal! Yet, despite the consummate barbarity of some military forces of my country and the painful wreckage upon the survivors, they listened quietly to what I had to say. Their affectionate welcome from the moment I arrived until two hours later, when we left by ferry for Miyajima, will remain in my soul, a holy memory — and a reproach…"
Image: Helen Keller and Polly Thomson at the Peace Tower in Japan, 1948
