The Cry of Hiroshima, 80 Years Later. At the Meeting, the Voices of the Hibakusha, Nobel Peace Prize Laureates

Eighty years have passed since Hiroshima, but the pain still echoes. Yet from that wound, a voice continues to rise—a voice that calls for peace. It is the voice of the Hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bomb, who will be at the Meeting in Rimini on August 25 to share what it means to live after the apocalypse. Not simply to remember a tragic past, but to question our present—just as they have been doing for decades.
(In the photo: Urakami Tenshudo, Nagasaki’s Catholic Cathedral, destroyed by the atomic bomb, with its dome overturned)

August 6, 1945. At 8:15 in the morning, a blinding light tore through the skies of Hiroshima. Three days later, Nagasaki was hit. Thus began the atomic age. Those who survived saw their lives change forever. In Japan, they are called Hibakusha, literally, “people affected by the explosion.”

Over time, some of them chose to turn remembrance into witness. They founded the Nihon Hidankyo organization, which for decades has fought for a world free of nuclear weapons. It is this organization that was awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize—not as a symbolic gesture, but in recognition of the concrete work Hibakusha have done for 70 years, meeting with schools, institutions, and governments, grounding their efforts in memory and hope.

Joining the Meeting will be Toshiyuki Mimaki and Masao Tomonaga, two witnesses who have never stopped speaking out.

Mimaki, born in Hiroshima, was just three years old when the bomb fell. He was with his family in Kusatsu, just over two kilometers from ground zero. He didn’t see the blinding light, but lived through the consequences: his father’s death, his mother’s burns, and a long trail of pain that marked his childhood and adult life. Now Vice President of Hidankyo, Mimaki travels the world to say: “What happened to me must never happen to anyone else again.”

Tomonaga was born in Nagasaki in 1943. He was two when the bomb devastated the city. His father, Masanobu Tomonaga, was a doctor who treated Takashi Paolo Nagai, the Christian physician of Nagasaki who survived the bomb and died in 1951, revered as a saint. Those images and stories shaped him. He too became a doctor, specializing in hematology. For decades he treated patients with leukemia and other radiation-induced cancers. Today, he is Professor Emeritus at Nagasaki University, combining scientific rigor with the power of lived testimony.

In an interview with Simone Disegni for Open, Tomonaga said: “Many of my patients were children. Treating them meant not just saving lives, but keeping the memory of what had happened alive. We cannot afford to forget.” He added: “The nuclear weapon is still alive in the world. It’s a reality, not a theory. That’s why we must keep telling our story.”

he event will take place on Monday, August 25, 2025, at 12:00 p.m. in the isybank D3 Auditorium at the Rimini Expo Centre. Moderating the meeting will be Bernhard Scholz, President of the Meeting Foundation.

This will not be a lecture. It will be a moment of sharing: of sorrow, but also of humanity. Because peace is not a utopia—if someone has the courage to live it and to tell about it, even after having touched hell.

ℹ️ All information about the event is available here:
👉 Surviving the Atomic Bomb – The Testimony of the Hibakusha