Known as hibakusha in Japan, the survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the only people in the world with firsthand experience of the horrors of nuclear warfare. Now, 80 years later, they are passing their memories to the next generation through a project designed to carry on their legacy of anti-nuclear activism.
In 2024, Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again”.
This official recognition of the power of hibakusha testimony to generate opposition to nuclear weapons shows how important the survivors and their testimonies are in fostering a culture of remembrance and peace.
This year, the number of registered atomic bomb survivors fell below 100,000 for the first time. The Hiroshima city government, aware that soon there would be no more survivors, started the A-bomb Legacy Successor Programme in 2012 to train volunteers to inherit and pass on the testimonies of survivors.
Volunteers undergo two years of training at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. They study the historical realities of the bombing and develop public speaking skills, and each works closely with a survivor to create a presentation based on their personal testimony.
To graduate, successors must have their script fact-checked by the museum. They must also present it to the survivor to earn permission to speak on their behalf. Once certified, successors are commissioned by the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation to give lectures at the museum, and are invited to speak in schools and communities across Japan.
But the programme raises an important question: can such deeply personal, traumatic memories truly be passed on to someone who did not live through them?
A different kind of testimony
As someone who researches memorialisation in Japanese museums, this question became clear to me during fieldwork in Hiroshima, where I observed how successor stories are told.
While typical survivor testimonies are deeply personal and often last for an hour, “successor lectures” are more distant in tone. They are told in the third person, with only 15-20 minutes devoted to the specific story of the survivor whose testimony the successor has inherited.
Successor lectures must begin with an explanation of historical context surrounding the Hiroshima bombing, including background on the Pacific war, the development of nuclear weapons, and the short- and long-term impact of the bomb. The museum emphasises the importance of teaching visitors the reality of the bombing through scientifically grounded, objective knowledge.
Read more: ‘They died with stones in their mouths’: Hiroshima’s last survivors tell their stories
To that end, the museum instructs successors to avoid metaphorical descriptions that may mislead audiences. As successor Yumie Hirano explained in an interview with the Hiroshima Inheritance Exhibition Project, certain powerful phrases that survivors use must be carefully considered when retold:
If a survivor says ‘I saw a woman melting by heat rays just in front of me’, that is correct as his/her memory. However, it is scientifically impossible for a human body to melt by heat rays in a few seconds. [So] an A-bomb legacy successor … has to avoid the expressions like ‘melting’.
This highlights a core tension at the heart of the programme: the need to honour survivors’ memories while maintaining historical and scientific accuracy. It is a delicate balance between emotional truth and objective fact.
The presence and power of survivors
Traditionally, bearing witness has been seen as the role of the survivor, whose authority comes from their own personal experience. The Legacy Successor Programme challenges that idea, entrusting the responsibility of testimony to those without direct connection to the event.
But part of what makes survivor testimony so powerful is the presence of the survivor. The emotional impact of seeing and hearing from someone who lived through the bombing may be difficult to replicate in successor talks – and this may explain the difference in audience engagement.
In 2023, survivors delivered 1,578 lectures to more than 110,000 people. In the same year, successors gave 1,379 lectures – but to a total audience of 14,575. Only eight people were present at the successor lecture I attended, in a room with capacity for 45.
Read more: ‘Then the city started to burn, the fires were chasing me’ – 80 years on, Hiroshima survivors describe how the atomic blast echoed down generations
Interestingly, these lectures appear to be more popular with international audiences. The museum also offers successor talks in English, and these make up 35% of its total successor lecture attendance.
As the number of survivors declines, new questions arise about the future of the Legacy Successor Programme. Who will approve lecture content once no survivors remain? Will descendants of the hibakusha take over this role? Or will the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum assume that responsibility? How these decisions are made will shape how Hiroshima’s story is remembered and shared with the world.
What is clear is that as living memory of the atomic bombing fades, efforts to preserve and communicate that memory are more important than ever – as nuclear weapons, and the associated global tensions, proliferate. In the absence of survivors, the question is not just what we remember, but who gets to do the remembering, and how.
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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Lauren Anne Constance receives funding from The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Japan Foundation Endowment Committee.
AloJapan.com