The annual Hiroshima Peace Ceremony will be held Monday at the Hiroshima Peace Bell replica on College Walk Mall, marking the 78th anniversary of the atomic bomb being dropped on the Japanese city.
The ceremony, which is open to the public, will include a blessing and Shinto purification ceremony, with attendees given the opportunity to ring the replica bell to show their support for world peace, according to organizers.
The annual service is held in remembrance of Aug. 6, 1945, when the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing an estimated 140,000 people. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing 70,000. The bombings, to date the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict, led to Japan’s surrender on Aug. 15, effectively ending war in the Pacific.
In 1964, the Hiroshima Peace Bell was erected in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park to represent the hope for a world without nuclear weapons or war. In 1985, the Hiroshima prefectural government presented a replica bell to the people of Hawaii in recognition of their sister-city relationship established in 1959 by the Honolulu Japanese Chamber of Commerce and the Hiroshima Chamber of Commerce and Industry, according to a news release.
Monday’s ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. next to Izumo Taishakyo Mission of Hawaii at 215 N. Kukui St. in Honolulu. Bishop Daiya Amano will open the event with a blessing and purification ceremony, to be followed by messages from the community and religious leaders and guests.
Speakers will include Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi, who will discuss the events surrounding the establishing of the sister-city relationship, and Jen Townsend, vice president of youth development at the YMCA of Honolulu, who will talk about the YMCA’s “Let’s Get Together” program, in which teens from the two cities host one another in their home countries.
Linsey Dower covers ethnic and cultural affairs and is a corps member of Report for America, a national service organization that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.
