HIROSHIMA, Japan >> The longing for a world without nuclear weapons harbored by Sunao Tsuboi, who served as a leader of Nihon Hidankyo, a group of atomic bombing survivors, is being carried on by the students at a junior high school in Minami ward, Hiroshima, where he once taught. Tsuboi died in 2021 at the age of 96.

Tsuboi, who talked about his experience as a hibakusha and bore severe burns all over his body, earned the nickname “Pika-don sensei.” Pika-don describes the intense flash of light and sound of an atomic blast. Sensei means teacher.

Hibakusha is a Japanese word for people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Tsuboi started teaching at Midorimachi Junior High School in 1972. In 1977, when he was vice principal of the school, he found a register of children that contained the names and addresses of students who died in the bombing.

A total of 210 students at the school are said to have been killed in the bombing, but the number of students listed in the register was about half of that.

With Tsuboi’s guidance, students used their summer vacation and other occasions to interview the families of 52 students who died in the bombing and published a booklet in 1980 based on the interviews.

The booklet is still used as part of the school’s peace education curriculum, and it is now customary for drama club members to read out the stories during school announcements every summer. One of the stories says: “My younger brother, who cried out for water on his sickbed at home, died two weeks after the atomic bombing. He was a brilliant boy who was class leader.”

“The booklet put together by the students is a valuable learning resource containing information that cannot be gained simply by visiting the Atomic Bomb Dome” in Hiroshima, said Toshiyuki Namikawa, the school’s current principal. “I think Nihon Hidankyo’s Nobel Peace Prize win is confirmation that Tsuboi’s peace education was (important).”