Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    

By Reginald Johnson

    

   NEW HAVEN --- Vigils to honor the more than 200,000 victims of the US atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, at the end of World War II will take place here Sunday and Wednesday.

  The first memorial, remembering the victims of the Hiroshima bombing, will be held Sunday at 8 a.m. at the flagpole on the New Haven Green. The second memorial for the victims of the Nagasaki bombing, will take place Wednesday at 11 a.m. at the Amistad Statue, 161 Church Street, next to City Hall.

  Henry Lowendorf, president of the Greater New Haven Peace Council, explained why it is so important to remember the atomic bombings, some 78 years later.

  “We remember the first and only use of these city killers took place in 1945 when the US dropped one atomic bomb each on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, instantaneously incinerating over 200,000 men, women and children and leveling those cities,” he said.

  Lowendorf added,  “We remind ourselves how horrific these nuclear weapons are, indiscriminate and massive and leaving vast quantities of deadly radioactive fallout to spread far and wide.  We remind our audiences that nine countries possess these WOMD and that there is no such thing as a small nuclear war --- any use of one weapon in conflict would likely lead to an escalation launching all 9,000 nuclear weapons that would destroy human civilization --- first directly killing hundreds of millions, then through mass starvation killing billions.”

   Lowendorf pointed out that Russia, the US, Britain and France are engaged in a war in both Ukraine and Russia that could descend into a nuclear war.

 “The Doomsday Clock is at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it’s been ever, an indication from top nuclear experts of the extreme danger we face. We point out that our US government dismisses talk of avoiding nuclear war and the war danger; and that the major corporate media support the government’s coverup. So we need to speak out and act.”

  Lowendorf said people can sign a petition calling for a ban on nuclear weapons at the CODE Pink website, at www.codepink.org

(For more information, email grnhpeacecouncil@gmail.com)