"Give Back Peace That Will Never End"

Today is the somber 75th anniversary of the first use of an atomic weapon on the city of Hiroshima. As the war in the Pacific drew closer to the Japanese homeland, citing signs that Japan would fight on to the last person, the U.S.'s fateful decision to use the atom bomb was argued on the basis that it would end the war swiftly and with fewer casualties overall. Tens of thousands of men, women and children died in the horrific blast and in the time that followed, and after a second atomic device was dropped on the port city of Nagasaki, Japan sued for peace.

Hibakusha, the name for the increasingly small number of survivors of both bombings, gather each year to memorialize the events, and to share their stories for the historical record. Inscribed on a monument that stands at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial is a poem by a survivor who was 3 kilometers from the blast's center, but who died a few years later from the side effects of radiation:

"No More Hiroshima"
Give Back the Human
Give back my father, give back my mother;
Give grandpa back, grandma back;
Give me my sons and daughters back.
Give me back myself.
Give back the human race.
As long as this life lasts, this life,
Give back peace
That will never end.
     
        -- Sankichi Toge

(photo: The  Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall stands as a shell in November 1945. Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum/Shigeo Hayashi/Reuters)