80 Years Since the U.S. Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

By Anderson Peck and David Shi

On August 8, 2025, over 50 attendees gathered to mark the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The event was sponsored by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), its youth initiative, Reverse The Trend (RTT), Peace Boat U.S., and NYU Japanese Cultural Association (JCA). They presented video messages from Setsuko Thurlow, a hibakusha, anti-nuclear activist, and retired social worker; the Nagasaki Youth Delegation; and Seth Shelden, General Counsel and UN Liaison at ICAN. Moderated by NAPF’s Policy and Advocacy Director, Christian N. Ciobanu, the event featured live speakers such as Rooj Ali, RTT Canada Youth Coordinator and Youth Mentor of RTT; Sydney Taylor, Youth for SDGs Scholar and Peace Boat US intern; Lily Stewart, President of the NYU Japanese Cultural Association (JCA); Yulianna Acuña, Youth Adviser of RTT; and Dr. Ivana Nikolić Hughes, President of NAPF. In addition to listening to powerful testimonies, attendees took part in paper crane building and a moment of silence led by a youth from Kazakhstan.

Setsuko Thurlow

Setsuko Thurlow, a hibakusha — a survivor of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima — recounted her experience in the aftermath. At the time of the bombing, she was just 13 years old, an eighth-grade student assigned to the Hiroshima Army Headquarters to learn the decoding system. Suddenly, she saw a blue and white flash in the window and lost consciousness. “When I regained consciousness,” Thurlow recounted, “I found myself in that total darkness, in silence. I knew I faced death, I thought.”

“Some survivors said they envied the dead because survival in the aftermath was very painful; starvation and social discrimination spread,” Thurlow said, “But the hardest thing for survivors to face was how oppressive American occupation was. More painful than the bombings themselves, Thurlow explained, was the U.S. occupation’s censorship and exploitation, promising medical help but instead using survivors for research, suppressing reports of nuclear suffering, and forcing Japan to buy back confiscated survivor testimonies decades later.

Calling the bombing “a carefully planned preparation for a nuclear age,” Thurlow strongly condemned the killing of “hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, not combatants,” as a violation of the rules of war even then. She continued with a message to the youth in the audience: “I urge you. Open the history book. Know what happened and know that it was planned. You must carry this truth forward, because soon, there will be no one left to tell it.” Her closing plea was simple: “Never again. Not just here, but everywhere”

Nagasaki Youth Delegation

The Nagasaki Youth Delegation called on youth to follow in the example of survivors by inheriting and passing on their memories. It emphasized the importance of understanding the extent of the damage inflicted upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki, insisting that “we must never forget this tragic history and continue to strive to ensure that it is never repeated.”

Addressing young people, the Nagasaki Youth Delegation advanced a cross-border coalition “to achieve the shared goal of eliminating nuclear weapons.” It closed by calling for peace through a collective effort: “Through learning together, engaging in dialogue, and taking action side by side, we can leave a future filled with hope.”

Seth Shelden

Seth Shelden of ICAN began by honoring the hibakusha, whose “average age is now 86 years old” and whose firsthand testimonies “we can’t expect to have much longer”. Shelden stressed that is up to younger generations to carry forward their memory. He critiqued the narrative that nuclear weapons are instruments that provide security, explaining, “They aren’t—they’re indiscriminate, horrific, immoral, and illegal weapons that threaten everything that everyone that you have ever loved.”

Shelden argued that youth involvement is crucial because “they will inherit the planet, inherit these crises” and because ionizing radiation particularly damages rapidly dividing cells, making young people and pregnant women particularly vulnerable.” Shelden concluded his remarks by affirming, “The TPNW is the solution. With half of the world’s countries having already joined, it’s not a question of whether these countries will join. It’s simply a question of whether they will join before or after a great catastrophe”.

Rooj Ali

Rooj Ali, Youth Coordinator and Youth Mentor of RTT Canada, began by reflecting on her introduction to nuclear disarmament advocacy at only 15 years old. Having endured civil war as a refugee from Syria before arriving in Canada, an experience which left a sense of helplessness, Rooj praised disarmament work as “something that I could do, yet something that I was so incredibly horrified by, especially considering how underrepresented it was.”

Rooj rebuked the lack of public knowledge on nuclear issues as an “intentional” lapse in education so as not to arouse anger and a “sense of horror” in people. Without an incentive to act, individuals routinely neglect the nuclear issue, the legacy of which “extends across the world into so many families, environments and generations.”

Emphasizing the interconnected nature of nuclear weapons and other pressing issues, particularly the climate crisis, Rooj explained that “as we really look around us, we come to understand that this topic affects all of us.”

Sydney Taylor

Sydney Taylor, a Peace Boat US intern and youth scholar for the UN Sustainable Development Goals, shared how her family’s history fuels her commitment to nuclear abolition. “My grandma, or Baba, grew up in Japan during World War II,” she said, recalling how her great-aunt was “walking to work when the atom bomb went off” in Hiroshima while five months pregnant, later dying from radiation poisoning.

Through Peace Boat, Taylor met survivors of the atomic bombings like Mr. Ito, who was “five years old and playing outside when the atomic bomb dropped,” and Ms. Rumi, who was ostracized because radiation illnesses were wrongly believed to be contagious. “Both survivors”, Taylor said, are dedicated to educating people about the atrocities of nuclear weapons and the need for abolition. She urged action through the Hibakusha Appeal, “calling on all nations to conclude a treaty to ban nuclear weapons,” and criticized unequal treatment of survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Taylor closed her remarks with a call for a future where nothing like this ever happens again.

Lily Stewart

Lily Stewart, President of the NYU JCA, guided the audience through a beautiful story of personal discovery that began when she was nine years old. After visiting the Hiroshima memorial, Lily “couldn’t sleep for days,” struck with “utter terror [and] devastation.” Lily now counts herself lucky to have the very nightmares that once left her stricken with fear. “The truth is,” she explained, “my nightmares were someone’s reality. And not just someone, but over 200,000 people.”

For Lily, the atomic bombs were not a story, but a reality she only came to understand when she was nine. Through discussions with her grandmother, Lily learned that her great-grandmother rushed to Nagasaki as a volunteer nurse after the bombing and later died from the radiation of the atomic bomb.

Lily concluded with a simple yet powerful testament to remembrance, “one of the most powerful abilities we have as humans.” 80 years ago, the world witnessed the horrors of human capability. But “the past is not just a lesson. It is a call to action, a reminder that what happened before can’t happen again unless we stand together to prevent it.”

Yulianna Acuña

Yulianna Acuña, an RTT adviser, began by noting the efforts of survivors to share their stories in hopes of disarmament. Acuña noted, “We’ve made progress, but not enough,” with nations still holding thousands of warheads and arms control treaties collapsing. Acuña criticized the $2 trillion U.S. nuclear modernization plan, asking ““Why are we planning for nuclear conflicts decades from now while failing to address urgent challenges like climate change or inequality?” She stressed that “everyone faces the consequences of nuclear war, so everyone deserves a voice,” especially youth, who “will inherit the consequences of today’s decisions.”

Acuña continued by expressing hope for hope and providing a call to action. “Youth will carry the human legacy forward,” she said, ‘Youth must fight for a future free from something we never requested.” Sharing the story of Sadako Sasaki, a young Hiroshima survivor who folded paper cranes while dying of leukemia, Acuña invited attendees to fold origami cranes in memory of the survivors and the fight for disarmament. The cranes, she explained, are “your commitment to the vision” of a nuclear-free world. Closing, Yulianna said, “Peace is not something we just hope for. It is something we build step by step.”

Dr. Ivana Nikolić Hughes

Dr. Ivana Hughes, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, began her remarks in forceful condemnation of the nine nuclear weapons states that collectively possess 12,500 nuclear warheads. Addressing those billionaires who build underground bunkers in New Zealand in the case of nuclear war, Dr. Hughes offered a simple message: “They’ll have to come out on the surface. They’ll run out of food and this will be a completely different world. This will be a world that is quite simply destroyed.”

Referring to the work of American historian and professor at American University, Peter Kuznick, Dr. Hughes discussed the decision to use the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Prof. Kuznick found that seven out of eight five-star officers in 1945 stated that the bombings were either unnecessary or immoral or both. “This was quite simply a decision that never should have taken place,” Dr. Hughes declared.

Throughout its more than four decades of existence, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has believed in the power of arts. Co-Founder and President Emeritus, the late David Krieger, wrote several books of poetry. In a touching moment, Dr. Hughes revealed her own foray into the arts. After returning from a walk through the hills of Nagasaki last year, she wrote a poem on her experience, entitled The Hills of Nagasaki.

“The hills call me to witness, not just their pain, but also their pain, ” began Dr. Hughes’s poem.

Concluding Remarks

The event closed with a shared sense of urgency and responsibility. Speakers from across generations and continents underscored that remembrance must be paired with action. The testimonies and stories shared made clear that the legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not just history, but a call to ensure that such devastation never happens again.