August 29, 2025 Hello , How do we remain motivated, persistent and hopeful as we work to build a better future while facing what seem to be enormous odds? Is there an app for that? I don't know. But there is a story. We can count on it. There's always a story of a woman to light our path, lift our hearts and inspire us to continue the struggle. Thanks to reader Robin Lindley for pointing me to Hiroshima survivor and activist Setsuko Nakamura Thurlow. The human suffering of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
are nearly inconceivable even though we have survivor's stories, eye witness accounts, photographs and medical records. After the bombings, the U.S. government repressed all this information for seven years, but no government or individual has been able to quell Setsuko's spirit, nor her ambition to disarm the world of nuclear weapons. How did Setsuko survive the destruction of her
city and life as she knew it? And what can we learn from her persistent efforts?
Imagine a Better Future Will Rise from the Ashes
“I still vividly remember that morning. At 8:15, I saw a blinding bluish-white flash from the window. I remember having the sensation of floating in the
air.” Thirteen-year-old Setsuko Nakamura and 29 other classmates had been assigned to help at army headquarters, which turned out to be about a mile from the hypocenter where the world's first atomic bomb exploded. "I
regained consciousness in the total silence and darkness...pinned in the ruins of the collapsed building. I could not move....Gradually, I began to hear my classmates' faint cries for help, 'Mother, help me!', 'God, help me!' Then suddenly, I felt hands touching me and loosening the timbers that pinned me. A man's voice said, 'Don't give up! I'm trying to free you! Keep moving!'' Setsuko crawled from the building minutes before it went up in flames, her classmates trapped inside burning to death.
Setsuko was alive, but surrounded by a hellscape. People at a distance saw the mushroom cloud and
heard a thunderous roar. But I did not see the cloud because I was in it. I did not hear the roar, just the deadly silence broken only by the groans of the injured. Streams of stunned people were slowly shuffling from the city centre toward nearby hills. They were naked or tattered, burned, blackened and swollen. Eyes were swollen shut and some had eyeballs hanging out of their sockets. They were bleeding, ghostly figures like a slow-motion image from an old silent movie....Strips of skin and flesh hung like ribbons from their bones. Often these ghostly figures would collapse in heaps never to rise again. Setsuko headed toward the hills, carefully stepped over the dead and dying she eventually reached a parade ground. Literally every bit of it was covered with injured and dying who were desperately begging, often in fain whispers, 'Water, water, please give me water'. But we had no containers to carry water. We went to a nearby stream to wash the blood and dirt from our bodies. Then we
tore off parts of our clothes, soaked them with water and hurried back to hold them to the mouths of the dying who desperately sucked the moisture. We kept busy at this task of giving some comfort to the dying all day. There were no medical supplies of any kind and we did not see any doctor or nurse. When darkness fell, we sat on the hillside, numbed by the massive scale of death and suffering we had witnessed, watching the entire city burn. In the background were the low rhythmic whispers from the swollen lips of the ghostly figures, still begging for
water. Mercifully, her parents survived, though she had to watch her sister and 4 year old nephew die from burns in excruciating pain. The steadfast action of
the adults around her inspired Setsuko, in particular her Christian minister, who organized social services for orphans and widows. “It
was a life-changing experience, as a growing teenager, just watching the adults, how they confronted that … catastrophic disaster,” she said. “They were not defeated. They were determined to stand up and rebuild their lives."
In 1954, Setsuko accepted a scholarship to college in the United States, where she first spoke up, admitting she was angry about the US testing nuclear weapons over Bikini Atoll. People wrote her nasty letters, telling her to go back where she came from. She disappeared from class for a week. “I couldn’t possibly face the world at that time,” she said. “I went through this agony. I just had to think, pray.”
“I came out with a stronger
conviction. As a survivor of Hiroshima, it was my moral responsibility to keep telling the world about it so that knowledge could prevent a similar thing from happening again.
Setsuko has told her story often over the last 40-some years, but she still has to brace herself as the memories of death and destruction threaten to overwhelm her. Again and again, she tells listeners, “I don’t want your sympathy—I want your action.”
Setsuko Nakamura's sister and young nephew prior to the bombing. “Whenever I remember Hiroshima, the first image that comes to mind is of my four-year-old nephew, Eiji -– his little body transformed into an unrecognisable melted chunk of flesh. He kept begging for water in a faint voice until his death released him from agony.” Setsuko married Jim Thurlow, a Canadian
history teacher, and moved to Toronto. She went to graduate school, raised a family and worked as a social worker. Then in the mid-1970s she began speaking out in earnest, on her way to becoming a leading voice in the world wide nuclear disarmament movement.
Over the decades, it's been a challenge to rouse people's interest in the subject. But in 2007, a coalition of nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations founded the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and called for immediate discussions on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Setsuko was a prime mover and shaker in this new push. Despite hate mail, death threats, and even a bomb scare, her story helped shift the world’s
conversation about nuclear weapons from cold calculation to human consequence. Addressing the UN General Assembly in 2008, Setsuko declared, “Humanity and nuclear weapons cannot coexist.” It became a rallying cry
for a new generation of activists. Under her moral leadership, the movement reframed the debate: no longer about how many warheads, but about the catastrophic consequences for people and planet. Year after year, she worked to focus people's attention on the issue. Setsuko and other A-bomb survivors traveled the world to plead their case. In March of 2017, the United Nations General
Assembly started negotiations on a treaty to outlaw nuclear weapons. By July, 122 countries had adopted the treaty.
Setsuko Nakamura Thurlow delivers a lecture at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in December 2017. Photo courtesy of ICAN.
That year ICAN was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and invited Setusko to jointly accept it because her efforts had been so instrumental in this victory. Still,
the nine countries which possess nuclear weapons have not signed the treaty: the United States Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. Combined they have over twelve thousand nuclear warheads, almost 90% of which belong to the United States and Russia. Efforts to rid the world of this dire threat continue. Don’t Bank on the Bomb researches private companies involved in the production of nuclear weapons and their financiers. Reports show over the last decade increasing numbers of financial
institutions have divested.
A 2023 report from PAX and ICAN shows the financial community is
increasingly rejecting nuclear weapons, photo ICAN Don't Bank the Bomb reports 109 banks, pension funds and other financial institutions worldwide have policies that limit or completely exclude any financial engagement with the nuclear weapons industry. The number of
companies profiting from the production of nuclear weapons fell slightly in the years 2022-2024. They hold multi-year contracts totaling a least $465 billion. In light of the events of 2025, it's likely more of our tax dollars will be going that way. It doesn't feel like a world on the verge of banning nuclear weapons. But the courage and clarity of Setsuko's message has borne fruits of peace. Upon accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of ICAN, she spoke eloquently of what is possible. “When I was a 13-year-old girl, trapped in the smoldering rubble, I kept pushing. I kept moving toward the light. And I survived. To all … listening around the world, I repeat those words that I heard called to me in the ruins of Hiroshima:
‘Don’t give up! Keep pushing! See the light? Crawl towards it." No matter the obstacles we face, brave women before us have known what to do. They've
struggled together, sharing their burdens and their victories, cultivating hope and imagining a better future for their children, grandchildren and our precious world. Like
my article today? Forward this email to share with family and friends.
Sources https://hibakushastories.org/meet-the-hibakusha/meet-setsuko-thurlow/
Follow me on social media
This newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Read
a great book? Have a burning question? Let me know. If you know someone who might enjoy my newsletter or books, please forward this e-mail. I will never spam you or sell your email address, you can unsubscribe anytime at the link below. To find out more about my books, how I help students, teachers, librarians and writers visit my website at www.MaryCronkFarrell.com. Contact me at MaryCronkFarrell@gmail.com. Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. |
|
|
