To Mark Hiroshima Day, a Plea for Peace

Note: If you wish to receive, via e-mail, (1) my weekly newsletter or (2) daily copies of these posts, write to me at rrbates1951@gmail.com. Comments may also be sent to this address. I promise not to share your e-mail with anyone. To unsubscribe, write here as well.

Thursday

Eighty years ago yesterday the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, marking a new stage in humankind’s destructive capabilities. My father, who was in occupied Munich at the time as an interpreter for the Third Army, told me about the effect it had on him. His job was taking German citizens on required tours through Dachau—America wanted to show them what their country had done—but after Hiroshima the Germans attempted to turn the moral tables. “You say that we were bad…” they said accusingly. As an impressionable 22-year-old, my father was shattered and became, at that moment, a lifelong pacifist.

To mark the day, here’s the poem “Hiroshima Child” by Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet. The speaker, a child who has died in Hiroshima, returns to beg us to stop the killing. In the poem’s simplicity lies its power.

Hiroshima Child

I come and stand at every door
But none can hear my silent tread
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead for I am dead

I’m only seven though I died
In Hiroshima long ago
I’m seven now as I was then
When children die they do not grow

My hair was scorched by swirling flame
My eyes grew dim my eyes grew blind
Death came and turned my bones to dust
And that was scattered by the wind

I need no fruit I need no rice
I need no sweets nor even bread
I ask for nothing for myself
For I am dead for I am dead

All that I need is that for peace
You fight today you fight today
So that the children of this world
Can live and grow and laugh and play