Father Alberto Berra – PIME missionary in the city where the first atomic bomb fell in 1945 – comments on the decision to grant recognition to the association that gives voice to the victims who still bear the marks of the explosion almost eighty years ago . “They feel that they have received a mission: to be a voice for the world. Because, as Pope Francis said here in 2019, “not only the use but also the possession of nuclear weapons is immoral.”
Hiroshima () – “It is not a recognition of the past, but a decision that looks at the current international situation. Give the Nobel Peace Prize to hibakusha It is an appeal to the world that has once again spoken about the use of these terrible devices.” Fr. Alberto Berra, Italian PIME missionary, comments from Hiroshima on the news that the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the Nihon association Hidankyo, which brings together the victims of the terrible explosion of nuclear devices that the United States launched in August 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Based in Japan in 1990, Father Berra has exercised his ministry in the city marked by the crisis for many years. first of the two atomic explosions that 79 years ago left more than 148,000 dead, approximately 62% of the population, and a very heavy legacy of diseases caused by radiation that appeared even after many years Another 74,000 people died three days later. for the second bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
The PIME missionary has seen the hibakusha tell their stories in the Peace Park, the park in the heart of Hiroshima where the museum that remembers that great tragedy is located and the Genbaku Dome, the dome of the building that melted due to the heat of the atomic explosion and has become in its symbol. All Japanese schools visit the Peace Park and stop at the monument that commemorates the thousands of children who died on August 6, 1945.
“In the testimonies of the hibakusha you find all the horror of war and its consequences – he explains -. Without a doubt all wars leave death and destruction in their wake. But never before has it happened in such a heartbreaking way and with consequences on the body that last over time, for some even to this day, after almost eighty years. “They feel they have received a mission: to be a voice for the world.”
The association that brings them together, Nihon Hidankyo – to which the Oslo Committee today awarded the Nobel Prize – was born in 1956, eleven years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They had remained silent for years facing their own sufferings, but the US hydrogen bomb experiments at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, once again exposing local people and fishermen to the dangers of radiation, convinced them that they had a message to communicate to everyone.
According to the latest Japanese government statistics released last March, around 107,000 survivors of the two explosions are still alive, with an average age of 85.6 years. There are already a few dozen in Hiroshima who are still able to work as volunteers in the Peace Park. “Please, you must abolish nuclear weapons while we are still alive,” Toshiyuki Mimaki, head of the Confederation of Organizations, said today after the announcement. hibakusha from Hiroshima Prefecture.
“It is a mission that continues to excite them – continues Fr. Berra-. A few months ago, for example, one of them, over eighty years old, began studying English to be able to speak with a greater number of people passing through Hiroshima. It is truly a mission addressed to all humanity.”
And it is a message that Hiroshima wants to continue transmitting. “For our Church – recalls the PIME missionary – the words of Pope Francis in the Peace Park during his 2019 trip were also very important, when he clearly said that it is not only about the use of atomic weapons, but also about their possession. And this Nobel Prize, in some way, is an opportunity for us to repeat it.”
An initiative organized by the bishop of Hiroshima is aimed precisely in this direction, which today brings together local Catholic communities and some dioceses in the United States. “Is called Partnership for a world without nuclear weapons – says Fr. Berra–. This is an appeal launched jointly by the dioceses of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those of Santa Fe in New Mexico and Seattle in Washington State, places where the US military’s nuclear tests are carried out. “A way to accept Francis’ triple invitation to remember the victims of almost 80 years ago, walk together towards a world without nuclear weapons and protect the generations of tomorrow.”
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