A-bomb survivor experiences on display in Oslo after Nobel prize win

An exhibition on Nihon Hidankyo, Japan’s leading group of atomic bomb survivors that won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, has opened in Oslo, charting the organization’s history and activism and showcasing the survivors’ experiences.

The event at the Nobel Peace Center, which runs through next November, features around 100 items, including pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings and portraits of hibakusha, or atomic bomb survivors.

“You cannot make an effort toward nuclear abolition without seeing with your eyes, hearing with your ears, thinking with your head, and feeling with your heart the destruction of nuclear weapons. In that sense, we need a place like this,” Terumi Tanaka, the 92-year-old co-chair of the group, said at Wednesday’s opening ceremony.

Toshiyuki Mimaki (2nd from L), Shigemitsu Tanaka (3rd from L) and Terumi Tanaka (4th from L, front), all representatives of Nihon Hidankyo, Japan’s leading atomic bomb survivors group and winner of the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, look at an exhibit at the Nobel Peace Prize exhibition about the group at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo on Dec. 12, 2024. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo

Nihon Hidankyo, also known as the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, was chosen for the award “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again,” according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum provided digital images of drawings by hibakusha depicting the devastation immediately following the blast, and the city of Nagasaki supplied photographs of the destroyed former Urakami Cathedral.

The exhibition also displays a wooden installation made of Hiroshima timber meant to represent the stories of hibakusha by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. Kuma is known for having designed the National Stadium for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in the summer of 2021.

Kjersti Flogstad, executive director of the Nobel Peace Center, earlier said it was necessary to keep talking about the horrors of nuclear weapons and to advocate against their use.

The facility creates an annual exhibition about each year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Related coverage:

A-bomb survivors testify, push for nuke abolition at Nobel forum

Nobel Peace Prize win reinvigorates A-bomb survivors’ fight against nukes

Japan A-bomb survivor group receives Nobel Peace Prize amid world tensions