The elusive horror of Hiroshima
The official plans had been appropriately grand: 11,500 attendees would gather in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park for a somber ceremony commemorating the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city by the United States on August 6, 1945. But the pandemic had other plans.
As it has done in most cities around the world, the COVID-19 virus has altered or canceled much of Hiroshima’s daily life: concerts, marathons, museum exhibits. The anniversary ceremony will still take place on August 6, albeit with 10,000 fewer attendees. Only bomb survivors—or hibakusha—and their families may now attend. Audience members will be seated six feet apart in the park. World leaders, no longer able to attend in person, have been asked to submit video messages instead.
Hiroshima is harrowingly familiar with abrupt, unfathomable tragedy. But when I visited the city in late 2018, I was struck by how ordinary it looked and felt. I recall sitting on the narrow, elegant Motoyasu Bridge watching a bustling morning scene. Briefcase-carrying commuters in suits walked and biked across the bridge. Schoolchildren in uniforms skipped by in small groups. Nearby, a riverside café with a pretty fruit stand and ice cream stall out front was getting ready to open.
It could have been a scene from any city. But Hiroshima, of course, is not just any city. About 500 yards north of Motoyasu Bridge stands another bridge, the Aioi. The span was the original target for the bombing crew of the Enola Gay, which dropped a nearly 10,000-pound uranium bomb that detonated close to the spot where I was perched.
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