STOP THE WAR - REMEMBER HIROSHIMA

- Do you know how it is to die? There is only hardly perceptible shadow left on the bricks. Sign that you were here. The sign that you were standing, right here, when the atomic bomb was dropped. 

Last summer I went to Hiroshima. Although I wanted to write about my trip much earlier - I was not able to gather my own thoughts for a long time. That trip was my personal tribute to the victims of nuclear attack; for the children who died before fulfilling their dreams; for those who were injured and suffered the agony. And for the survivals who have been carrying the painful memories whole their lives and who were and are here to tell us the truth. The truth which is too dark to take in.

My visit to Hiroshima was not just a tribute-trip. I was deeply hurt by people as a child. And there was a time I thought I will never make it grow up and be an adult. Somehow I was alive and at the darkest time of my life, I called a name of God and promised Him I will never let the hatred take a control of my life and I will not let the hatred destroy me. I made it my life mission to fight for a World Peace and I went to Hiroshima to pray and ask for a strength; because of me either, as Solomon stated, "I am a mere youth, not knowing at all how to act".

I am deeply disturbed watching the news. Not only because I am living in Tokyo and my family is not close enough to go check if they are safe if something bad happens. Nor that I am afraid of my life. I am disturbed by the fact that we still did not grow up. Did not learn from past mistakes. We all want our country's economies to grow but how about ethical and moral growth? Do we really need another place like Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

-Do you know how it is to die? - die in fear, panic, and pain that crumples your body till you lose your mind?

My generation, generation of people born in 90's - we do not 'know' the war. We just see it in the news, we are taught about the war on the history lessons.

But we do not need to experience the war just to see there is only death, pain and darkness. We do not need to mourn. We do not want to hate nor be envious nor to be cruel. Nor cry and lose the ones we love.

I had traveled alone to Hiroshima because I wanted to focus in silence to truly feel and understand what had happened in 1945. What had happened, not only in Japan but in the world that day.

That day the world changed for ever.

Today is 12th April 2013. The weather in Tokyo is nice and sunny but still- the wind is a bit cold.

The sky is clear.

"The sky was clear..." - that is how a survivor of Hiroshima described the morning of 6th August 1945. He was outside of his house- playing, the day was about to start normally.

What stayed in my mind the most from Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum are the pictures made by children, reflecting their memories from that day. The pictures of the streets of Hiroshima full of red bodies without skin.

Those who did not die immediately after the atomic bomb was dropped, were injured with multipart skin burns. Many of them jumped into the river (the one you see in the photo above) to cool down their burning bodies and had drowned.

The nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not only a bombing on Japan. It was an attack on every human being on this planet. We saw with our own eyes and have realized that -we- are able to make the human race extinct.

We can not let the hatred take a control of us. Because hatred not only hurts others but is destructive to ourselves.

-The one who carries the knife can kill but can be also killed by his own weapon.

Hiroshima is a peaceful place now. There are red roses growing just by the Atomic Bomb Dome. It became a place to represent and call for the World Peace.

-But if you look closely, there are still the shadows. Unnamed, watching. And their voices are saying: 

STOP THE WAR: REMEMBER HIROSHIMA

ATO