Time is cruel. The city that burned down from the U.S. atomic bombing has recovered superbly. However, old age has pitilessly settled upon the survivors, and the nuclear situation around the world grows increasingly grim, as if that day is forgotten. Time presses relentlessly against us, as if to say: resist oblivion-hasten to inherit that experience. Tomorrow is the 59th anniversary of the atomic bombing. August 6th visits us again.

This summer, the remains of 85 A-bomb victims were discovered on Ninoshima Island, which lies in Hiroshima Harbor (Minami-ku, Hiroshima). The discovery of these remains more than half a century later reminds us that the deaths were so vast that we cannot know with any accuracy how many perished in the atomic bombing. At the same time, the brownish bones accuse us, "Have you forgotten about us?"

Roughly 274,000 hibakusha (as of the end of March) live in Japan. Sadly, this is roughly 60,000 fewer than ten years ago. Memories of that day are tragically fading in the atom-bombed city. The average age of survivors is higher than 72.

Nonetheless, some continue to tell their stories from their sickbeds. In place of hibakusha, their brothers and sisters, children or grandchildren have begun talking about the relatives they lost. Efforts to convey the stories to future generations by digitalizing A-bomb artifacts are picking up momentum.

Young people and second-generation hibakusha are moving to engrave that day in their hearts. They raise their voices at readings of A-bomb journals, they sit by the feet aging hibakusha to hear their stories. They turn those stories into drawings, they take the hibakusha's place and tell the story themselves. Some people have been carefully observing the Ninoshima site where the remains were found.

In the Peace Declaration that Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba will read on August 6, he will designate next year the "Year of Remembrance and Action." The mayor will exhort us to make 2005 the year in which we can clearly see the road to nuclear abolition.

The Memorial Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims in Peace Memorial Park (Naka-ku) is engraved with the pledge "..we shall not repeat the evil." Moving to build a world free of war and nuclear weapons begins from action to transcend time, nationality and generation to hold that day in common.