Britain marks 80th A-bomb anniv. with church service, film screening

The Mainichi

2 days ago

LONDON (Kyodo) -- Commemoration events were held in British cities on Wednesday to mark the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, ranging from quiet memorials to film screenings.
At Coventry Cathedral in central England, roughly 300 people mourned those killed in the Japanese city on Aug. 6, 1945, and in Nagasaki just three days later.
The participants also made origami paper cranes, a symbolic gesture organizers say was meant to "pray the world may be rid of the threat of nuclear war for all time."
The major urban cathedral has hosted a memorial service almost every year since 1987 to commemorate the people killed by the atomic bombs in the final stages of World War II, including an estimated 140,000 people who died by the end of the year after being exposed to the Hiroshima bombing.
The cathedral burned down following a Nazi air raid and its ruins were partially preserved to serve as a reminder of the war.
High school teacher Lisa Hagan, 38, attended the event alongside her students. She said she thought it was important not to forget that all life deserves respect.
Letters exchanged between the mayors of Hiroshima and Coventry prior to the service were read aloud during the event. They each expressed their urgent hope for peace and noted the concerning state of global affairs, reaffirming that calling for peace was more important now than ever.
In central London, a short film about the Hiroshima bombing, entitled "I Saw The World End," was shown at a public space at Piccadilly.
Set to music and minimalist visuals, and displayed onto Europe's largest LED screen, the 10-minute-long work showed the text of survivors' testimonies, alongside quotes from people involved in the Hiroshima bomb's production.
The video ends with footage of the bomb's explosion, that gently fades to give way to a clip of a blue sky.
London resident Paddy Kelly, 50, said after the screening that the piece was "very moving, very powerful." He added that the film being set in a crowded public space with people coming and going was a "very stark contrast to remember about what happened 80 years ago."
The work was originally created in 2020 by Es Devlin and Machiko Weston, two Britain-based artists, after being commissioned by the country's Imperial War Museum.
Speaking in a brief interview after the screening, Devlin said she wanted this work to be for the survivors and that she sought to delve into the root causes of conflict.
"If we can't recognize that we are all continuous and there is no other, then this will continue to repeat itself -- as it is doing as we speak.
"There are more nuclear weapons now than there were five years ago, nothing's improved yet, but as artists, all we can do is keep offering rehearsals of other ways to be."