Hiroshima survivor, author and activist Keiko Ogura will deliver the keynote address for a four-day educational event at the University of Idaho organized by the school's Idaho Asia Institute and the Japan Foundation.
Remembering Hiroshima, set for Monday through next Thursday, Sept. 12-15, on the Moscow campus, features a variety of speakers and free events.
Ogura’s speech, “An A-bomb Survivor’s Testimony – The Voice of the Hibakusha for Peace,” is set for 4 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 14, in the Bruce M. Pitman Center’s International Ballroom.
She also will speak at 5 p.m. next Thursday, Sept. 15, at Moscow High School’s auditorium. “My Journey on the Road to Peace — A Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Survivor’s Story” is geared toward fifth to eighth grade students and their families.
Ogura, a hibakusha, or atomic bomb survivor, was 8 years old on August 6, 1945, when the U.S. dropped the “Little Boy” atomic bomb on Hiroshima, according her bio on the Atomic Heritage Foundation website.
She graduated from Hiroshima Jogakuin University in 1959 and later married Kaoru Ogura, director of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. After his death in 1979, she took up the mission to educate people about the bombings and keep survivors’ stories alive, establishing Hiroshima Interpreters for Peace and publishing several books, including the “Hiroshima Handbook” and “One Day in Hiroshima,” according to the foundation website.
She was the official interpreter for other hibakusha during a 2003 exhibition of the Enola Gay, the bomber used to drop the bomb.
Other Remembering Hiroshima events:
- An Air Force ROTC session on Hiroshima and the consequences of nuclear use is at 2 p.m. Monday (Sept. 12) in the Idaho Student Union Building, Aurora Room.
- “The Aesthetics of Post-Atrocity Building Projects,” with Syracuse University architecture professor Yutaka Sho, is at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday (Sept. 13) in the ISUB Clearwater Room.
- “Godzilla and Japan’s Nuclear Imaginary, From Hiroshima to Fukushima,” with Ottawa University President William Tsutsui, is at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday in the ISUB Clearwater Room.
- A free viewing of “Godzilla” (1954), is at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre, 508 S. Main St., with introductory remarks by Tsutsui.
- “Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Environmental Age,” with Georgetown University history professor Toshihiro Higuchi, is at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday (Sept. 14) in the Bruce M. Pitman Center’s Borah Theater.
Related activities on the campus:
- Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum Exhibit through Sept. 16 at the Reflections Gallery in the ISUB.
- Japanese literature, manga and film display through Sept 16 at the UI Library.
- Origami crane making, noon to 1 p.m. through Sept. 16, at the ISUB entrance.
