Posters showing dark shadows cast along the ground or wall when the heat of nuclear radiation annihilated the person or thing that had been there. Pictures of what had been and what remained after city-leveling blasts.
Posters depicting the devastation of those who grew up after exposure to intense radiation.
As part of the Peace and Remembrance Series taking place at Elizabethtown College this month, 30 posters are on display in High Library through Nov. 17 as a reminder of the sobering reality of nuclear weapons and the importance of peace.
“I want people to think that it shouldn’t happen again in the future,” said event coordinator and Elizabethtown College professor of Japanese, Nobuaki Takahashi. With anything, memories begin to fade, and people forget, leaving it open for the horrors to be repeated. “We must be kept reminded.”
Born in Japan in 1975, long after the bombs were dropped by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945, Takahashi learned about the events in school. He knew it was important, but the gravity of nuclear war didn’t sink in until he left Japan in 1998, coming to the United States to finish his schooling and teach Japanese language. He coordinated a similar poster exhibit at a college in North Carolina.
I want people to think that [something like Hiroshima] shouldn’t happen again in the future…”
“It was a military-oriented area. There was a lot of negative reaction on the campus and in the community,” Takahashi said of the posters. A fellow professor personally attacked Takahashi, bringing up military misconduct in Japan. “He totally missed the point,” said Takahashi, stressing that he tries to be respectful of all opinions.
The Peace and Remembrance Series, and specifically the poster exhibit, is not about what the United States did or didn’t do. It was wartime, he said. “Just like in Japan, there are things we didn’t get right.” It’s not a question of whether or not the bombing—the only nuclear weapons used to date—was necessary; it’s about not repeating something so horrifying.
Like anything, the memory of something that happened almost 70 years ago becomes less with each passing decade, he said. The display helps bring remind us and, by using posters, the message stays objective. “If I told the story, I would be biased,” he said. “Hearing something from a Japanese person would be interesting but would feel biased.”
The posters are numbered and displayed in a timeline progression of what happened. “I want (exhibit visitors) to realized whatever they didn’t know before,” Takahashi said. “I hope they reflect upon themselves after seeing the posters and question what took place.”
In addition to the poster exhibit, the Peace and Remembrance Series includes a film and a talk by survivor Shigeko Sasamori.