Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Who Is ‘Qualified to Pray for Peace’?

By Stuart Gaffney and John Lewis–

This week in Japan is Obon, the millennia-old festival based on the traditional belief that the spirits of the ancestors return to Earth each year to visit their relatives. It’s a time when many Japanese go home to visit family, clean the graves of lost loved ones, or simply take a restorative summer break. This year and every other since 1945, those ancestral spirits have included the victims of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 80 years ago this month.

We’ve visited the Hiroshima historic site a number of times and traveled to Nagasaki a decade ago, by chance just days before the anniversary of the bombing. We’ll never forget standing in the August midday heat and humidity in front of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, enveloped by the pulsating buzz of countless cicadas humming and chirping in nearby trees. We wondered if residents of Nagasaki experienced something similar late in the morning of August 9, 1945—when, as recounted by a survivor, at 11:02 am, suddenly “there was a roar in the distance” and then “in the next instant an incredible blast threw my body through the air.” The explosion killed thousands of people instantly, from infants to elders, and the effects of the blast, both short and long term, resulted in mass devastation and the demise of many others. As another survivor described: “The skin would peel right off when you touched it.”

From that day on, people in the United States, Japan, and around the world have discussed and debated the morality of dropping the bombs and who was responsible for the death and destruction that took place 80 years ago in both cities. The debate centers on the use of nuclear weapons but also touches more broadly on war itself.

In Nagasaki, we visited a small museum located next to the simple home of the late Japanese physician and writer, Takashi Nagai, who survived the Nagasaki bomb with serious injuries, but still devoted himself to treating others. A converted Catholic, Nagai lived the last years of his life at the house, often contemplating and writing poetically about his reflections on the bombing and its aftermath. Nagai was unequivocal: “Nuclear war … is the most disappointing, most brutal, and most complete form of destruction. Only ashes and bones remain; nothing touches the heart.” To him, “true peace is brought about by pure love, not by complicated meetings or ideologies.” With ink brush in hand, Nagai penned one thousand cards sent to friends and others around the world, stating simply: “Peace Forever.”

In searching for blame for war, many Americans and Japanese, like their counterparts in other past and present wars, may tend to find fault in the other. We were struck when we learned at the museum that Nagai, in fact, did not blame the Americans for the bombing. He asked: “Who turned the beautiful city of Nagasaki into ashes?” and “Who turned this bustling city into a huge crematorium and cemetery?” His answer looked inward: “We did.” He asserted that “we started the foolish war ourselves” and “we let the words, ‘Who takes a knife will die by a knife,’ go through one ear and out of the other” and “busily made warships and torpedoes.”

We don’t think Nagai was letting the Americans off the hook; we believe he was pointing to something deeper. His words reminded us of the writings of the French writer Marguerite Duras. Duras, a member of the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation of France, published, among many works, portions of the personal diary she kept during the war. Shortly before the end of the war in Europe, she took note of how the Nazi regime had “just systematically murdered eleven million human beings with the utter efficiency of a state industry.” She observed that a “new face of death that has been discovered in Germany—organized, rationalized—produces bewilderment before it arouses indignation. You’re amazed.”

Duras then asked rhetorically: “How can anyone still be a German?” Her answer was startling: “If you give a German and not a collective interpretation to the Nazi horror, you reduce [it] to regional dimensions. The only possible answer to this crime is to turn it into a crime committed by everyone. To share it.”

Perhaps, words similar to Duras’ could be used to describe the effect of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—a “new face of death” that “produces bewilderment before it arouses indignation.” Maybe Nagai’s perspective also mirrored that of Duras when he described Japan’s role in creating the conditions that led to the atomic bombings.

Another of Nagai’s writings on display at the museum admonishes: “The person who prays for peace must not hide even a needle, for a person who possesses weapons is not qualified to pray for peace.” Perhaps Nagai too viewed war as a human crime we must “share” as perpetrators, victims, and those in between.

The issues that Nagai and Duras articulated decades ago pertain to today’s wars and threats of the use of nuclear weapons, and indeed more broadly to human conflict on any level, even between just two people or within ourselves. We offer this piece, not to provide answers, but to spur reflection. Another Nagasaki survivor featured in the museum described in the bomb’s aftermath: “From a blackened body came a faint voice: Water, water, water … .” Do we still hear their plea today?

John Lewis and Stuart Gaffney, together for over three decades, were plaintiffs in the California case for equal marriage rights decided by the California Supreme Court in 2008. Their leadership in the grassroots organization Marriage Equality USA contributed in 2015 to making same-sex marriage legal nationwide.

6/26 and Beyond
Published on August 14, 2025