Commemoration of the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization of atomic bombing survivors.*

 Commemoration of the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization of atomic bombing survivors.*

Researched by Dr Abe V Rotor

The United States dropped the world's first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, destroying the city and killing 140,000 people. A second attack three days later on Nagasaki killed 70,000 more people.

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"If only that child is alive today..."  

Song presented by schoolchildren at the Nagasaki Memorial, 

August 8, 2024

1. In solemn memory of the victims of WWII Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.”

 

Atomic bomb obliterates Hiroshima, ends WWII, immediately killing 80,000 people.

                        Among the few buildings that survived after the plutonium

 bomb decimated Nagasaki is the Christian church.

"Peace is the world's heritage." 

- Nagasaki survivor (79th anniversary message, August 8, 2024 

at the bomb's memorial site)

2. Memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki A-Bombing

Enshrined in an Old Industry  

I was a very young child barely 5, in a small town in the Philippines, youngest in a family of three, when this apocalyptic incident took place. I was sort of helping my widowed father in our small basi wine cellar.  

Impressions, innocent they may be in early age, seek their true expressions in later age and may remain indelible. As these become integrated with those of others and the whole of humanity for that matter, they become public images which we know today 80 years after.  

When I retired from government service and from the academe, and returned to my ancestral home, a scenario of my childhood about the Second World War, flashed in my mind like a nightmare. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki A-Bombing!  

On my part, reviving a dying art and industry, is my humble way of expressing compassion and sympathy, and in a way, contribute to giving hope to the younger generations, and to world peace. 

Basi wine brewed in commemoration of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings' 75th anniversary in 2017. One jar (250 liters) is still undergoing aging to this day. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the apocalyptic incidents that ended World War II in 1945.  Living with Nature wine cellar, San Vicente, Ilocos Sur.)

 

Basi wine undergoing aging in glazed jars (burnay) in an 18th century wine cellar - a tourists' attraction. Living with Nature Center, San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

 

Basi and fruit wine for balikbayan, (returning and visiting residents) 

and tourists

"Never again..."

António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations,

79th Nagasaki commemoration message

"Japan to lead a world without nuclear weapon..."

- PM Fumio Kishida's message Nagasaki Memorial Aug 8, 2024 ~

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ANNEX 1
Nihon Hidankyo Facts
Ill. Niklas Elmehed © Nobel Prize Outreach

Nihon Hidankyo
The Nobel Peace Prize 2024
Founded: 1956
Residence at the time of the award: Tokyo, Japan

Prize motivation: “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again” (Prize share: 1/1)
For demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.

Aftermath of A-bombing of Hiroshima
The two American atomic bombs that were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 killed approximately 120 000 people. A comparable number died later of burn and radiation injuries. It is estimated that 650 000 people survived the attacks. These survivors are known as Hibakusha in Japanese.

The fate of the survivors was long concealed and ignored. In 1956, local Hibakusha associations along with victims of nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific formed The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations, shortened in Japanese to Nihon Hidankyo. This grassroots movement soon became the largest and most widely representative Hibakusha organisation in Japan.

Nihon Hidankyo has two main objectives. The first is to promote the social and economic rights of all Hibakusha, including those living outside Japan. The second is to ensure that no one ever again is subjected to the catastrophe that befell the Hibakusha.

Through personal witness statements, Nihon Hidankyo has carried out extensive educational work on the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. Hence the motto “No more Hibakusha”.~

ANNEX 2 Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-bombing Images

 

Urakami Cathedral (Roman Catholic), Nagasaki, September, 1945.

Bernard Hoffman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock; Nagasaki, September, 1945.

Bernard Hoffman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hiroshima streetcar, September, 1945.

J. R. Eyerman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Nagasaki, Japan, September 1945.

Bernard Hoffman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

 

Acknowledgement with gratitude: Channel 58 NHK, LFE Pictures, Shutterstock, photographers Bernard Hoffman and J. R. Eyerman, Google, Internet

Art Evolution: Rocks for Study, Art and Hobby

  Art Evolution

                           Rocks for Study, Art and Hobby

Specimens and Art Works on display 

at the Living with Nature Center

San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

"Geologists have a saying - rocks remember. - Neil Armstrong

Dr Abe V Rotor

 

Left: Mt Pinatubo's pyroclastic rock mounted for the museum.

The rock formed while still very hot, forming a porous texture. 

Right: Floral arrangement of stones gathered from Bacnotan, 

La Union beach.

 

Left: Petrified or fossilized wood. Carbon dating process traces

the origin, age, and habitat of the specimen. Resin, exudate of 

Pine tree undergoing metamorphism into amber

 

Left: Rock collection of a student attracted by the diversity of the specimens. 

Right: This is not a fossil, but broken glazed jar often used to store sacred 

objects and remains, like an urn in earlier times.

Brain coral in its early stage of fossilization. Operculum of a large seashell undergoing erosion by the elements.  Note the counterclockwise spiral, a unique find.

  

Left: Limestone undergoing metamorphism into marble which 

may take a very long time under favorable conditions. Right:

Shades of opal and glitter often make this petrified wood look

valuable when cut and polished, and made into fancy jewelry.

 

Left: Aggregate rocks in various compositions and structures.

Right: Unidentified layered rock, indicating geologic history.

  

A nearly perfect round stone shaped naturally by running stream 

used as cannon ball in the days of Panday Pira (c. 1488–1576) 

a Filipino blacksmith and maker of an early type of cannon. 

 

Fossilized bone fragment of a large animal in the Cretaceous era.

*The Cretaceous is defined as the period between 145.5 and 65.5 million years ago, the last 

period of the Mesozoic Era, following the Jurassic and ending with the extinction of the dinosaurs

 

Probable tusk of an elephant (?) reportedly found in Cagayan Valley,

a subject of study on animal migration and land bridges in ancient past.

 

Left: A collection of rock samples at author's home.

Right: Early stone age tools, crude and unpolished,

but they served the purpose of primitive hunting.

 

Rock undergoing weathering; coral remains with imbedded shells

undergoing fossilization

 

 

Relief paintings using rocks, clay, wood, and various decors for background.

"The purpose of modern museums is to collect, preserve, interpret, 

and display objects of artistic, cultural, or  scientific significance 

for the study and education of  the public." ~

Keeping memories of World War II alive at St. Paul University QC, in prayerful reflection on the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Atomic Bombing, August 6 and 9, 2025.

 Keeping memories of  World War II alive at St. Paul University QC  

As a child survivor of WWII, the author vividly recalls the darkest hour of history when “man’s inhumanity to man” eclipsed love, justice and hope, and warns the present, of the undeniable capability of history of repeating itself. The dangerously worsening Israel-Gaza war with the latter virtually losing its own statehood and a generation of its finest citizens has the vestiges of the worst conflicts that has plagued the human race on a global scale. Russian war on Ukraine with the US, EU and other countries getting directly involved in the conflict is creating a dreadful scenario of Armageddon in our times. Other conflicts of global and local magnitude in other parts of the world, which include the Philippines, exacerbate this horrendous imagery of doom. Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bombing's 80th anniversary this year on August 6 and 9, deepens our resolve in this Jubilee Year of Hope, that in our own way, we can and must contribute to world peace and guide the younger generations toward a bright and happy future.  

Dr Abe V Rotor

 Living with Nature School on Blog 

World War II Memorial, SPUQC 

Burning of St Paul College in Quezon City, a hanging wall mural 

by the author and his children - Marlo, Anna and Leo, 2000

Xerxes’ aide a thousand times whispered,

      “Remember the Greeks!”

To keep memory of late father King Darius. 

      Nay, but revenge is all a coward seeks.

A thousand times, we too, cried,

     “Remember the Japanese!"

In hopelessness even as many had died,

       time restored the broken peace.

Our cry died on marble floors,

      died in echoes and in the shade

Of high rise buildings and halls

      the new generation made.

You stand there frigid and mute,

      cold as steel against the flame;

Three beams of a chapel before,

      now a tripod with simple frame.

Shh… hear the cries in the dungeon,

      the comfort women, their muffled moan;

The ashes left by countless souls,

      ghastly ruins against the moon.

Remember the tortuous Death March,

      Corregidor, Auschwitz, Flanders

The ghosts in concentration camps,

      the nameless heroes on the shore.

Short is modern man’s memory

     amidst malls, cars and easy life,
TV, computer, the university. 

     All but Good Life sans strife.

                              Where does faith in Providence abide –

     lessons from childhood lie,

      Where once in the home and school? 

            Now along with evil they belie.

      A new breed has risen – puzzled,

            sitting on a fence among the throng,

      Waiting for manna of capitalism,

           and subsidy from the strong.

     The essentials of history –

           refresh memory before it’s gone.

     Look up hard at the memorial

           to trace the roots of our freedom.

     But it is easier to doze and sleep

           and think not of the past.

     But war has a story preserved,

        “Never, never the die is cast.”*

    To tell as to why we are here,

         Darwin knew not such a test:

    Why fallen victims too, survive,

         and once more live with the fittest.

    Remember the Greeks.” We rather say,

         “Remember WW II in peace;”

   Two things different in their own way,

        but look at the cold steel never at ease.~

                 ------------------

Ruins of St Paul University-QC, then a novitiate

 *Alea iacta est ("The die is cast") is a Latin phrase attributed by Suetonius (as iacta alea estt]) to Julius Caesar on January 10, 49 BC as he led his army across the River Rubicon in Northern Italy. The die is cast is said when a ​situation is ​certain to ​develop in a ​particular way because ​decisions have been taken that cannot be ​changed: From the ​moment the ​negotiations ​failed, the die was ​cast and ​war was ​inevitable.

Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) 738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday; TATAKalikasan Ateneo de Manila University and Usapang Bayan radio programs.   

The Pianist in an Empty Hall

                 The Pianist in an Empty Hall 

"Through a glass pane reverberates the music 

that slows down busy feet and calms weary hearts."

Dr Abe V Rotor

He is from a different world outside our own; 

our own is noisy but deaf, bright but blind,

his own of Schubert, Chopin, et al filling the room;

ours the throng with cell phone and its kind.  

Classic is timeless but fleeting, fading away,  

old school for archive, tradition for variety;

if we don't change and move on fast enough, sorry;

faithful Old Big Ben chimes aren't here to stay.

But he keeps on playing in an empty hall 

the music postmodern life's no longer a part;

through a glass pane still reverberates the music

that slows down busy feet, calms the weary heart. ~

Accomplished pianist Jen Belar plays in his leisure time classical music on a grand piano.  Photos were taken from the Mall lobby by the author. Vertis North QC, March 16, 2019. 

Dr and Mrs Abe and Cecille 
Rotor pose with the virtuoso 
after his superb performance 
at nearby Katherine's Cafe 
where he is head of operations.