[hammyhavoc]

Would you mind talking about it a little? What you saw, how you felt, how you feel now—anything.

Like with the Holocaust memorial and the Berlin Wall, these are things that have deeply affected me to see in person and comprehend what they represent, but I came away from a better person for it in the long-term—even if it broke me mentally at the time to be there and face it.

Nuclear weapons really disturb me on a whole other level I've yet to really comprehend, especially the idea that countries continue to build them. I worry about my own mental well-being with that, but feel that it's important to understand these things better and get beyond words on a printed page or digitised celluloid. Yes, these things are scary, we should be scared of them, they do scare me, just like the still-raw history of Berlin scared me. I think we run from the idea of feeling fear too often and choose to ignore it. People forget what these things do. People forget what people do to other people. We shouldn't be allowed to forget.

[jebarker]

I visited Hiroshima about ten years ago while on vacation with my wife. The museum presents accounts of the day and artifacts from the bombing very plainly, which by their very nature means it's horrifying. I've always had some "normal" level of fear of nuclear war. The first decade of my life was in the UK during the last decade of the cold war, so I think that planted that seed. I don't think visiting Hiroshima increased that fear about nuclear weapons though. My overwhelming memory of the day is just deep sadness that we have the capacity to do something like that to each other. I do also remember feeling some glimmer of hope coming out of the museum as there was information about the current anti-nuclear weapons movement and, apart from the Genbaku Dome, you would never know that Hiroshima was the site of a nuclear bombing based on the city today. So maybe it's possible to recover from anything.

Before that visit I felt that I could detach myself emotionally from the reality of an event like that and make justifications for the continued existence of nuclear weapons for "bigger picture" reason. Now I find it impossible to make those kind of arguments. So I think I grew up a little that day and became more empathetic to others at an individual level.

[hammyhavoc]

From one Brit to another, this is exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you. I know I need to do this now.

[spike021]

Not GP but what made me empathize the most was they didn't just have like architectural artifacts with the damage. They had written things like letters or journals. They had extremely personal accounts, some with photos, of what happened to people. The stories of extremely young children (8 years old or younger) trying to care for their parents before the parents succumbed to injuries. Kids becoming orphaned. Parents being unable to find their children. The physical results, like people's nails growing extremely oddly and totally black, skin no longer looking healthy in obscene ways.

It was honestly a bit like _being there_. Everything they have at that museum, if you have even a relatively vivid imagination, easily placed me in my mind's eye, like I was in Hiroshima for the aftermath.

Even with all this said, I'm still mostly speechless about everything I saw and read there.

I really recommend if you ever get to Japan to make some time to visit Hiroshima. Not even just for the memorial. It's actually quite a beautiful city.

[hammyhavoc]

Thanks so much for this. This is now definitely where I want to visit next.