Photo/Illutration Masako Wada speaks about her atomic bomb experiences at a meeting in Yokohama on Feb. 22. (Takashi Ogawa)

YOKOHAMA--Hibakusha Masako Wada has always felt stigmatized by the thought that her accounts of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki are borrowed from her mother since she was an infant at the time. 

Wada, assistant secretary-general of the Japan Federation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), the recipient of the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, was 1 year and 10 months old when the city was devastated on Aug. 9, 1945.

The 81-year-old has called for the abolition of nuclear weapons at international conferences, including review conferences of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and negotiations over the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

As a member of the Nihon Hidankyo delegation, she will attend the third meeting of the state parties to the TPNW, which opens at the U.N. headquarters in New York on March 3.

“No matter how many times I tell my story by putting a lot of thought into it, people would make light of the number (of speeches),” Wada told a meeting in Yokohama on Feb. 22, where Nihon Hidankyo reported about the Nobel Peace Prize.

“I know well how they feel, but I think I must tell what little I have to tell as this year marks the 80th (from the atomic bombing).”

In front of about 250 audience members, Wada, a resident of Yokohama, spoke about the wartime experiences that her mother recounted before she died in 2011.

“I can tell only what I heard from my mother,” said Wada, who remembers virtually nothing about the atomic bombing. “I have reservations telling a story without much of an impact.”

Her home was about three kilometers from ground zero, but her family members were safe.

Carrying Wada piggyback, her mother treated injured people behind the house.

Wada became an English-language teacher and lived in the United States, where her husband was transferred, for some time.

About 40 years ago, she joined an organization of atomic bomb survivors in Tokyo.

She became one of Nihon Hidankyo’s assistant secretaries-general in 2015.

Still, Wada has been haunted by the thought that her accounts are nothing compared with what older hibakusha endured.

She once jotted down what she heard from her mother. She cannot forget that her mother, after reading it, declared in her Nagasaki dialect that the reality was far worse.

But the ranks of atomic bomb survivors with vivid wartime memories continue to shrink. The average age of hibakusha has exceeded 85.

Wada has received more than 100 requests for speeches and interviews since Nihon Hidankyo was selected as the Nobel Peace Prize laureate last autumn.

Some around her age, without firsthand recollections of the atomic bombing, have learned about Wada’s experiences and offered to speak publicly about their own.

Four days before the meeting in Yokohama, the government announced that it will not participate in the third TPNW meeting as an observer.

It was a disappointment for Wada and other Nihon Hidankyo leaders, who called for Japan’s observer participation during a meeting with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in January.

Ishiba did not give a clear response, but Wada was holding some expectations.

“I would be happy if I were able to tell him to go with us and work together,” she said. “I have pent-up feelings.”

Wada will attend a TPNW state parties meeting for the first time.

Jiro Hamasumi, 79, who was exposed to radiation from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima while in his mother’s womb, will give an address at the meeting.

Wada will give speeches at a university, church and other venues.

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