Tuesday observance at Lithia Park will be followed by nuclear disarmament discussion Friday

By Emma Coke, Ashland.news

The annual Hiroshima & Nagasaki Vigil of Remembrance & Recommitment will be held at 8 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 6, at the entrance of Lithia Park or, if the air quality index is above 100, at Peace House. 

At 8:15 a.m., a gong will sound, followed by a minute of silence, signifying the time the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Following the silence, the memorial flame will be lit. Attendees will hear from Ashland Mayor Tonya Graham, the Rev. Fred Grewe, peace activist Herbert Rothschild and Hideko Tamura Snider, a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing. 

The vigil will conclude with the traditional water ceremony, where guests ladle water onto a rock, honoring the victims of the bombing.

“We always want people to remember, first of all, the enormous suffering that people experienced as a result of the bomb, but we also want people to come away with the idea that we’ve got to keep that from happening again,” said Elizabeth Hallet, executive director of Peace House, a local nonprofit focused on peace and justice. Peace House has helped host the vigil annually since 1985.

Hallet said the location of Lithia Park also serves as a reminder. 

“It’s a really beautiful environment,” Hallet said, “and so it can remind us about how fragile the Earth is, and if you start bombing then that beauty goes away.”

The Reagan administration saw an increase in spending on nuclear weapons, leading to the Nuclear Free movement. In 1982, Peace House was established, and the organization helped with the passing of the resolution declaring Ashland a Nuclear Free Zone that same year. The first vigil was held a few years later. 

Michael Niemann, a Peace House board member, said Ashland’s commitment to holding the vigil annually for nearly 40 years says a lot.

“The city itself, its various governments, over the past 39 years, various mayors and councils and so forth, have all endorsed this vigil,” Niemann said. “There’s always a proclamation from the mayor on this day. It’s good to live in a place that is cognizant of the dangers of nuclear war.”

He said this awareness of the dangers of nuclear weapons is important with the current modernization of the US nuclear forces and the vast amount of money going into it — the Sentinel nuclear weapons program, which includes a new intercontinental nuclear ballistic missile, is 81% over budget. 

“(The vigil) is a reminder to get re-engaged in active efforts to reduce the likelihood of nuclear war,” Niemann said. “The only way I can do that as an individual is to try to impress on my senators and representatives, that the way in which the US is currently modernizing its arsenal is not conducive to peaceful world politics, and that we need to find different ways.”

Peace House will host another event, “The Doomsday Machine: Remembering Daniel Ellsberg,” at 4 p.m. Friday, Aug. 9, at Peace House. Ellsberg, a Pentagon employee who made what became known as “the Pentagon Papers” available to the public, is also remembered for his push for nuclear disarmament. 

Email Ashland.news reporter intern Emma Coke at [email protected].

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