Jo Comerford, Executive Director of the 
Hiroshima Day Commemoration, Friday, August 6th, 2010
65th Anniversary of Hiroshima Commemoration
Friday, August 6th
2:00 p.m. Remembrance and Die-In
Peirce Park (next to Bangor Public Library on Harlow Street)
2:30 Masanobu & Tomoko Ikemya read “Grandmother’s Doll” Kamishibai (picture card story)
followed by introduction to the film
“Railroad of Love: Spanning Australia and Japan”
The story of an Australian Catholic Priest, Rev. Tony Glynn, who led reconciliation efforts between Australians and Japanese after WW II
Bangor Public Library
Bangor — When Rumi Haganaki was five years old, she saw her doll burning after the bombing of Hiroshima. At the time, Hanagaki’s memory of the horrific event was blocked in her mind until she was 58 years old, at which time she began traveling with her doll and telling her story.
A doll similar to hers, will be traveling to Bangor to be part of a Hiroshima Day commemoration on Friday, August 6th, the 65th anniversary of the US dropping the A-bomb on Hiroshinma. The doll will be on loan from the Peace Resource Center at Wilmington College in Ohio where Rumi Haganaki visited en route to the United Nations Nuclear Proliferation Treaty Conference last May.
She donated a replica of her doll for a Bridges of Friendship exhibit at the college. The doll is part of a Meriam R. Hare Quaker Heritage Center’s doll exhibit highlighting how children learn about other cultures.
The public will have an opportunity to see the doll when Masanobu Ikemya, and his wife Tomoko present a special reading of a Kamishibai (picture card story) called “Grandmother’s Doll” based on the experience of Rumi Haganaki as part of the Bangor commemoration.
Masanobu,who is the founder and emeritus director of the Arcady Music Festival, has participated in past Hiroshima commemorations and remembers family members who died in Japan in WW II. When he was in Japan recently, he played a concert on a piano that survived the Hiroshima bombing.
While he has shared his talents as a concert pianist in past commemorations, this year he and his wife will do the the reading and then he will introduce a film “Railroad of Love: Spanning Australia and Japan” which is the story of an Australian Catholic Priest, Rev. Tony Glynn, who led reconciliation efforts between Australians and Japanese after WW II. Masanobu will lead a discussion after the showing.
The reading and film showing will be held Friday, August 6th in the Bangor Public Library at 2:30 and will follow a short remembrance of those killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Peirce Park next to the library, beginning at 2:00 with readings and a “die-in” Those who wish will participate in a symbolic “die-in” by lying down to represent those who died on that day while others draw chalk shadows around them. In many cases only shadows remained of those incinerated by the bomb.
The commemoration is being organized by Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine in collaboration with Mosanabu and Tomoko Ikemya and with the co-sponsorship of the Jim Harney Chapter of Veterans for Peace and Pax Christi, Maine. For more information call 942-9343
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Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 2:45 pm under
