A Message From Joe

 

*   *   *

 

As a citizen of the 

United States of America,

I want to express to you tonight my sorrow

and regret for the pain and suffering caused

by the cruel and unnecessary 

atomic bombings of your cities.

 

I believe it was wrong... morally wrong.

Just as wrong as the holocaust.

It was a crime not just against history, 

but against humanity.

 

I walked in the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

in 1945 and photographed the children, 

the women, the elderly, the mutilated and

 disfigured — the victims who suffered and died

 like no other people in the 

history of the world.

 

Now, fifty years later I pledge to you

that I will not forget what I saw.

 

We owe it to those who died to keep their memory alive.

Give their tragic deaths honor by remembering them.

Let them teach us how to respect life.

 

For them I will continue to speak out and tell the

world what it was like in Japan, 1945.

 

My exhibit will continue to be seen, for we must not

let any one country be the victim or attacker again.

 

No more Hiroshimas! No more Pearl Harbors!

No more Nagasakis!

 

NO MORE!

 

For peace is the future and without peace

there will be no future.

 

 

August 1995, Hiroshima

​

​

​