Nobel Peace Prize Is Awarded to Japanese Group of Atomic Bomb Survivors: Live Updates

The payloads dropped by American B-29 bombers on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 echoed far beyond the ruined cities and catalyzed vertiginous contradictions: The bombs, code-named Little Boy and Fat Man, were followed by the end of World War II, but also by an arms race that has made nine countries into nuclear powers, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

In the wake of the atomic blasts, a once martial Japan blossomed into a culture that has dedicated itself, even in its Constitution, to peace. Japanese children flashed peace signs for photos, and Olympic ceremonies in Japan featured white doves. But many Japanese feel more comfortable averting their gaze from the more than 100,000 remaining Hibakusha, as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors are known.

Struggling with both survivor’s guilt and radiation-induced illnesses, the Hibakusha knew they represented something that many in Japan — and the victorious United States — didn’t want to see.

Some Japanese feared that radiation-induced diseases were contagious, and Hibakusha worried about their marriage and career prospects.

“Starting with the inhumane acts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we were oppressed by the United States and abandoned by the Japanese government for a long time,” Sueichi Kido, the secretary general of Nihon Hidankyo and a survivor of the Nagasaki bomb, told NHK, the Japanese broadcaster, on Friday.

These days, the Hibakusha, whose largest collective is Nihon Hidankyo, are celebrated for their continued campaign against nuclear weapons despite the obstacles. Many have dedicated their lives to recounting their stories of loss and pain in an effort to ensure that the world comprehends the profound devastation a nuclear war could bring.

It is that crusade for which Nihon Hidankyo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

The miseries of the Hibakusha, said Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, “help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons.”

When Hidankyo formed in 1956, its founding declaration described the hardship of existing as living memorials to nuclear devastation. “We have survived until now in silence, with our heads down,” the statement said.

In the years after the war, the Hibakusha, whose name means “people affected by bombs,” were a tangible reminder that the United States, which occupied Japan after World War II and imposed upon the nation a war-renouncing Constitution, had caused the ruination of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Hibakusha were also a counternarrative to a Japan that was developing into a high-tech economic giant fueled, in some cases, by nuclear power. The 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which led to a meltdown at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima, once again forced a national moment of reflection. Most of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors remain shuttered.

In awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo, the Nobel committee said that even though the Hibakusha are growing old, a new generation of Japanese is “helping to maintain the nuclear taboo — a precondition of a peaceful future for humanity.”

But Japan’s near neighbors are Russia and China. And, as the Nobel committee pointed out, nuclear arsenals are growing and nuclear threats are proliferating worldwide.

From Laos, where he was attending a regional summit, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba of Japan said that it was “extremely significant” that Nihon Hidankyo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Mr. Ishiba, who was previously defense minister, has called for Japan to adopt a more muscular military stance. He supports revising Japan’s Constitution to add a specific mention of Japan’s military, which is called the Self-Defense Forces. While the United States is treaty-bound to defend Japan if it comes under attack, Mr. Ishiba has said that he wants Japan to be equals with the United States in terms of security.

And while the Japanese public still overwhelmingly supports nuclear disarmament, some young people have expressed support for the nuclear deterrence theory, in which countries arm themselves to deter attack, a Hidankyo member told the Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, last year.

Last year, at a summit in Hiroshima, the Group of 7 nations released a statement that did not call outright for nuclear disarmament, instead urging that nuclear weapons “for as long as they exist, should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression and prevent war and coercion.”

Toshiyuki Mimaki, the chairman of Nihon Hidankyo, said on Friday that his foremost wish was for the world to “please abolish nuclear weapons while we are alive.”