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Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony is an annual Japanese vigil.
Every August 6, "A-Bomb Day", the city of Hiroshima holds the Peace Memorial Ceremony to console the victims of the atomic bombs and to pray for the realization of lasting world peace. The ceremony is held in front of the Memorial Cenotaph in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Participants include the families of the deceased and people from all over the world. The first ceremony was held in 1947 by the then Hiroshima Mayor Shinzo Hamai.
Due to the dissemination of the memorial culture surrounding Hiroshima worldwide, memorial ceremonies were and are being held also in other parts of the world. One such instance was on Aug. 6, 1986, as a delegation from Hiroshima of 18 individuals arrived at the Israeli Holocaust memorial of Yad Vashem and held a brief ceremony at the Yizkor Hall.[4]
In 2010, John V. Roos became the first United States ambassador to Japan to attend the ceremony, paving the way for a historic visit to Hiroshima by then President Barack Obama six years later.[5]
When an atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, Masaru Kawasaki was less than a mile away. Kawasaki, then 21, happened to be indoors when the bomb detonated 2,000 feet above the ground at 8:15 a.m. His house collapsed on top of him, but a stranger pulled him out in time to watch much of the city catch fire as blood streamed from a wound on his neck. Now 82, Kawasaki lived to tell his story with words and music. He became a wellknown composer whose "Prayer Music" series honors the 140,000 to 200,000 people who died as a result of the blast. Sunday afternoon, Kawasaki premiered his latest piece, "Prayer Music No. 5," at Colorado College's Packard Hall.
