The City of Hiroshima has permanent atomic bombing exhibitions at United Nations facilities in New York, Geneva and Vienna. The exhibitions are organized jointly with the Nagasaki City, and include atomic bombing artifacts and photo panels. Large numbers of visitors, including state leaders, visit the exhibitions every day.
　To be able to communicate the truth of the atomic bombing more effectively through the exhibitions, it is crucial to share information on the reality of the bombing with tour guides and guided tour employees. To do so, from 2017 the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum has been inviting tour guides from the three United Nations facilities to Hiroshima, and holding the Hiroshima Training for United Nations Tour Guides, to ensure that the tour guides understand the reality of the bombing. This time was the third time that this training program has been held. Six tour guides participated in training over five days, from November 30-December 4, 2019.
　The training included listening to lectures, visiting the Peace Memorial Museum, touring monuments and building remains from the bombing, listening to atomic bombing testimonies, participating in sessions with volunteers, and touring Hiroshima City.
As a new initiative, this time an atomic bombing testimony was interpreted into English by an A-bomb Legacy Successor who is the daughter of the person who gave the testimony, and together mother and daughter communicated the reality of the atomic bombing and their desire for peace. After touring the exhibits at the museum, the curator provided an explanation to the participants on how the museum decided on the display concepts and the exhibit selection process, and there were many questions from participants based on their perspective as atomic bombing exhibit guides.
　The participants made comments such as: “Listening to the testimony, I was shocked to the extent that it changed the way I view life,” and “This was a valuable experience that I could only have in Hiroshima, and it has given me great encouragement for my own work in the future. By using what I’ve learned here in my tours, I will be able to communicate the need to abolish nuclear weapons with a greater sense of reality.”
　Based on this project, we will continue to work to strengthen our capacity to communicate the ‘Spirit of Hiroshima’ in the international community, by enhancing the exhibits on the atomic bombing at United Nations facilities, and expanding the tour commentary about the atomic bombing and the abolition of nuclear weapons. We are also examining the possibility of dispatching atomic bombing witnesses and museum staff to United Nations facilities in the future, to conduct atomic bombing testimonies and on-site training on the reality of the bombing.