Since 2007, the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation and the Hiroshima Municipal Motomachi High School Creative Expression Course have brought student volunteers and A-bomb eyewitnesses together to create the "Images of the A-bomb Holocaust", depicting the scenes that remain in the memories of the Foundation’s official hibakusha.
Since 2011 two hibakusha and five students have worked together in two groups to produce five drawings, which on this occasion have been donated to the Foundation.
On July 2, the two hibakusha—Mr. Mitsuo Kodama and Ms. Setsuko Morita—attended the completion ceremony at the Motomachi High School Gallery together with the five students from the Creative Expression Course.
"It is very difficult to create a picture of scenes that you have never seen yourself, and I struggled over how to depict it," said one student. Others commented, "There are fewer and fewer opportunities to directly hear the stories of the hibakusha, and as students born and bred in Hiroshima, I think that we have a duty to spread an awareness of peace," and "I hope that our pictures will help to communicate the tragedy of the atomic bombing to future generations."
The "Images of the A-bomb Holocaust" were presented to foster a greater understanding of the atomic experience. They will be used in talks given by the hibakusha on their experience of the bombing, and this pictorial depiction of Hiroshima at the time will pass on to future generations the true suffering caused by nuclear weapons.