Kazuo Maruta will be in Las Vegas, at the Atomic Testing Museum, on Saturday, but perhaps he should be at the United Nations, reminding world leaders about the perils of nuclear weapons. Maruta is intimately familiar with their devastating power, having survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, which killed an estimated 73,000 and spurred Japanese surrender in World War II.
Backdropped by a simmering U.S.-North Korea nuclear feud, heightened U.S.-Iranian tensions and vehement Palestinian opposition to Israel's nuclear arsenal, Maruta's speech on Saturday will highlight opening ceremonies of a 22-day exhibit featuring artifacts, poems and videos commemorating the 61st anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings (August 6 and 9) and their tragic aftermaths (110,000 killed). Maruta is scheduled to speak at 2 p.m. and again on Sunday and Wednesday. Stories and poems from survivors will be read from 2-3 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday. The free exhibit runs through August 27.
Landing the museum's first international exhibit had little to do with Southern Nevada's extensive atomic history. Museum director Bill Johnson says the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for Atomic Bomb Victims, which is donating the exhibit items, selected Las Vegas because James Yamazaki gave an address there in 2005. A respected professor of pediatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles, Yamazaki has studied the atomic bomb's effects on Japanese children.
"Shortly after that, I got an e-mail from the Nagasaki peace hall about bringing the exhibit here," says Johnson, who considers the selection a coup for the 18-month-old museum.
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