In late May, St. John the Evangelist in Ottawa hosted a powerful and moving exhibit of posters detailing the shocking destruction and harm caused in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs there in August 1945. It was also exhibited at Ottawa City Hall from Aug. 6 to 11.
Timed to coincide with the 80th anniversary of that horrific history, the subject’s relevance was underlined as the U.S. and Russia, which both possess nuclear arsenals, engaged in armed conflict. The exhibit was organized by Ban the Bomb Ottawa (BtBO) and the United Nations in Canada’s National Capital Region Branch [UNA-Canada (NCR Branch)]. BtBO is a group of individuals from faith-based, nongovernmental and local community organizations and groups working for peace and nuclear disarmament. Debbie Grisdale, a parishioner at Church of the Ascension in Ottawa, is a member and played a key role in organizing the exhibit.
Grisdale explained that the posters were donated by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, thanks to the intervention of Setsuko Thurlow, who survived the bombing of Hiroshima as a 13-year-old schoolgirl and later immigrated to Canada where she has worked tirelessly for the abolition of nuclear weapons with several organizations including Voices of Women, the Canadian Council of Churches and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
She thanked the Rev. Canon Gary van der Meer, incumbent at St. John’s for opening the church doors to the exhibit.
Van der Meer said that when she first asked about using the church as a space for the exhibit, he thought, “This aligns with what I hope will happen at St. John’s, which is we will take very seriously that we pray for peace because we are surrounded by non-peace in our news, in our streets…. So I like very much that we have these posters in here, and that they remind us not just of the sacrifice and the loss, but of the calling for peace.”
St. Stephen’s, Ottawa — Deanery of Central Ottawa