Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Sixty-Five Years Later (Essay‪)‬

MOST PEOPLE who have been to contemporary Hiroshima have seen the Atomic Bomb Dome, the shell of a building that was some sixty meters from the hypocenter of the 1945 atomic blast, and which now serves as a modern symbol of that bitter truth commonly referred to as man's inhumanity to man. This structure was so named because its most outstanding feature is the skeleton of the original building's dome, spokes of structural steel that form the shape but lack the covering that was literally atomized that day, sixty-five years ago this August 6. The outside walls of concrete and brick remain partially intact, irregular, broken, and humbled--as the ruins of some medieval castle--while the windows, which were of course pulverized, and the interior floors and ceilings now lie on the ground inside in rubbled chunks. The destruction is not medieval; rather, it is profoundly modern. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]