Civil Society and Disarmament 2025

Eighty years on, the fading memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki intersect with new nuclear threats. Survivor testimonies preserved through digital archives, art, and storytelling create a living bridge to the past, emphasizing resilience and a renewed call to scrutinize nuclear legacy and disarmament. Eighty years on, remembering matters more than ever. As the world marks eight decades since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the collective memory of that destruction is fading, even as new nuclear threats emerge. The voices of the Hibakusha (Japanese atomic bomb survivors) as well as other groups affected by nuclear weapons production and testing are a vital bridge to this history. A new UNODA civil society publication by Lovely Umayam explores how survivor stories endure amidst secrecy and forgetting — passed on through direct testimony, digital archives, storytelling, and visual art — so that their message of resilience and call for disarmament reach new generations.