WFC News

Join Us! WFC Holiday Party 2023

2023-12-01 | Comments Off on Join Us! WFC Holiday Party 2023

Holiday Party 2023WFC will hold its annual Holiday Party!

We hope to see you all at the end of the year for a fun time of socializing and fellowship.

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Date: Sunday, December 10, 2023, 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Venue: Ryugakusei Kaikan 2nd Floor Hall (Hiroshima City International House)
Fee: Free
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Please see the flyer for details.
English flyer >>
Japanese flyer >>

Everyone is welcome, including family, friends, first-timers, and anyone who want to stop by!
We look forward to seeing everyone there!

WFC Friendship Hour ~Leslie Sussan & “Hiroshima, My Father, and Me”

2023-11-28 | Comments Off on WFC Friendship Hour ~Leslie Sussan & “Hiroshima, My Father, and Me”
Leslie SussanOn October 29, 2023, we welcomed Leslie Sussan, author of “Choosing Life: My Father’s Journey in Film from Hollywood to Hiroshima”. Thank you to all who attended the talk.
 
Choosing Life shares the experience of Sussan’s father, a cinematographer for the US government in 1946. His footage of Hiroshima and Nagasaki documented not just the effect it had on the cities, but also on the people, hibakusha (A-bomb survivors).
 
He spent over forty years working to release the footage that the US government classified as “secret” to the public.
 
We were grateful to learn from Leslie Sussan about her father’s effect on her life, Leslie’s relationship to Hiroshima, and her message about “the duty between generations to receive our parent’s stories, wisdom, and values to preserve them and to pass on to our own children that heritage.”
 
It made us realize the importance to recognize our interdependence and our effect upon the world.
We were surprised and pleased by the attendance of Nagai-Sensei, an organizer of the 10 Feet Campaign in Hiroshima, a civil movement which bought back the footage of A-bombed cities, that Leslie’s father has recorded, from the US government to share with the public at large. He shared his memories of work with the 10 Feet Campaign.
 
The evening ended with a chance for questions and answers from the audience. Thank you, Leslie for having such a heart for Hiroshima and we thank everyone for their attendance and engagement!
 

Lecture by Ms. Susan Southard

2023-11-25 | Comments Off on Lecture by Ms. Susan Southard
Susan SouthardOn October 18, 2023, we welcomed Ms. Susan Southard, author of “Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War,” to Essor Hiroshima for a lecture. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the many people who attended the lecture, despite it being held in the evening.
 
The book is a record of Susan’s long and sincere interviews with five Hibakusha (A-bomb survivors) about their experiences of the atomic bombing and their lives themselves. It is also a record of the lives of Hibakusha who worked so hard not to let anyone else experience the same suffering that they have.
Susan talked about her own life and along with thoughts of the many Hibakusha she has met and their photos, she shared not only of their experience of the atomic bombing, but also about who they each were.
 
Ms. Hisako Uchimura and Ms. Aiko Ohtani, who does readings at the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, came from Nagasaki and read excerpts from the book.
 
During Q&A, we were touched by the way Susan and Ms. Yasue Ujigawa, who translated the book into Japanese, carefully addressed and answered each person’s questions.
 
It was a time to share the importance of learning about Nagasaki in order to foster peace for the children’s future, to remember and pass on the experiences of the hibakusha, and to work together toward nuclear abolition.
 
We would like to thank everyone who attended, Susan and all the other speakers, and WFC’s fellow organizers: A Group of Legacy Successors and the Hiroshima YWCA. Thank you very much.

International Festa 2023 (11/19)

2023-11-09 | Comments Off on International Festa 2023 (11/19)

WFC will participate again this year in the “International Festa 2023” to be held in and around the International Conference Center. This year, we will have an introduction booth and a food stall!

Date: Sunday, November 19, 10:00 – 16:00
Place: International Conference Hall (B2F “Himawari” & Greenbelt outside of the Conference Center)

No registration require

English flyer >>

We look forward to seeing you!

WFC Friendship Hour 10/29 (Leslie Sussan)

2023-10-12 | Comments Off on WFC Friendship Hour 10/29 (Leslie Sussan)
2023.10.29_Sussan Friendship Hour Flyer
WFC Friendship Hour

Leslie Sussan & “Hiroshima, My Father, and Me”

 
 
Date & Time: October 29, 2023 (SUN) @ 2:30 – 4:30pm（Doors Open at 2pm）
Venue: Essor Hiroshima Room 1･2
(10th floor Orizuru Tower, 2-1 Ote-machi 1-chome, Naka-ku)
Fee: FREE
*English & Japanese
 
 
 
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In 1946, with the war over and Japan occupied, 2nd Lt. Herbert Sussan received a plum assignment. He would get to use his training as a cinematographer and join a Strategic Bombing Survey crew to record the results of the atomic bombings in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. From his first arrival in Nagasaki, he knew that something novel and appalling had happened and that he had to preserve a record of the results, especially the ongoing suffering of those affected by the bomb (known as hibakusha) even months later. When the U.S. government decided that the gruesome footage would not be “of interest” to the American public and therefore classified it top secret, he spent decades arguing for its release.

His last wish was that his ashes be scattered at ground zero in Hiroshima. The author, his daughter, followed his footsteps in 1987, meeting survivors he had filmed more than 40 years before. And on that journey she found a father she had never really known in life.

This book recounts Herbert Sussan’s experiences (drawn directly from an oral history he left behind), his daughter’s quest to understand what he saw in Japan, and the
stories of survivors whose lives touched both father and daughter.

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Leslie A. Sussan was born and raised in Manhattan, and now lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with her daughter Kendra and their cat, Neko-chan. Over a long career as an attorney, she litigated for the U.S. Department of Justice, represented migrant farmworkers and abused children, and has now retired after fifteen years as an administrative appellate judge. She attends Bethesda Friends Meeting. She and Kendra lived in Hiroshima for a year in 1987-88.