By Wendy Greenberg

Two local events, one in person and the other online, will commemorate the atomic bombings of Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. Both are estimated to have killed hundreds of thousands of people both from exposure to the blasts and from long-term effects of radiation.

One event is the 45th annual commemoration by the Coalition for Peace Action (CFPA) on Monday, August 5 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Hinds Plaza. The other, sponsored by Princeton Public Library (PPL) and the Historical Society of Princeton (HSP), is an online informational event on the legacy of Manhattan Project director J. Robert Oppenheimer, to be presented on August 7 at 7 p.m. via Zoom.

“The Coalition for Peace Action has held commemorations of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings every year since our founding in 1980,” said the Rev. Robert Moore, CFPA’s executive director, in a press statement. “The purpose is not to look back with 20-20 hindsight to question whether the atomic bombings in 1945 were justified. What’s done is done. Rather, our reason for having these commemorations is to remember the absolute horror that nuclear weapons represent and face the real and growing threat they present today. On this 79th anniversary, we recommit ourselves to working for the global abolition of nuclear weapons so such total destruction can never again be inflicted.”

Moore added that it is important to hold these gatherings to remind younger generations of that existential threat. “These commemorations are important,” he said in a call on Monday. “In the past, the survivors would send delegations to be guest speakers because they felt passionate to help people remember. But, now many are deceased or too old to travel, and their children are picking up the mantle.”

At the CFPA event, peace activist Shiho Burke, whose family’s firsthand experience of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima — including her mother’s survival — informs and inspires her work, will be keynote speaker at the event on Hinds Plaza, adjacent to the Princeton Public Library at 65 Witherspoon Street. A moment of silence will take place at 7:15 p.m., which corresponds to 8:15 a.m. Hiroshima time, August 6, the moment when the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima.

At the same event, CFPA member Jeff Laurenti will give a historical retrospective from the 1945 bombings, through the nuclear arms race, to the major nuclear arms reductions of the 1980s, and a 21st century perspective on the challenges society faces with a new nuclear arms race and the looming expiration of the New START Treaty, the only remaining nuclear arms restraint among the countries that hold nuclear weapons.

The START Treaty (a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the U.S. and Russian Federation signed in 2010), said Moore, is in force only until 2026. “We need people to get the nuclear reduction process restarted, because the involvement of average citizens is essential to preventing a new nuclear arms race, and move toward global abolition of nuclear weapons,” he said, and added that often people who attend events like the commemoration become active or “reactivated.”

The program will also include music from The Solidarity Singers of the New Jersey State Industrial Union Council, as well as folding origami cranes — the Japanese symbol for globally banning nuclear weapons — with instructions for children. Candle lighting with closing musical selections will conclude the program.

Preceding the event, at 6 p.m., attendees can join a “bring your own” picnic on Hinds Plaza (no alcohol), where tables and chairs are already set up. In the event of inclement weather, the entire event will be moved indoors to Nassau Presbyterian Church, 61 Nassau Street. That decision will be made the morning of August 5, based on the weather forecast, and communicated on CFPA’s website at peacecoalitioin.org and on social media. Those who want to attend are encouraged to email Jennifer New at jnew@peacecoalition.org with name(s) and number planning to attend, to help with logistics. Those unable to attend will be able to watch a recording which will be posted on CFPA’s “Recent Events” page after the event.

The second program, cosponsored by the historical society and library, will offer information not covered in the Academy Award-winning movie Oppenheimer (filmed partly in Princeton), such as stories about the local academics recruited to work on the Manhattan Project, and provides additional historic context. The “Oppenheimer and Princeton” virtual talk is in commemoration of the bombings.

Presenters will be HSP Director of Programs and Outreach Eve Mandel and Heather Jahrling, a visitor services associate at HSP and a third-year Ph.D. student at Princeton University who specializes in 20th-century American urban, technological, and carceral history.

Oppenheimer is often called the “father of the atomic bomb” for his role in overseeing the development of the first nuclear weapons at Los Alamos, N.M. “We highlight all the local places connected to Oppenheimer, and talk about the filming of the movie and how it affected the community,” said Mandel. “The talk also features Princeton scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project — not all of them featured in the movie, especially women. We then decided to explore other areas that the movie left out, like the effect of the Los Alamos laboratory and Trinity test on the Hispanic and Indigenous people who lived and ranched in the area.”

The program she said, has been presented at a few libraries and residential communities in Mercer and Union counties and has gotten a “great response.”

Registration is through the PPL at princetonlibrary.libnet.info/event/11284784.