Peace Declaration (1949)

On this day, four years ago, our city was reduced to ashes in a fraction of a second, and hundreds of thousands of our citizens died. Such a tragedy makes clear the awful danger of mankind's total destruction. A peaceful world can only be built by concentrating all our efforts and striving on the goal of peace.

Learning from this disaster, it is our duty to the world to dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of peace, for that is the only way in which we can repay the victims of the A-bomb for the sacrifice of their lives.

We rejoice to have the support of the people of the world in this, and to see the growth of a movement to designate August 6th as "World Peace Day" and to mark Hiroshima as a "World Peace Center." We are delighted to see a movement to establish a world organization dedicated to the permanent abolition of war.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial City Construction Law has been passed by the Japanese Diet and comes into force today. Today is the fourth occasion on which we, the citizens of Hiroshima, have remembered our dead. We earnestly pray that such a tragedy will never occur on the earth again. We sincerely pledge ourselves to the creation of world peace and the culture of mankind to strive for a bright new age and the peaceful use of atomic power.

From this day on let us abhor war and its terror and guilt, and strive for true peace. Let us forever reject war and educate mankind in the ideals of peace.

On this day, the fourth anniversary of the bombing, we pledge ourselves to world peace.

August 6, 1949

Shinzo Hamai
Mayor
The City of Hiroshima