Join us for a moving program commemorating the Hiroshima bombing. This event pays tribute to those affected by nuclear war while sharing an urgent message of peace.

Clinton Fairbanks, co-author, and Kaoru Fairbanks, translator of Ninety Seconds Past Midnight: An Atomic Survivor’s Story, will lead this peace-focused program honoring Masakazu Saito, a 101-year-old Hiroshima survivor.

At the age of twenty, Masakazu Saito was serving as a squad leader in the Imperial Army’s Communications Division when the atomic bomb was dropped. His barracks were just 1,800 meters from the epicenter, making him one of the closest survivors of the blast. Gravely injured but resilient, he went on to dedicate his life to advocating for peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons. His witness account is preserved in Ninety Seconds Past Midnight: An Atomic Survivor’s Story, and his extraordinary journey is also captured through a series of watercolor paintings, which will be displayed on the library’s art wall in February. In 2024, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, the Japanese organization representing Hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors), in recognition of voices like his. 

This program also reflects on the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, observed on August 6, 2025.