METROWEST DAILY NEWS
Peace Abbey to mark bombing of Japan
By Cathy Flynn / Daily News Staff
Monday, June 27, 2005

HOPKINTON -- Dalia Auerhahn has been demonstrating for peace since she was a little girl, when she would participate in Mother's Day marches with her mother, Hopkinton veterinarian Margo Roman.

"My mom always wanted us to be knowledgeable about what goes on in the world, and how what we do affects others," she said. "She taught us that our opinion matters and we can change things."

Next month, both mother and daughter will be part of a small group from Sherborn's Peace Abbey who will fly to Nagasaki for a 280-mile walk to mark the 60th anniversary of the U.S. bombings of that city and Hiroshima.

"We hope that we can make people stop and think about the true cost of war," said Roman. "Maybe then we wouldn't go into these situations like the war that we are in now."

With the Peace Abbey group will be members of Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group for families of New England residents killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"Our message is that war is not the answer," said Auerhahn. "There have been so many lives lost, and we don't need to lose any more."

The pilgrimage is part of Stone Walk, a regular Peace Abbey event to raise the awareness of the civilian war casualties. The Abbey has two stone replicas of the grave markers found in Arlington National Cemetery. They are inscribed with "Unknown Civilians Killed in War."

One of these Memorial Stones remains at the abbey; the other travels on a caisson with the participants in the Stone Walk events. Past walks have taken place in England, Ireland and along two U.S. routes: from Boston to New York City, and from Sherborn to Arlington, Va.

Next month's Stone Walk will take the Peace Abbey delegation along the roads through the five prefectures from Nagasaki to Hiroshima, Japan, from July 2 through Aug. 4. On Aug. 6, 1945, Hiroshima was the target of the first atomic bomb used against a civilian population. Three days later, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb over the city of Nagasaki. About 250,000 people were killed by the two bombs.

Dot Walsh, program coordinator at the Peace Abbey, visited Japan in January with Andrea LeBlanc, a New Hampshire woman who heads the 9/11 families group. There they said they saw the lasting, devastating affects of the bombs on the Hibakusha, the name given to bombing survivors.

"We met a man who, 60 years after the bombing, still has an unhealed lesion on his back," said Walsh. Others, she added, battled radiation illness and leukemia.

"War is a horrible thing," she said. "It's true that the Japanese committed atrocities, but it was the soldiers who did it, because of the war. But the bombing victims were women, children, the elderly, people who were in hospitals and incapacitated."

The Hibakusha had a natural affinity for the 9/11 families group. "Their experiences were very similar," said Walsh. "They were just going to work and they were attacked."

"Andrea and I returned from this trip feeling that we had to do the walk," said Walsh. "The Hibakusha's stories were so compelling."

The Stone Walk is already receiving a warm reception from Japanese officials, who share the Peace Abbey's goal of eliminating nuclear weapons.

"Let me commend all the persons involved with the project," wrote Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba to the Peace Abbey. "I ask all of you to continue to hold the memories of Hiroshima in your heart, and to join us in working with all your might to make 2005 a year of hope, one in which sprouts for the abolition of nuclear weapons burst forth."

Along with Walsh, LeBlanc, Roman and Auerhahn, others going to Japan include Bruce Margolis, who is from Brookline, and Bruce Nichols from Connecticut. Walsh said the abbey is attempting to raise money to send a larger delegation, but many can't afford the airfare.

For Roman and Auerhahn, the trek will strengthen their shared commitment to peace, a commitment forged through participating in parts of three other Stone Walk events.

"It makes me proud that this is starting to mean something to Dalia," Roman said. "In the beginning, she didn't understand why we were marching. But now she knows what it is all about."

For more information about Stone Walk, contact the Peace Abbey at 508-650-3659.