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Resumo

This article provides a critical analysis of the representations of collective memory of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Asia-Pacific theatre of World War II. The discussion of the 'subject debate' over the inscription of the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims, politics over the construction of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and the preservation of the A-bomb Dome transpired the memory mechanisms at work with regard to the US responsibility for the A-bomb, the Japanese aggressive war leading up to the A-bomb, Japan's colonial rule of Korea, and denationalization and universalization of the A-bomb experience in Japan as a result. The article analyzes the chronology of the 'only A-bombed nation' notion in the post-WWII Japanese 'peace' discourses and concludes that it was a process to reconstruct Japanese national victimhood as a reaction to the 'discovery' of the Korean A-bomb victims and the DPRK nuclear program. The article overall challenges the notion of 'peace' and 'pacifism' in post-WWII Japan that revolve around the experience of the atomic bombing.

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