In a city known for its dazzling lights and non-stop entertainment, Las Vegas’s Atomic Museum is about to offer something truly extraordinary.
Later this year, while the Strip buzzes with its usual energy, Vegas residents and visitors will have a unique opportunity to connect with a pivotal moment in world history. The museum will host a virtual event featuring Teruko Yahata, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing.
Yahata will share her firsthand account of that fateful day in 1945.
(Photo Courtesy the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum)
For Las Vegans, this event carries special significance. Our city’s proximity to the Nevada Test Site has long intertwined our local history with the atomic age. Now, as we continue to grapple with this legacy, Yahata’s testimony offers a powerful perspective from the other side of the Pacific—a reminder of the global impact of decisions made and technologies developed in our own backyard.
This collaboration between the Atomic Museum and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum isn’t just another Vegas spectacle. It’s a chance for our community to engage directly with living history, to ask questions, and to reflect on the profound connections between our city’s past and the wider world.
As nuclear history enthusiasts and casual visitors alike flock to the Atomic Museum, this event promises to be a highlight of the cultural calendar, offering insights that resonate far beyond the neon-lit streets of Las Vegas.
In an exclusive interview, we speak with Matt Malinowski, Director of Education at the Atomic Museum, about the importance of this event for our community. Malinowski shares how Yahata’s story connects to Las Vegas’s own atomic legacy, and why understanding this history is crucial for Nevada residents today.
Vegas411: What inspired the Atomic Museum to collaborate with the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum for this event?
Matt Malinowski: The Atomic Museum’s continued partnership with the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum is inspired by the necessity to serve our audiences with unique voices and historical perspectives that expand the narrative of our exhibits and engagements. This international relationship acts as a gateway to bring powerful, firsthand testimonies from Hiroshima survivors to the communities of the Atomic Museum. It is an honor to work with the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum to ensure the inclusion of Japanese viewpoints that inspire critical thought and dialogue about history and its continued effects on modern times.
Can you share more about Teruko Yahata’s story and her significance in conveying the impact of the Hiroshima bombing?
I will hear Yahata-San’s story for the first time live with our audience. I’ve been told that she was 8 years old and on her way to visit a neighbor when the atomic bomb detonated just a few miles away. This was in August of 1945 and the rest of the story will be hers to tell. Yahata-San, other survivors, and their family members volunteer with the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum to provide these oral histories. Testimonies like these not only provide accurate accounts of historical events, but act as windows to powerful personal stories about the human experience.
What do you hope attendees will take away from hearing Teruko Yahata’s testimony?
As time passes, so does the opportunity to hear firsthand from those that have experienced historical events. Humans learn from stories – even those that may be traumatic or from viewpoints that are unfamiliar. I hope attendees take with them the power of storytelling, a greater reverence for each other, and the notion that history must not be forgotten.
How can events like this contribute to the broader mission of the Atomic Museum and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in promoting nuclear awareness and peace?
Part of the Atomic Museum’s mission is to raise awareness of atomic history and nuclear science. Hearing directly from survivors like Teruko Yahata empowers our audiences to be more informed and draw their own opinions and conclusions. There is a wealth of information about how and why atomic weapons were used in World War II, but learning from a lived experience about how those moments continued to reverberate across a lifetime places history in a powerful context.
It is our responsibility as a museum to face difficult and challenging subjects, like the aftermath of the atomic bombings in Japan, and provide balanced and accurate information from which audiences can draw their own opinions and conclusions. This partnership event with the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum allows the Atomic Museum to do just that and we are honored to work with them towards mutual goals.
What challenges or considerations are involved in organizing a virtual event of this nature, particularly with a survivor’s firsthand testimony?
Listening, reflecting, and providing a safe space for respectful dialogue is at the heart of this event. We will be focusing on a critical moment of warfare that led to devastating loss and forever changed the world. It also significantly altered the life of Teruko Yahata. A testimony of this nature can be emotionally taxing on both the presenter and audience, and it is crucial to remember that history is not just made up of dates in a textbook, but families, lives, and generations.
Teruko Yahata will speak at the Atomic Testing Museum later this year. For more information, go to atomicmuseum.vegas
