Twin Cities commemorate Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

Moments of silence at 8:15 a.m. on Wednesday, August 6 and 11:02 a.m. on Saturday, August 9 mark the Twin Cities commemoration of the 63rd anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

The Hiroshima/Nagasaki Commemoration Committee has planned events spanning three days - August 5th, 6th and 9th. Events on Tuesday and Wednesday included storytelling, a Japanese Tea Ceremony, an origami crane ceremony and an all-day vigil at the Lyndale Park Peace Garden in Minneapolis. On Saturday, people will gather at Como Park in St. Paul at 10:30 a.m., with the moment of silence followed by a labyrinth walk at the Global Harmony Labyrinth.

If you are going to Como Park for the commemoration on Saturday, park by lake near the waterfall and take the pedestrian bridge over Lexington, OR drive on Estabrook toward the conservatory and park in the Butterfly parking lot.

The cities of St. Paul and Nagasaki are "sister cities." Sister Cities International is an organization created after World War II which pairs two cities together to promote peace and cultural exchanges. St. Paul and Nagasaki were officially declared "sister cities" on December 7th of 1955, being the first such relationship between an Asian and an American city.

Participants in the events will be encouraged during the events to write letters to both St. Paul and Minneapolis mayors thanking them for being members of the Mayors for Peace organization, which is an "emergency campaign to ban nuclear weapons" by the year 2020.

"Usually when you write city officials you're asking for things - but we just want to thank them for their work this year," said JoAnne Blatchley, Committee Convener for the Hiroshima/Nagasaki Commemoration Committee.

For more information, go to http://www.stpaulnagasaki.org/events.php or Contact JoAnne Blatchley at msphncc@gmail.com.