Jill Biden says ‘history’ of atomic bomb should be taught

First lady Jilll Biden told an audience in Hiroshima that “we need to teach this history” after visiting the atomic bomb site on Friday as part of the G7 summit.

She was speaking to private and public university students at the Next Generations Symposium early Friday evening, which was attended by the summit wives, after touring the Hiroshima Peace Park and Memorial Museum.

Dr Biden did not show up with Japan’s Yuko Kishida, Britain’s Akshata Murty and Germany’s Britta Ernst, who arrived with her granddaughter Maisy 10 minutes later.

The program had to be briefly interrupted, the public awaiting the arrival of the Americans.

“Today we gather just steps from the monument that commemorates part of the deadliest war ever known to mankind,” she said when it was her turn to speak. “We need to teach this history, so we can understand the choices available to us.”

“Choose creation over destruction, innovation over inhumanity, peace over bloodshed, democracy over autocracy,” she continued.

She told the young people that they are “the builders of democracy”.

And she praised the next generation for ‘leading movements for change’, including ‘working for climate justice’.

Earlier, Japanese-American singer-songwriter Ai had worked with the students to learn the English lyrics for the song Lean on Me, which was to be performed for the spouses after the reporters left.

They also received a history lesson on how the United States dropped the atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to quickly end World War II.

Earlier, Dr Biden joined President Joe Biden for a tour of the Hiroshima Peace Park and Memorial Museum with other G7 leaders and spouses who made the trip.

“We’ll find out,” Dr. Biden said with a laugh when the president couldn’t figure out which brand to stand on when they did a photo op with the Kishidas.

The couple took their own photo while participating in a wreath laying at the cenotaph for the victims of the atomic bomb.

The only downtown structure that survived the 1945 bombing – now the Peace Memorial – could be seen in the background.

Afterwards, the spouses had tea, while the leaders took part in a working lunch and a meeting on the war in Ukraine.

Dr. Biden will also participate in a Joining Forces event while in Japan.

She will travel to Marine Corps Air Force Base Iwakuni on Sunday and speak to graduates of MC Perry High School, a Department of Defense Educational Activities School.

She made similar remarks to students in Naples when she broke away from the president in November 2021, while Biden was attending the G20 in Rome.

The first lady has previously traveled to Japan to lead the US delegation to the Tokyo Summer Olympics, which took place in 2021 and not 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr Biden was one of the few dignitaries at the opening ceremony, which she saw with French President Emmanuel Macron.