American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, known as the “father of the atomic bomb,” has apologized to Japanese atomic bomb survivors who visited the United States after the end of World War II, officials from a Japanese nonprofit organization said Friday .
A video had been found in which a woman who recorded the meeting between Oppenheimer and Hibakusha said the scientist was in tears as he apologized, according to the World Friendship Center, based in Hiroshima, which was destroyed by a US atomic bomb in the US . last days of the war.
There are no records of Oppenheimer, who led an American project to develop atomic bombs, issuing a formal apology for the bombing.
The video footage lasts about 50 minutes and shows the late interpreter Yoko Teichler speaking in 2015 about a private meeting between two hibakusha from Hiroshima and Oppenheimer at Princeton University in 1964.
Oppenheimer apologized profusely while crying intensely as soon as he met the visitors, Teichler said in the footage.
Shizuo Tachibana, director of the World Friendship Center, said the footage was shot as part of a video commemorating the organization’s 50th anniversary but had not been used and had been put away.
“I hope this will be used as an opportunity for people to learn about the supplications of many hibakusha,” Tachibana said.
