Thirteen lighted candles flickered messages of peace across the Green Sunday night.
The small group of people fanning the flames were participating in a candlelight peace vigil, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Margaret Bragg of Hanover said she organized the vigil because she felt something should be done to mark the importance of the event.
As the candles slowly melted into pools of wax, the participants recited poems, sang songs, shared their feelings or just watched the night grow darker in silence.
Bragg started the reminiscences by relating an anecdote about her visit as a college student to the Hiroshima peace park.
When an elderly Japanese women discovered that Bragg and a friend meant to visit the park, she was so happy she actually gave them cab fare, Bragg said.
"She was grateful that Americans had come ... to keep the memory alive," she said.
Zamira Ha '97, the only student present until two others appeared at the end of the vigil, said Hiroshima is "something you just can't ignore," in an interview with The Dartmouth last night.
Physicians for Social Responsibility hosted another vigil to commemorate Hiroshima Friday morning on Ledyard Bridge, which Ha attended.
She said the main participants were a few Dartmouth students and members of the group, and they held up cards with words such as "Hiroshima," "50 Years Ago" and "Never Again" to remind people about the bombing.
She said her knowledge of the event is based only on historical facts.
"Given the distance that I have from the event, I can't even begin to touch on what sentiments would accompany the event," Ha said.
Peace continues "to exist as an ideal," she said. "The course of time is only showing that things are getting worse."
A man who said he was a Quaker and a World War II veteran recited a poem he had composed himself.
"Are these war stories that won't go away?" he questioned in his recitation.
"The beauty I think, I feel as I look back is the beauty of the American GIs," he continued, lamenting the deaths of young soldiers he had known.
He concluded his poem with the message that "the truth will come out" regarding "Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all the other atrocities."
A woman participating in the vigil referred to the destruction of Hiroshima as "outrageous and obscene," while another woman called it "upsetting."
Another woman at the vigil said many people today are apathetic toward the issues of preserving peace. She said "there are too many people who are complacent."
