Radium Girl by Dorian Brooks

Katherine Schaub was one of hundreds of  young women who worked at the US Radium Corporation in Orange, New Jersey, in the early 20th century, painting numerals on wristwatch and instrument dials with luminous paint.  Many of the women became ill, some fatally.  Schaub died in 1933 at age 31. 

1. 1917—1921

I was 15 when the company

hired me.  I loved my job!

It was tricky at first,

shaping the tiny numerals

just right; but I soon caught on.

I’d moisten my brush with my lips

to give it a fine point,

as the foreman taught us.

And we had such fun!

When we turned off the lights,

we saw radium glowing

everywhere—on our clothes

and hair and skin.  Some girls

even painted their teeth

to surprise their boyfriends.

Plus—as the company told us—

we were helping the war effort.

I was so proud.

They never told us

what radium does

inside the body,

nor that its half-life

is 1600 years.

Joseph Rotblat, the Only Physicist to Leave the Manhattan Project on Grounds of Conscience

“I saw science as being in harmony with humanity.”  When nuclear physicist and peace activist Joseph Rotblat accepted the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 88, he opened his address with those words.  Nothing in his long career exemplifies his outlook more than his decision in 1944 to quit the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos for reasons of conscience – the only physicist to do so.

Rotblat was born in Warsaw in 1908 into a relatively prosperous Jewish family.  With the beginning of World War I, however, things became difficult for them as they began to endure poverty and hunger.  Rotblat found work as an electrician but dreamed of becoming a physicist.  He managed to enroll as a student at the Free University of Poland, where he earned an MA degree in physics in 1932,  and earned a doctorate in physics at the University of Warsaw in 1938.  He then held two positions:  Research Fellow in the Radiological Laboratory of the Scientific Society of Warsaw, and in 1937, assistant Director of the Atomic Physics Institute of the Free University of Poland.

Early in 1939, Rotblat began to experiment with uranium.  That year he learned of the fission of uranium and devised an experiment bombarding uranium with neutrons to determine whether neutrons were emitted in the process.  On finding that more neutrons were emitted than produce fission, Rotblat realized that this could lead to a chain reaction in which the enormous amount of energy released could cause a violent explosion – and conceivably be used to make an atomic bomb.   

Joseph Rotblat - abolishwar.org.uk

Darlene Keju, Anti-nuclear Activist and Marshall Islander

“We are testing these bombs for the good of mankind and to end all wars.” So spoke a U.S. Navy officer in 1946 – the year after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of World War II – to explain to the people of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean why the U.S. was about to embark on a series of tests of nuclear bombs there. The same year, a U.S. Navy press release included this statement: “The natives are delighted, enthusiastic about the atomic bomb, which has already brought them prosperity and a new promising future.”

Darlene Keju would strongly disagree. Between 1946 and 1958, a total of 67 bombs were tested in the Marshalls – atomic bombs like the ones used in Japan, and the much more powerful hydrogen or thermonuclear bombs. Islanders were exposed to high levels of radioactive fallout, resulting in a wide range of devastating health problems, including radiation sickness, cancers, and severe birth defects. Many were evacuated to ostensibly safer islands; many have never been able to return, their home islands were so contaminated.

Darlene was born in 1951 on the island of Ebeye and raised on her mother’s island, Wotje. Due to a veil of secrecy and untruths that surrounded the bomb tests and their effects on living beings and the environment, she was in her late twenties before she began to learn the full story. But in the following years, until she herself died of breast cancer in 1996, she galvanized anti-nuclear sentiment in the Marshalls, documented the experiences of many who were affected, and traveled widely to speak to large audiences and let the world know what had been going on.

A Candle in August Hiroshima/Nagasaki August 6/9, 2015 - Dorian Brooks

A Candle in August
Hiroshima / Nagasaki
August 6 / 9, 2015

If I float a candle

over decades of distance

will it help us remember

two girls skipping and laughing

on their way to school

when the bomb fell then

two shadows on a wall

If I float a candle

will we picture in our minds

the blasted cities

people running burning

screaming into the river

thousands

and thousands dead

Will we not shy away

from photos of scorched skin

sloughing off hair falling out

in handfuls

blood and vomit

everywhere wounds oddly

lingering not healing

Will we mouth the words

of our generals and leaders

and know the taste of ash:

“We have to do this

in order to save lives.”

“No they may not surrender

and keep their emperor.”

“No we cannot warn them

with a demo bomb.”

“We will do all we can

to avoid killing civilians.”

“This is the greatest thing

in history.”

If we each float a candle

on memory’s dark river

will we keep the promise

borne now seventy years

on wind in summer trees—

never, never again

and will that river be

a river of peace

—Dorian Brooks © 2015