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Camden New Journal - by SUNITA RAPPAI
Published: 9 August 2007

Rose Hacker (left) with her neighbour Hettie Bower, 102.

Peace campaigner Rose, 101, says: we must not lose hope

FORTY years ago this week, Camden’s then Mayor, Millie Miller, planted a cherry tree in Tavistock Square in memory of victims of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
On Monday, more than 100 people gathered in the Bloomsbury square, as they have done every year since, to mark Hiroshima Day.
Among the guests were Labour MPs Frank Dobson and Jeremy Corbyn, peace campaigner Bruce Kent and veteran New Journal columnist Rose Hacker. Amid the songs and speeches, Ms Hacker, now 101, recalled the end of the First World War.
A lifetime campaigner for peace, she said: “What I think of so much is sitting on the gate at the end of that war and waving a Union Jack. My teacher told me that that was the war to end all wars.
“There would be no more war – can you imagine it? And I heard that again at the end of World War II.”
Despite admitting she was sometimes ashamed to live in a world that still had nuclear weapons, Ms Hacker told the gathering: “We must not lose hope. If I have not lost hope in 100 years, then you young people can still have hope.”
The event was followed by a minute’s silence and the laying of a wreath by Camden Mayor Dawn Somper.

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