Jill Biden at Hiroshima memorial museum: ‘We must teach this history’

First lady Jill Biden on Thursday visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Japan, where she hailed the history of the site and highlighted that the world needs to learn from it and ensure democracy is chosen over autocracy.

“We must teach this history, so that we can understand the choices in front of us,” the first lady said in remarks. “Choose creation over destruction, innovation over inhumanity, peace over bloodshed, democracy over autocracy.”

Hiroshima is a name engraved in history because the U.S. dropped a bomb on the Japanese city on Aug. 6, 1945. The bombing is estimated to have killed between 70,000 and 125,000 civilians. Combined with the bombing of Nagasaki three days later, it brought the end of World War II.

There have been some calls in Japan — and some speculation in the U.S. — for President Biden to apologize for the bombing of Hiroshima while at the G-7. But White House officials have been noncommittal on the topic.

Biden attended spousal events on the summit sidelines Thursday with her granddaughter, Maisy. Other spouses included Yuko Kishida, the wife of the Japanese prime minister, Akshata Murty, the wife of the prime minister of the United Kingdom, and Britta Ernst, the wife of the German chancellor, among others.

Following the visit to the museum, the first lady participated in a luncheon with G-7 spouses, a symposium, and a dinner.