JAPAN: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

The day after arriving in Japan and traveling to Hiroshima, we stepped out into the rain to visit the Peace Memorial Park. The gloomy day seemed like an appropriate backdrop for the emotionally charged monuments and memorials, but the drops of rain made balancing a camera and umbrella potentially hazardous. Located within the park are many monuments and buildings dedicated to remembering the victims of the world's first nuclear attack on August 6, 1945. These are the few we visited...

A-Bomb Dome

What was once the grand Industrial Promotion Hall, the remaining crumbled walls of the A-Bomb Dome now stand frozen in time. The A-Bomb dome is the only building that remained partially standing so close to the blast's hypocenter and now maintains a permanent place on the UNESCO World Heritage site list.

Children's Peace Monument

In remembrance of all the children who died in the blast, or later from injuries sustained as a result of the blast, the Children's Peace Monument contains a statue of a girl with outstretched arms and a paper crane flying above. The statue was inspired by Sadako Sasaki, a 12-year old girl who died ten years after the bomb from leukemia as a direct result of exposure to the bomb's radiation. While in the hospital just before her death, Sadako began folding paper into origami cranes believing that if she folded 1,000 cranes she would receive her wish—to become healthy again. Sadly, she died in October, 1955, before completing her goal. Inspired by her story and her hope for peace, school children from around the world sent the family paper cranes after her death to show their support and love. To this day, children continue to send paper cranes, which are now on colorful display near the statue.

The life-size boxes behind the statue house some of the millions of tiny paper cranes people continue to send in honor of the children who lost their lives in the blast.

A generation of visitors who undoubtedly each have a vivid memory of August 6, 1945.

Memorial Cenotaph

cenotaph: a tomb or monument erected in honor of a person or group of persons whose remains are elsewhere.

Built on August 6, 1952, the Memorial Cenotaph contains the names of all the people killed by the bomb. Located in the middle of the park, the cenotaph looks out onto the Peace Flame and the A-Bomb Dome.

Peace Flame

Another monument to the victims of the bomb, the Peace Flame has burned continuously since it was lit in 1964. It is said that the flame will "remain lit until all nuclear bombs on the planet are destroyed and the planet is free from the threat of nuclear annihilation."

The flame is in the center of the photograph with the Peace Museum located in the background.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

The Peace Museum is the largest museum within the park and houses an extensive collection of artifacts, pictures, and video from August 6, 1945, as well as, the months and years surrounding the blast. The first half of the museum provides a detailed history of Japan in the early 1900's including specific information on the city of Hiroshima. As visitors view the photographs and read their descriptions the events of surrounding attacks and military plans, like Pearl Harbor, chronologically unfold. American government documents discussing the plans for Japan are also displayed, including a letter written by Albert Einstein to President Franklin Roosevelt recommending the creation of the atomic bomb. (FYI: Prior to his death in 1954, Einstein summarized his feelings regarding his role in the genesis of the A-bomb: "I made one great mistake in my life... when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification- the danger that the Germans would make them." (Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times))

Before and after photographs and city-models display the physical effects of the bomb on the city, but it's the gut-wrenching photos and artifacts from victims and witnesses that personalize the events of August 6th. In pictures, burned clothing hangs off the melting skin of schoolchildren who were playing outside at the point of impact. The pattern of a kimono was permanently burned into a woman's back from the blast's inferno while other victims sustained holes, splotches, deformed skin, and numerous other horrific injuries. Sadly, those who survived rarely, if ever, returned to normal health. The after-effects of the atomic bomb were admittedly unknown at the time, but now painfully obvious in those who battle cancer and other health problems directly related to the radiation.

A model of Hiroshima before the blast

The leveled city after the blast (the large building still standing is the A-bomb dome).

The Industrial Promotional Hall (A-bomb dome) before the blast.

After the blast

A photo of a photo of the demolished city

An actual watch worn by someone at the time of the blast. The watch stopped at the precise moment of the bomb's impact freezing the moment forever in time—8:15 a.m.

In a desperate plea for peace and out of respect for the lives lost in the bombing, the mayors of Hiroshima continue to send letters of protest to those countries still conducting nuclear tests. Perhaps one day the world will be free of all nuclear weapons and the Peace Flame in Hiroshima, Japan can finally be extinguished.

Paper cranes