Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
Today we went to the Peace Memorial Park where Hiroshima commemorates its lost lives following the atomic bombing in 1945. Many of the text are taken from the English inscriptions written by the side of the monuments.
At 8:15am, August 6 1945, an American B29 bomber carried out the world’s first atomic bombing. The bomb exploded approximately 600 meters above and 160 meters southeast of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, ripping through and igniting the building, instantly killing everyone in it.
Because the blast struck from almost directly above, some of the centre walls remained standing, leaving enough of the building and the iron frame to be recognisable as a dome.
After the war, these dramatic remains came to be known as the A-bomb Dome.
Memorial Tower to the Mobilised Students
During World War II, more than three million students over twelve years of age were mobilised for labour services throughout the country. As a result, more than 10,000 students were killed, including some 6,000 killed by the atomic bomb.
It was extremely moving to read the names of the students killed.
Children’s Peace Monument
The Children’s Peace Monument was originally inspired by the death of Sadako Sasaki (the girl who made the thousand cranes), who was exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb at the age of two. Ten years later Sadako developed leukaemia that ultimately ended her life.
The inscriptions on the stone block under the monument reads: “This is our cry. This is our prayer. For building peace in this world.” On the bell hung up inside the monument, the phrases “A Thousand Paper Cranes” and “Peace on the Earth and in the Heavens” are carved in the handwriting of Dr. Hideki Yukawa, Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics.
All around the monument people had brought handmade origami cranes to pay their respects. There would have been millions of cranes, strung together and hung inside large containers.
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
We spent the rest of the day at the museum, which provided a very detailed account of Japan’s role in the war and documents from the US and British governments which explain some of the reasons why the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
It got super intense when we saw the mementos of some of the people who lost their lives, or watch how A-bomb victims are suffering many health issues and genetic dysfunctions even to this day.
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