Paper Cranes and the Hiroshima Peace Park

One thing that bothered me during my first two weeks in Japan was how much writing — or lack thereof, rather — I was doing. Especially compared to my travel companions, both of whom seemed to fill pages and pages of their notebooks with thoughts and introspection during our long train rides through the Japanese countryside. Granted, I was probably less stressed than my cohorts, and I was so distracted by the sights around us that I didn’t feel like I had much time for introspection or soul-searching, but still it was troubling to seem so unaffected.

Until we reached Hiroshima, anyway.

Hiroshima, of course, is famous for its dubious distinction as the site where U.S. Air Force dropped the world’s first atomic bomb. The surprise attack devastated the city, caused immeasurable damage, and killed somewhere between 90,000 and 170,000 civilians. Many of the victims died from burns, debris, dehydration, and — in the following months and even years — radiation sickness.

In the post-WWII era, the city of Hiroshima recovered, and in 1949 it was declared a City of Peace by the Japanese parliament. The city has since been a center for promoting international peace and the city government continues to advocate the abolition of nuclear weapons across the globe. Today, one of the city’s biggest draws is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, home of the A-Bomb Dome, the Children’s Peace Monument, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, and the annual lantern ceremony.

The memorial museum is probably, by far, the highlight of the Peace Park — and it’s only ¥50! The entrance leads visitors to the East Wing, which includes a history of Hiroshima as a military city, a timeline of the development and dropping of the bomb, facts about Hiroshima citizens’ lives during World War II and Japan’s involvement in the war, a miniature model of Hiroshima City before and after the attack, a scaled-down replica of the A-Bomb Dome, and information about the current proliferation of nuclear weapons and efforts to abolish nuclear weapons.

But the museum’s West Wing is the most haunting — split into four exhibits, this Wing features artifacts (including clothes and personal effects, that belonged to bomb victims), a section that shows how heat from the nuclear explosion damaged city structures, a section that shows the after shock effects, and a section that details the health effects of radiation.

The artifacts exhibit is the most upsetting in the museum. In addition to the tattered and burned school uniforms, toys, wallets, and watches owned by bomb victims, it also featured a few items— like fingernails, skin, and locks of hair — to illustrate the victims’ suffering, as well as drawings and anecdotes from bomb survivors:

Nails and skin left by a junior high student

Donated by Sakae Teshima, courtesy of the A-bomb Material Preservation Society
600 m from the hypocenter, Nakajima-shinmachi

Noriaki Teshima was a first-year student at Second Hiroshima Prefectural Junior High School. He was exposed to the bomb at his building demolition work site. He suffered major burns over his entire body, tot eh extent that his skin was dangling in tatters. With the help of a friend he returned home. Suffering from terrible thirst, he is aid to have tried to suck the pus from his raw, nail-less fingers. He died in agony on August 7. His mother kept his fingernails and part of his skin to show his father, who had not returned from the war.

Student Uniform

Donated by Shigeharu Fukuoka

This is the remains of the uniform worn by Hajime Fukuoka (then 14), a second-year student at Municipal Junior High School. His mother received notice from several different locations to come and receive his ashes. She went to each place, but this uniform, later delivered by the father of one of his classmates, is the only certain item of his remains.

Even now I am still sorry

August 6 through August 10, 1945
Setsuo Masuda (40 at the time of the bombing, 70 when he drew this picture)

On the 8th, the young lady was crying politely , “Mr. Soldier, please give me some water.” On the 9th, her expression had changed to, “Hey, soldier, give me water.” On the 10th, she was just calling brokenly for water (repeatedly, especially at midnight). A doctor had ordered us not to give burn patients any water because it would hasten their death. It’s been 30 years from that day, and even now I am still sorry for not having given her even a glass of water. I have regretted it ever since.

A large chunk of the artifact section focuses on Sadako Sasaki (佐々木 禎子), a girl who was two years old when the bomb fell on Hiroshima. Eight years later, at the age of 10, she was diagnosed with leukemia — which her mother called “atom bomb disease” — and told she had only a year to live. Inspired by a Japanese legend that says anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish, Sadako spent the rest of her life diligently folding paper cranes (some were so tiny she had to use a sewing needle to make them).

Sadako died in October 1955 and after her death, her friends and classmates raised funds to build a memorial for Sadako and other child victims of the A-bomb. In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was placed in the Peace Memorial Park and people from all over the world contninue to send and dedicate their origami cranes to the Sadako memorial.

A plaque at the foot of Sadako’s statue reads:

“This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace on Earth.”