Peace Park and Hiroshima Memorial Museum

The Peace Park and Hiroshima Memorial Museum were the centerpiece of our time in Hiroshima. We began our visitat the Peace Museum (photo to the left). The complex is divided into three parts--the east and west wing of the museum itself, and then the Peace Park, which is located directly behind the museum, closer to ground zero. The east wing, where the tour begins, shows Hiroshima before and immediately after the bombing. The entrance to the east wing includes a series of panels (photo to the right) depicting the history of Hiroshima, and its role in Japanese society at the time of the bombing.

The panels describing Hiroshima and its role as a feudal center winds around to a pair of models of Hiroshima. The model to the left depicts Hiroshima prior to 8:15 a.m. on August 8, 1945. A prosperous town since the Edo period, Hiroshima had by and large escaped the damage of Allied bombing raids. It was also a military town, where large numbers of troops and supplies were garrisoned. This, and its setting in a large valley where the effects of the bomb could be more accurately gauged and recorded, contributed to its fateful selection as a target site. The picture to the right shows the city just minutes after the explosion of the atomic bomb, with only a handful of buildings remaining, and over 70,000 lives lost in the explosion.

 




The west wing of the the Peace Museum is even more disturbing, as it chronicles the after-effects of the Hiroshima blast. The exhibit begins with a model of Hiroshima with a big ball suspended over it, indicating the height at which "Little Boy (a three meter-long bomb containing 50 kilograms of Uranium 235) was dropped, releasing the equivalent of 150,000 tons of explosives. Next to the model and mock-up of "Little Boy" is an exhibit of the effects of the bomb on Hiroshima. The photo to the left shows a child's tricycle and a soldier's helmet seared by the blast. There were also other larger examples of the effects of the heat generated by the atomic bomb. The remainder of the west wing is devoted to the effects of the atomic bomb on humans. A small theater shows the black rain that poured radioactive material down about 2-30 minutes after the blast, as well as the long term effects of the radiation. As you exit the west wing, there are a series of monitors which can display a number of video programs containing interviews with survivors of the blast, as well as art work from children who survived the bombing. (photo to the right).

 


Exiting the museum at the rear, visitors enter the Peace Park. Stretching from the museum to the epicenter of the blast, the Park commemorates those who died in the blast and recounts the efforts of those who survived it. The photo to the left is a cenotaph or memorial to the victims of the bombing. It is invariably covered with flowers, offerings, and especially origami cranes made by children. Just behind the memorial, separated by a pool, is the flame of eternal peace which burns continuously; it is intended as a warning against the temptation to again use nuclear weapons to solve political and military problems. It is visible from the cenotaph, a flame floating in the middle of the cenotaph's arch.




 

There are many individual monuments in the park, which together tell the tales of bravery in the aftermath of the attack. One of the most famous, the Children's Monument, pictured to the left. Although dedicated to all children of Hiroshima, the girl at the top represents Sadako Sasaski, a girl who was two years old at the time of the blast. Ten years later she entered the Red Cross Hospital with radiation-related Leukemia. Despite the pain from the disease, she occupied her time folding paper origami cranes in the hope that if she could complete a thousand of them, she could escape the ravages of her sickness. Sadako died before she could complete her task, and now school children from all over the world honor her spirit and her quest by sending strings of cranes to the park. The booths surrounding the monument in the photo to the left contain some of the thousands of cranes sent yearly in her honor.






Across the river from the Children's Monument are two more monuments to the events of August 8, 1945. The photo to the left is of the Memorial to the Mobilized Students, the youth from the various schools who worked long and hard to lend aid to those who survived the explosion. Just a short distance from the memorial is the famous "A Bomb Dome," named for the domed-shaped metal framework that remained following the blast. The building, formerly the Hiroshima Prefectural Building for the Promotion of Industry, stands at the epicenter of the blast, and was the only structure in the area to survive. Now a World Heritage site, the building remains just as it was following the bombing, as a symbol of the destruction wrought by the nuclear attack. It is shown on the photo to the right.

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