This is our cry;
This is our prayer;
For building peace in this world
These were the words that greeted me at the Children’s Peace Monument in the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park. On August 6, 1945, the world’s first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. After the second bombing, Japan surrendered and the World War II conflict in the Pacific was over.
A visit to the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park
I was visiting the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park on a 10-day cruise around Japan with Heritage Expeditions. I chose this specific itinerary because it offered an interesting blend of off-the-beaten path experiences along with culturally significant sights. Our stop in Hiroshima and its UNESCO listed Peace Park was one that I was anticipating the most.
As a teenager in high school (many years ago), I read a book about the bombing of Hiroshima. The detailed descriptions of the aftereffects of the atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima and its people were heartbreaking and left a huge impression on my teenage self. That’s saying a lot considering I was 13 at the time.
Now, nearly 50 years later, I walked through the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Museum and saw large photo murals that showed a city that had been completely devastated, with just the skeleton of what is now called the A-Bomb Dome standing sentinel over a field of debris.
It was hard to believe that this now thriving, modern, green city surrounding me had been flattened by an explosion equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT. What wasn’t toppled by the bomb’s powerful shock wave was consumed in the subsequent fires and radioactive rains that ultimately engulfed most of the metropolis.
As Hiroshima rose up out of the ashes to rebuild, it became important for the survivors to remember the events of August 6, 1945, and to honor the many that perished because of the bombing. The Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park was established on April 1,1954, to do just that.
Our Heritage Expeditions tour guide, Hide-san, took us around the Peace Park and explained the many memorials and monuments located in what is now a very serene green space. Undoubtedly, the most important sites were the A-Bomb Dome, which was the only structure that survived near the bomb’s hypocenter, and the Cenotaph where the names of all those that perished in the blast are remembered.
For me though, the most moving memorial was the Children’s Peace Monument with the statue of young Sadako Sasaki holding a large origami crane over her head. The statue was surrounded by displays holding thousands of rainbow hued paper cranes, the offerings of countless visitors who also support the memorial’s stated mission for peace.
The story of Sadako Sasaki
On August 6, 1945, Sadako Sasaki was just two years old when the world’s first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Her family’s home was only a mile from the bomb’s hypocenter and at 8:15 in the morning they were enjoying breakfast. The building collapsed around and over them in the blast, yet the family somehow survived the crushing debris.
Even more miraculously, Sadako and her family managed to escape the fires that quickly engulfed the city by running to the river and floating down it in a neighbor’s boat. However, they did not escape the “black rain” that soon followed the blast, a rain that was filled with radioactive soot and particles from the exploded atomic bomb.
Sadako’s older brother, Masahiro, describes this ordeal and Sadako’s life in the book “The Complete Story of Sadako Sasaki”. The first few years after the war were not easy ones for their family, but they scraped by. In 1947 the family moved back to Hiroshima and started rebuilding their life all over again.
As Hiroshima started to prosper, so did the Sasaki family. Sadako started school, made friends with her classmates, and played as children do. But in the winter of 1955, she began feeling ill and tests revealed she had developed atomic bomb disease, or leukemia as it is now called. This disease is potentially curable today, but in 1955 it was a death sentence.
Sadako had to move away from her beloved family into the Red Cross hospital as doctors tried their best to ease her symptoms. One day, Sadako and other patients received origami paper cranes as a get well wish. This was when she learned of the legend that said, “if you fold one thousand paper cranes your wish will come true”. From that moment on, Sadako set for herself the goal to fold 1,000 origami cranes so that her wish to get well and be with her family again would become a reality.
Even ten years after the war had ended, paper was still a scarce commodity. Sadako scrounged any paper she could find in the hospital and slowly, despite being in pain and continuing to lose strength, she began making paper cranes with fierce determination and single mindedness. The nurses strung the cranes together with thread and hung them from the ceiling of her hospital room, adding some cheer to her otherwise sterile environment.
Sadako continued making origami cranes, even as her body grew weaker. She reached her goal of 1,000 but her wish did not come true, and instead, she just kept getting more ill. Still, she continued folding cranes despite her deep pain, this time focusing on a wish for her family’s well-being.
On October 25, 1955, Sadako passed away, surrounded by her family, her classmates, and the 1,300 origami cranes she had created. Touched by the courage with which Sadako faced her death, her classmates decided that her passing would not be in vain.
Her school friends started a fundraising campaign to build a monument in the Peace Park that would remember Sadako and all the other children who died because of the atomic bombing. Over the next three years, Sadako’s classmates spread the message of her story to school children throughout Japan. Many children from all over the country sent money in support and by 1958, the memorial to Sadako and the children of the Hiroshima bombing became a reality.
Since her death, Sadako’s story and her origami paper cranes have become a beacon for peace that continues to shine brighter as time goes by. During the Obon holiday in Japan, which celebrates the spirits of one’s dear departed, it has become a tradition to leave paper cranes at the base of the Children’s Peace Memorial.
It is also a common practice now for visitors to donate origami cranes when visiting the Hiroshima Peace Park. During my visit I saw groups of school students contribute strings of colorful origami cranes to the ever-growing collection. In fact, our tour group also learned to make paper cranes the evening before our visit to Hiroshima, and we also donated our colorful strings in support of world peace.
After my tour with Heritage Expeditions ended, I traveled around Japan on my own and had the chance to also visit the Peace Park in Nagasaki. Here too, lengths of paper cranes were strung across many of the statues and memorials and also had a place of pride in the visitor’s center.
I didn’t have a lot of time to tour the cities of Hiroshima or Nagasaki beyond the Peace Parks. Yet the little that I saw reflected dynamic, thriving cities with no signs of the bombs’ devastation, other than what has been preserved as a memorial. It was impressive to see how “normal” the cities appeared today with people going about their daily lives, traffic humming along at a busy pace, and tall, modern buildings highlighting the skyline.
Sadako Sasaki’s lasting legacy
In his book about Sadako, her brother Masahiro says that Sadako wondered how she could make the world a better place before she died. Little did she know that her story and her paper cranes would become a symbol for peace around the world.
More than 70 years later, Sadako continues to inspire. Her story has been the subject of novels, a poem, a musical play, and numerous songs. In 2012, artist and former Disney illustrator Sue DiCicco founded the Peace Crane Project. The project encourages children all over the world to fold a paper crane, write a message of peace on its wings, and then exchange the crane with another child somewhere else on the globe. To date, millions of children have connected and promoted peace in this way.
As we celebrate another anniversary of the August 6 bombing in Hiroshima, let’s all promote peace, one paper crane at a time.
Use the instructions below provided by the Peace Crane Project to make your own paper crane and to teach the children in your life about the importance of peace, now and in the future.
Other related stories:
All about my cruise around Japan with Heritage Expeditions: A Heritage Expeditions Review – Cruising in Style on the Heritage Adventurer
More details about my visits to HIroshima: My Visit to the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park – A Continuing Classroom For Peace
My story about another WWII memorial town in France: Visit Oradour-Sur-Glen – A Memorial That Should Never be Forgotten
Please note that my Heritage Expeditions cruise was hosted. All content and opinions are my own.
Thanks for visiting.
Rose
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