Hiroshima

I haven't written about the rest of Kyoto because I'm just so busy I have no time, but I'm skipping ahead as today seems a very suitable time to add this (I left work early).

62 years ago today, August 6th 1945, a nuclear weapon "Little Boy" was dropped on the city of Hiroshima. 3 days later "Fat Man" would desecrate Nagasaki. Although impossible to state the number of victims, it is estimated that over 70,000 died from the initial blast, with many many more suffering from after-effects long after.

Although I will state that I do not think war and its casualties is ever morally 'right', it is not for me to give my opinion here on whether this event was politically 'right' so I will reserve judgement.

Overall, and in a very strange (paradoxical?) way, Hiroshima is a beautiful city. It is clean, wide, bright and more than anything, laid back; people took their time and I saw no hustle and bustle.

We took the tourist trail, which takes you from the station, past the Castle and onto the centre of the city, where the bomb hit. The first place was to Hiroshima Park which was absolutely beautiful.





I'd like to think these are cranes (explained later) but I have no idea:



Outside the park stands a statue of Sadako Sasaki.
Please remember her name.

We passed by the largely-uninspiring castle, which of course is a modern recreation and down along the river. The very thought that thousands of people were diving into this while their bodies burnt for some relief is near impossible to imagine.



The North end of the historic sites is the A Bomb Dome. Interestingly, this is where the bomb exploded but, as it detonated in the air, the impact spread leaving this structure one of the only standing in the aftermath. It has, apart from some strengthening, been left after protests from citizens requesting it be kept as a clear sign that their constitution based on "No War, Only Peace" should forever be maintained.


Around this area, the river splits into two, with a Monument devoted to children who died standing proudly in the middle. The paper-origmai crane is a symbol of health and recovery, with friends and families typically folding and hanging 1000 for an ill person.



The famous story is that Sadako Sasaki, a two year old girl, was affected one mile away. She was so in awe of the cranes that surrounded her in hospital that she began to fold them. Sadly, she never finished, becoming too ill to continue at 644, and finally passed away at the age of twelve. However, her friends completed her task and, to this day, people from all over the world send countless origami birds in sorrow.

In a line, straight down from the A Bomb Dome is the cenotaph, the centre piece for all rememberance services. One old lady was standing there crying, and you can only imagine what pain (physical? emotional?) she must have experienced.



It makes me cry to write this and do such a disservice to just how depressing the place was but, again, that the area is just so beautiful really should be a testament and a moral to us all.

At the South end of this area is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, with a measly fee of 20p entry.

A fantastically detailed collection of artefacts, video presentations and information beginning from the political climate of WWII, moving through the day itself, the result and finishing with the present climate of the nuclear age we live in and the terrifying number of weapons in existence.

The hardest part was the displays of the pieces of cloth, lunchboxes and possessions that are the only remaining evidences of some of the children that died.

At 8:15am, the bomb exploded, and this watch ticked its final beat.

This is the black rain that fell in the sky straight after the fireball destroyed nearly everything. People, whose skin was melting off, would try to drink this from absolute thirst, not realising the deadly chemicals that would only make their suffering worse.

The flash of light was so bright that the ink lettering would melt away from paper, leaving only outlines. In much the same way, another famous image is that the areas of walls behind which people show their outlines.


A perspective showing the realisation, this is the area before:



And after:



I hope the pictures speak for themselves.

What has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945 has not been deterrence, in the sense of fear of specific weapons, so much as it's been memory. The memory of what happened at Hiroshima.
-by John Hersey