Impressions and Lessons of Hiroshima (by Maura and Mary)

View of Hiroshima from our hotel

Atomic Bomb Dome

We arrived in Hiroshima in the early afternoon. It's a booming city that sits in a bowl with mountains to the west, north and east, and the Pacific Ocean to the south. We stayed in the tallest building in Hiroshima, and have a great view of the modern buildings that now make up the city.

Peace Memorial Park

Children's Peace Memorial

We learned a lot here about the devastating effects of nuclear warfare (and war in general), the power of forgiveness, and the need to continuously work for peace. There were moments of horror balanced with the understanding that peace is attainable. That might be the biggest lesson Hiroshima has to offer all of us.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (by Maura)
After walking around for a bit, we went to the Peace Memorial Museum. It is all about World War II, the bombing of Hiroshima, and the need for peace in the world.

Here are some things that I found interesting:

Hiroshima was where the first atomic bomb ever made was dropped by the US on August 6, 1945 at 8:15 am. It destroyed 90% of the buildings in the city--only a few places remained, such as what's now called the Atomic Bomb Dome. Between August 6 and the end of 1945, more than 140,000 citizens of Hiroshima died as a result of the initial blast, burns, or illnesses caused by radiation. Survivors today still suffer the effects.

Hiroshima used to be a city of academics, and then served as a military stronghold during the Pacific War. After the atomic bomb was dropped, it was named the city of peace. 

Many citizens here work to make sure that this kind of devastation never happens again. Since 1945, every time a nuclear bomb is tested anywhere in the world, the mayor of Hiroshima sends an urgent letter to the leader of the country pleading for an end to nuclear proliferation and testing. The last letter we saw was dated October 2013. It was addressed to President Obama.

Memorial to those who died as result of A-bomb

There's a famous story about a girl named Sadako Sasaki who lived in Japan when Hiroshima was attacked. Her house was 1.6 kilometers from where the bomb had exploded but somehow she survived. She was later diagnosed with leukemia because of the radiation. She was told that by making 1,000 paper cranes  she would heal so she started to make them. She died after making 644 cranes. After that her classmates made the rest of the cranes that she set out to make. Once a year people from all over the world make paper cranes and send them to The Peace Memorial Museum to remember Sadako. In fact, my Sunday school class made cranes two years ago to be part of the celebration and remembrance. 

Letters from mayor of Hiroshima

Epilogue (by Mary)
It was a lot to take in. We watched several videos about the people who died that day and first-hand accounts of the survivors. We looked at a singed tricycle that a father had buried alongside his three year old son who had been riding it that day, which he excavated forty years later. We read gut-wrenching stories about the injuries the bomb caused, and saw the remains of clothing that had been on the bodies of victims during the attack. The intense human suffering that war causes is on display here--there's no escaping it. The girls had a lot of questions, mostly about "why", and we tried to answer them as best we could.

One thing we noted was the tone of the exhibits. We expected more finger-pointing at the US and a sense of anger about the event from the Japanese perspective. But, overall, that's not how we experienced the museum or our time here. The exhibit reiterated over-and-over again the role Japan had in the war, including some statements about relations with China and Korea that we hadn't read at other museums. It was almost matter-of-fact about the US use of the A-bomb against Japan. And that surprised all of us. 

(As a side note, we don't read kanji. So we can't be entirely sure that the Japanese words and English translations were exactly the same in terms of tone. If there's one thing we've learned, it's that  words don't always translate well from language to language.)

A few things we don't want to forget or that we want to check into further:

• Hiroshima (unlike Tokyo, Kyoto and many other cities across Japan) had not been bombed prior to August 6. The US had selected four cities that could have been targets, and the weather in Hiroshima was just right the day of the strike. (This is the same reason Nagasaki was chosen for the second atomic bomb, dropped less than a week later.) According to what we read, the US military selected a city that had not been heavily bombed because they wanted to see what the effects of an atomic bomb alone would be. When the bomb was dropped from the Enola Gay, two other planes were monitoring the effects and taking photographs.
• Hiroshima was expecting to be bombed, so when the many junior high school students were engaged in demolishing buildings so that fires would be isolated throughout the city. Many of the casualties were students who were working on the demolition, as well as Chinese and Korean workers who had been forced into labor.
• In addition to ending the Pacific War (American perspective), another reason given for the US dropping the bomb on Japan was to demonstrate the US's power to the Soviet Union. The German's had already surrendered in May 1945 -- terms were being settled and territory divided among the Allied countries, and the Soviet Union was staking claims, so the US wanted to back them down. They calculated that an atomic strike would do just that.
• Hiroshima and Nagasaki lead the world in working for peaceful end to nuclear disarmament through a variety of associations, including Mayors for Peace, which meets every other year and includes mayors from all over the world.