Hiroshima, Japan
The Bomb Dome |
Monument Inside the Peace Park |
A replica of the bomb itself |
A watch stopped by the blast |
- The flaked skin and finger nails that were the only remains of a small boy – kept by his mother to show his father who had been fighting at the front.
- The shadow on a stone wall of a person who had been standing by it – forever burned into the stone by the blast.
- A schoolboy’s metal lunchbox with the charred food still inside.
- The story of a young girl who survived the explosion and lived for ten years perfectly healthily, only to later contract leukaemia. She believed that if she could fold 1000 origami cranes (a Japanese symbol of revival), she would get better. She died before she reached that figure but her story was broadcast to the nation, causing the Japanese population to begin a national drive to fold origami cranes – which are now found all over the memorial area.
- Photos of the burns, mutations and scars suffered by victims – one of the most striking of which for me in terms of the effects of radiation was the photo of a man’s hand, which had been resting on his windowsill when the blast occurred, exposing the tips of his fingers to radiation and causing his finger nails to grow black and curled (as well as faster) for the rest of his life.
The bomb was the equivalent power of a second sun sitting in the position shown |
At the end of the exhibit there is a petition, set up by the mayor of Hiroshima, to protest against the continued testing of nuclear weapons – which has half a million signatures, now including my own. Keen to not just come to Hiroshima to see the legacy of the bomb, we then spent a few hours strolling around the rest of the city, the highlight of which was Hiroshima castle. Built in the same style as the one in Osaka (and like the one in Osaka, a remake but for totally different reasons), the castle and the surrounding fortifications and park were actually very beautiful and are definitely worthy of being tourist sights in their own respect. In the mid afternoon we made our way back to the station and then travelled on two bullet trains on to Tokyo, via Osaka, where we would be staying for the next three nights.
The black rain on a paper wall |
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