Monday 3rd June 2024
We spent the morning taking it easy, getting moving slowly. We are showing the signs of holiday fatigue. When we finally got going it was to a day of sadness and witnessing the tragedy of war.

Our first stop was at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. This was very well displayed with everything written in English for us, it was a lot of reading and so thought provoking and mentally disturbing. The tragedy that unfolded on 6th August 1945 at 8.15am was unimaginable. The accounts of that time and the ensuing years depicted in the images, drawings and written word was incredible. We spent 3 hours walking through the museum reading about the history of the first atomic bomb blast. We saw remains of tattered clothes, pictures of burned people, others with the effects of black rain and radiation as they died. It was incredibly sad and difficult to understand how they would have endured such suffering. Others survived the trauma of the bombing only to die 5, 10, 20 years later of cancers, leukaemia and many suffered psychologically.

After we visited the Museum, we then walked through the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, saw many memorial statues, the Atomic Bomb Dome and the actual spot where 600m above the bomb exploded. It was a very moving day and one that will remain in our minds any time war and nuclear weapons are discussed.

We then went for a walk to the Hiroshima Castle, another magnificent Castle but unfortunately we were too exhausted to explore it. We just had a quick walk around the grounds, took a photo of its entrance and headed back to the hotel.

We decided to try for an early dinner of Okonomiyake again tonight, the restaurant we were hoping to eat at last night and tonight appears to not be open again. So after choosing another one, we headed there and made another mistake. We ended up at Miyamae Izakaya Restaurant, which unbeknown to us was a bar style restaurant. We thought we were at the Okonomiyake restaurant but it turns out that it was a like a tapas style restaurant. Once we ordered and received our meals, we realised that we would need to order more. We enjoyed a variety of foods, some not so much but at least we tried some traditional food in a restaurant with only Japanese patrons tonight, instead of the tourist restaurant of last night.

After dinner we went for a walk through the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park under lights. Another long and tiring day, we walked about 15km around the city today. Only a couple more to go before we head home. I am not sure what is in store for tomorrow but only time will tell.

“The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum – Communicating the reality of the atomic bombing to people with the aim of abolishing nuclear weapons and achieving lasting world peace. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum was opened in 1955 with the aim of communicating the reality of the damage caused by the atomic bomb to people all over the world and contributing to the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realization of permanent world peace, which is the heart of Hiroshima. At 8:15 am on August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was the first in the world to be damaged by an atomic bomb. Most of the town was destroyed and many people lost their lives. Even those who barely survived suffered great physical and psychological damage, and many A-bomb survivors are still suffering. The Peace Memorial Museum collects and displays photographs and materials showing the remains of the A-bomb survivors and the devastation of the A-bomb, as well as the history of Hiroshima before and after the A-bomb and the situation during the nuclear age. In addition to holding lectures on A-bomb experience by A-bomb survivors, we also lend out materials for peace learning.”

“Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park  A tranquil spot to contemplate the preciousness of all life. Extending southwards from the Atomic Bomb Dome and located mostly on a narrow stretch of land between two rivers, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is like a green island in the middle of the city. A serene space covering over 120,000 square meters, it serves to memorialize the great many lives lost in the world’s first nuclear attack, while making use of nature to reaffirm the preciousness of all life.
Prior to the 1945 bombing, this district was the administrative and commercial heart of Hiroshima. In 1949, the recovering city decided the area should become a place of remembrance and contemplation, rather than simply being rebuilt.”

The Municipal Girls High School Memorial. On August 6, 1945, 541 of the school’s first- and second-year students, along with seven teachers, perished in the atomic bombing while helping to dismantle buildings to create a fire lane in Kobiki-cho (present-day Nakajima-cho). In all, including upper-class students and teachers in other locations at the time of the blast, the school suffered 676 deaths, the largest number of victims among schools in Hiroshima.

“Sadako was two years old when she was exposed to the atomic bomb. She had no apparent injuries and grew into a strong and healthy girl. However, nine years later in the fall when she was in the sixth grade of elementary school (1954), she suddenly developed signs of an illness. In February the following year she was diagnosed with leukemia and was admitted to the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital. Believing that folding paper cranes would help her recover, she kept folding them to the end, but on October 25, 1955, after an eight-month struggle with the disease, she passed away.

Sadako’s death triggered a campaign to build a monument to pray for world peace and the peaceful repose of the many children killed by the atomic bomb. The Children’s Peace Monument that stands in Peace Memorial Park was built with funds donated from all over Japan. Later, this story spread to the world, and now, approximately 10 million cranes are offered each year before the Children’s Peace Monument.”

A-Bomb Dome – Hiroshima Peace Memorial, ruins of a building that was destroyed by an atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Japan, and that is preserved as a memorial to those killed and as a reminder. At 8:15 AM on August 6, 1945, the U.S. B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the world’s first atomic bomb used in war on the city of Hiroshima. The bomb, called Little Boy, killed about 140,000 people. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial stands as a witness of the nuclear devastation as well as a symbol of hope for peace. The building was originally built in 1915 as the Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition Hall. Designed by Czech architect Jan Letzel, it was a three-story brick building in a then-modern European style that was topped by a dome. During World War II, the building was used to house governmental and commercial offices. The hypocentre of the atomic explosion was only about 525 feet (160 m) southeast of this building. The bomb exploded virtually above the building, and because the blast wave travelled straight down through its centre, some walls and the steel frames of the structure survived, though all those within were killed.”

Memorial Tower to the Mobilised Students – To make up for the labor shortage, the government enacted the Student Labor Service Act in August 1944. This act required students in middle school and higher grades to perform labour service in munitions factories and the like. Then, in November, many students were required to participate in tearing down homes and other buildings (building demolition). The purpose was to create fire-breaks to limit the expansion of fire in the event of air attacks. In Hiroshima City, of the roughly 8,400 students in the national upper level schools, about 6,300 died on the day of the bombing.
Most students working at various industries around the city were also killed.
After the war, the government only permitted mobilised students killed in the atomic bombing or in air strikes whose names and date of death were known to be enshrined in Yasukuni Shrine. In response to this, bereaved families began a movement to create a list of the dead and donated funds to build this tower.”