Hiroshima

We spent an afternoon at the Peace Park and Memorial Museum in Hiroshima. It evokes very vividly the destruction wrought on the city when the atomic bomb was dropped on the morning of 6th August 1945.

Perhaps the most emotive place of all is the Childrens Peace Monument, which was erected in memory of a little girl – Sadako Sasaki who died from leukaemia following radiation exposure. When first ill she believed that if she could fold 1000 origami cranes she would cure herself. She never managed it. Near the monument are multiple glass cases containing cranes that people have sent from around the world as a gesture in support of peace. While we were there several parties of Japanese schoolchildren came and seemed to perform a simple ceremony before laying some paper cranes at the foot of the monument.