Hiroshima, Part Two: Fighting for a Non-Nuclear Future

Near the garden sits Hiroshima Castle.  It is of course entirely rebuilt, as it was blown to bits during the bombing.  While the castle was renovated (a few times, actually), the grounds around it remain a testament to the bombing.  Remains of buildings, trees, and other structures adorn the grounds.  People play and picnic in the grass among the ruins, or sit on the old, broken stones and read.  It is a vision, and a testament to what this city has been through.  The castle functions as a museum, upon entering which you must "Please drop the mud of the shoes bottom with the mat,and enter" (sic).  The castle museum holds a lot of ancient history from the area and just a little of the bombing, so it was a nice way to ease into our hard day of facing up to the atomic destruction our country heaped on Japan.

Below is a former great fountain that stood near one entrance to the castle grounds.  It is now a home to new trees.  It is a very large structure, and it is obvious how it once commanded immediate attention from passers-by for its strength and beauty.  Now it commands passers-by for its persistence in the face of the atomic blast, and its sanctity as a place for new life.

Here is another example of the massive ruins that lie within the castle grounds.  This structure used to be a military stronghold.  It was the headquarters, where the officers gave orders for the area during the war.  All around the castle grounds as well as within them were training grounds and soldier quarters.  As we walked through this area, reading about the many buildings and seeing their strategic importance in the war, we couldn't help but understand a little bit why the US would have chosen Hiroshima to bomb.  However, as the memorials and first-hand testimonies within them clearly demonstrate, the mass devastation the atomic bomb created was far more than it needed to be.  Historical documents make clear the fact that the US operatives who wanted to show off with the new bomb distorted the facts to their advantage, even going as far as making a surrender treaty for Japan that said they could not keep their Emperor as a figurehead.  As this was unacceptable to the Japanese people, who considered their Emperor divine, they balked.  This gave the US their opening, and oh how they used it.

Here are some trees that survived the atomic blast.  To the left is a holly tree, near the ruins pictured above.  It is the farthest of the three from the hypocenter, and seems the most healthy.  To the right is an eucalyptus tree and below is a willow tree.  Both of these trees stood a fair bit closer to the blast, on the other side of the castle grounds, and likely got more impact from the blow.  At this distance from the hypocenter, while the structures were blown down by the terrible winds, they were not immediately burned.  It is amazing how these trees weathered the storm and are still alive today.

Views from the top of the castle, showing how vibrant the city is today.  In the picture to the right, there are people picnicking on some ruins beside the castle, under cherry blossoms.

Above: the A-Bomb Dome.  It used to be the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall.  All the workers inside immediately perished.  The structure was designated an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.  It has undergone two preservation projects since 1966, to ensure it stays looking exactly like it did the day of the bombing.  It is easily the most visceral and heart-wrenching memorial in Hiroshima, made more so by a poetry plaque in memory of a survivor, or hibakusha, named Tamiki Hara.  He committed suicide by jumping in front of a train in Tokyo in 1951, after losing is wife before the bombing and surviving the bombing at his parents' home.  His poem reads:

Engraved in stone long ago,

Lost in the shifting sand,

In the midst of a crumbling world,

The vision of one flower.

The A-Bomb Dome marks the start of the Peace Park, near the t-shaped Aioi Bridge (the target of the bomb).  The Peace Park used to be the most commercial district in Hiroshima.  The area was flattened by the bomb and considered the perfect place to create monuments to children, poets, mothers, Korean indentured servants, and much more.  I cannot begin to cover them all here.  Here are a few we found the most striking.  I hope they will serve as a good primer.

This is a mass grave for those who died when the bomb struck.  The ashes of about 70,000 people are in the mound.  Not all of them were positively identified.  More and more are confirmed each year as relatives come forward with stories, heirlooms, and pictures.  What makes it really difficult is that whole families perished, so no one could come forward for a long time.  Relatives from other parts of the country, or those who had escaped Japan, later came down and gave positive identifications and memories.

This is the Prayer for Peace Statue.  It is a woman, likely a Goddess, holding a cherub who is blowing a horn.  She is standing partly on a crescent moon, a historical symbol of the city of Hiroshima.  Hanging around her in this picture are tiny paper cranes, folded in the memory of those who died in the blast or afterward from various diseases.  This statue isn't very old: it was completed in 1977.  I found it intriguing in design and in emotion, as there is a poetry plaque beside it.  The poem is by Shinpei Kusano, and in rough translation reads as follows:

Over the crescent moon in the sky
A tangible statue of a mother and her child stands.
This is the symbol of lasting peace.
Dear little child, embraced in your mother's love, play the golden trumpet.
Sounds the clear tunes of peace over the earth and to heaven.
Puffing up your cheeks, play the gold trumpet, the tunes of No More Hiroshimas,
No matter what our future will be like.

Now, this poem is a bit on-the-nose, to be sure.  It must be noted that the Japanese people go in for that.  But parts of it, like the "No More Hiroshimas" part, really hit home.

The view of the main monument structures in the park from the deck of the main atomic bomb museum.  In the background is the A-Bomb Dome, at the far end of the park.  In the middle is the Eternal Peace Flame.  In the foreground is the Memorial Cenotaph that holds the names of all the known victims.  It carries the epitaph: "Rest in Peace, for We Shall Not Repeat the Error."  It was one of the first monuments built on the field, in August of 1952.

Nearby sits this fountain, marking 8:15, when the bomb detonated.  The fountain is located at the Hall of Remembrance, easily one of the most beautiful and perfectly designed monuments I've ever seen.  For me, it only compares to the Viet Nam Memorial in DC for sheer impact.


The entryway is a winding corridor that slopes down toward the main memorial.  As you walk down, you regress through time to the day of the bombing.  At six points along the slope, there are explanations of the history and effects of the bombing, in many different languages, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and English.  There is a giant echo, and with every step you feel impending doom.  Soon, you walk through a door, and time stops.  You see a wide room, in the center a fountain with the time 8:15 that marks the hypocenter of the bomb.  It gives water for those who died begging for a drink.  All around you is a panorama view of the terrible devastation, as seen from the hypocenter at Shima Hospital.  The panorama is made of 140,000 tiles, the number of people who are estimated to have died by the end of 1945.  Underneath the pictures are the names of the neighborhoods that existed in Hiroshima at that time.  The lower they appear on the wall, the closer they were to the hypocenter.  The wooden structures are possibly petrified wood, and stand with sheer strength and elegance.  There are twelve of them, and they are meant to symbolize the link between our present-day existence and the time of grief that began when the bomb detonated.  The memorial is a place for recollection, repose for the souls of the dead, and the contemplation of peace.   

At the end of the Peace Park, past the (necessarily) joyless museums, is Peace Boulevard.  It is a beautiful, busy street with large green areas in the middle down the whole length.  Immediately across from the a-bomb museum are the Gates of Peace.  They are inscribed with the word meaning "peace" in likely every current language, and probably a few dead ones.  They are a powerful sight.

Please take the time to read the Peace Declaration online.  There are many, spanning the years.  Hiroshima has not given up fighting for a non-nuclear future, where all beings and the world we inhabit can be safe.  It is a truly moving goal, and an easy one to support after walking the Peace Park.