November 24th, Pete and I went to visit Hiroshima.
We started out at the A-Bomb Dome.
World Heritage Site
Hiroshima Peace Memorial
World Heritage Conservation Symbol
There was some question originally as to whether or not the city wanted to keep the A-Bomb Dome standing. The final consensus (I wouldn't have wanted to sit through that consensus meeting!) was that it should remain as a reminder to the rest of the world of the horrors of the A-Bomb.
It was a beautiful day.
And yes, we were happy to be there.
All around the A-Bomb Dome, life has built up and continued.
We looked in earnest for the hypocenter - the point at which the bomb exploded.
The bomb actually exploded before it hit the ground.
600 meters up in the atmosphere.
With help from Google Maps we finally found it.
This is the monument at the hypocenter - no more than 4' tall.
This monument was on a side/back street next to a car park.
Life goes on, even if it doesn't remain the same.
Walking through the Peace Park we came across the Peace Bell.
I rang it, and snapped a photo of these adorable girls.
The atomic symbol on the bell which is struck by the clapper.
The idea behind the bell is to strike it in remembrance for those who died
and as a prayer for the end of nuclear arms.
Thousands of paper cranes were on display behind glass.
There were many that had be placed to create pictures.
The overarching theme of these "crane mosaics" was peace.
Many many more were simply strung and hanging.
This was another dome and bell.
The flight of these children reminded me of the Holocaust.
When I imagine the Holocaust in artistic representation I always think of escape occurring as flight after death. Even for those who survive.
(Because mom always complains that I'm not in the photographs.)
This was a memorial that was just beautifully done, the fountain represents hands on a clock set to 8:15; the time that the bomb was dropped.
This was right next to an A-Bomb memorial museum.
I have no pictures of it because I chose to respect their request that you refrain from photographs.
The Hall of Remembrance was beautiful.
Like many buildings in Japan it was made of poured concrete and the simplicity of its design lent to a very quiet and sincere experience without over-doing it. The memorial itself is in a circular room that you get to by walking down a ramp that curves around its outside. On the right hand side are information and facts about the bombing and a little bit about the events leading up to the bombing. You cannot see the memorial until you reach the bottom of the ramp.
Entirely white and the soft grey of concrete, the memorial is "a 360˚ panorama of the A-bombed city seen from the Shima Hospital, the hypocenter". "The panorama is a mosaic of the 140,000 tiles, the number of victims estimated to have died by the end of 1945." Depicted in the mosaic are neighborhoods and notable buildings that offer a point of reference.
Most moving was the simplistic fountain in the center that, again, was cut to look like a clock face with hands stopped at 8:15.
"The water is offered as a consolation to A-bomb victims who died begging for a drink."
Water is pervasive throughout the Peace Park, and one I would like to look into is the above-
An eternal flame set above a shallow pool of water.
This pool ends with the following arch:
Below, an arched memorial that guides your eye to the A-bomb Dome in the background.
People were lined up as you'll often see them at shrines to offer their prayers.
This Jizo statue below has a "shadow" on its base from the atomic blast.
The fragments attached below are roof tiles that melted and bubbled from exposure to the heat and radiation.
We then headed to the Hiroshima Peace Museum
(depicted in the background of the following photograph).
The Peace Museum was really interesting and, as it was a Saturday, very busy.
There were many things that crossed my mind during our visit to the museum. I could help making parallells to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC (which I recently visited in April). Perhaps it is because I have so recently visited it and I have a longstanding interest in the Holocaust but a compare/contrast list began to develop as I walked through the Peace Museum. Firstly, I could not help but be struck by how strangely impersonal the Peace Museum seemed to me. Perhaps it is because I know so very little about the events leading up and surrounding the dropping of the atomic bomb but even the displays seemed at first to be devoid of that personal connection. No, it was no mistake or expression of my own misunderstanding I realized slowly as the museum unfolded before me. The dropping of the atomic bomb was itself a flatly impersonal act of violence designed to kill hundreds of thousands of people at once.
"holocaust: destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, esp. caused by fire or nuclear war"
(Apple Dictionary)
The images from the museum of the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima brought to mind the above definition of 'holocaust'. The city was engulfed in flames, people walked the streets exposed to heat "
as high as that of the sun." There are no photographs of the immediate impact of the bombing, instead there are pictures drawn by those who remember.
Statue of a woman carrying her child.
"
The hopes for peace of ordinary people are imbued in this statue of a mother displaying love powerful enough to endure suffering and overcome grief." (source)
After visiting the Hiroshima Peace Park
I cannot find any justification for America's actions on that day.
Furthermore, I will never support the continued development of nuclear weapons.
