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HIROSHIMA PEACE MEMORIAL PARK

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park contains several memorials to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima including the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park (Heiwa-koen) contains many of the key sites, with many more located just over the river. These include the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Dome. Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is reachable by tram line 2 or 6 to Genbaku Domu-mae. While not commonly mentioned, Shukkeien Garden also played a key role in the events after the Hiroshima Bombing and is worth visiting both for its related history and as one of Japan's best gardens.

Picture: Foreground - Peace Flame, Midground Peace Pond and Memorial Cenotaph, Background Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

Memorial Cenotaph

Near the center of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is a concrete, saddle-shaped monument that covers a cenotaph holding the names of all of the people killed by the bomb. The cenotaph carries the epitaph, "Rest in Peace, for the error shall not be repeated." Through the monument you can see the Peace Flame and the A-Bomb Dome. The Memorial Cenotaph was one of the first memorial monuments built on open field on August 6, 1952. It is built in Shinto style. The arch shape represents a shelter for the souls of the victims.

Picture: Foreground: Memorial Cenotaph, Midground Peace Pond and Peace Flame and Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Dome.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Cenotaph
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Cenotaph

Peace Flame

The Peace Flame is another monument to the victims of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, but it has an additional symbolic purpose. The flame has burned continuously since it was lit in 1964, and will remain lit until all nuclear bombs on the planet are destroyed and the planet is free from the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum documents the bomb and its aftermath, complete with scale models of "before" and "after", melted children's tricycles and a  recreation of a post-blast Hiroshima street.

Children's Peace Monument

The Children's Peace Monument (原爆の子の像 Genbaku no Ko no Zō) is a monument for peace to commemorate Sadako Sasaki and the thousands of child victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and is located in in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, itself in the city of Hiroshima. Designed by native artists Kazuo Kikuchi and Kiyoshi Ikebe, the monument was built using money derived from a fund-raising campaign by Japanese school children including Sadako's classmates, with the main statue entitled 'A-bomb Children' being unveiled on the 5th of May, 1958, or (Children's Day in Japan). Sadako is immortalized at the top of the statue, where she holds a crane. Thousands of origami cranes from all over the world are offered around the monument on a daily basis, with ancient Japanese tradition holding that one who folds a thousand cranes can have one wish granted. They serve as a sign that the children who make them and those who visit the statue desire a world without nuclear war, having been tied to the statue by the fact that Sadako died from radiation-induced leukemia after folding over a thousand cranes, wishing for world peace. Beneath the main structure lies a bronze crane that works as a wind chime when pushed against a traditional peace bell from which it is suspended, the two pieces having been donated by Nobel Laureate in Physics Hideki Yukawa.

Children's Peace Monument
Children's Peace Monument

Article based on Wikipedia article and used under the GNU Free Documentation License)

Hiroshima Travel Topics Discuss
Travel to Hiroshima

Last edited on 02/07/09