Despite the fact that the United States was responsible for dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima during World War II, the Japanese people, in general, do not harbor feelings of hatred toward the United States.
At 8:15am on the morning of August 6th, 1945, the United States Military dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. This marked the first time in the history that a weapon of this magnitude was used as a weapon against another country. It wasn’t used on a military facility or base, it was used on a city where every kind of citizen—from small school children, to business men and house wives, to the elderly—made there home. Over 70,000 people lost their lives due to the immediate blast that detonated 1,800 ft. above the city and to injuries such as skin melting burns and radiation sickness.
More people died in the days that followed when severely understaffed hospitals and clinics attempted to care for the waves of people crying for help, but lacked supplies or the time to attend to everyone’s needs. There were people left inside buildings that had crumbled to the ground, orphaned children roaming the streets calling out to parents that would never hear their voices again, mothers cradling the limp forms of their deceased children, and people staggering about still trying to figure out what exactly had happened.
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| The atomic bomb detonated directly above this spot. |
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| Hiroshima in 1945 before... |
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| ...and after the bombing. |
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The ashes of people who died as a result of the bombing are enshrined beneath this mound. The glass of water beside the flowers is a gesture for the burn victims who, when the event happened, asked for a drink water above anything else.
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The ground at the bottom of this pit is the original level of land in 1945 before the bomb was dropped. The current ground level was created by the debris and dirt distributed by the detonation of the A-bomb.
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| A watch that survived the blast from the A-bomb, but was frozen at the exact time that the bomb hit. |
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| The temperature on the ground at the epicenter rose to thousands of degrees Celsius within seconds of the bomb detonating, incinerating anything and everything that could catch fire. |
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Even 1.3 miles away from the epicenter of the A-bomb, the heat was so intense that it burned out the paper where the black letters were written (they absorbed more heat).
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Pottery, bowls, plates and anything else that happened to be in the area when the intense heat radiated through Hiroshima, melted and molded together into chunks of unusable molten sand, glass and clay.
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Another side effect from the A-bomb, black rain, fell from the resulting mushroom cloud and stained and contaminated the city.
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It is said in the Japanese culture and stories of old, that if you wish for something and fold a thousand paper cranes, that wish will come true. A little girl named Sadako who was suffering from radiation poisoning, did just that. Unfortunately, not even a thousand paper cranes could save her.
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| There were very limited supplies and knowledgeable medical staff on hand in order to attempt to administer care to the victims of the A-bomb. This is partially because so many of them died. |
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| The Mayor of the city of Hiroshima has sent out letters to every country's government that is currently involved with nuclear research and development , pleading that they stop and collectively take a step toward worldwide peace by ceasing the creation of such destructive devices. This letter specifically is to our President Obama, and was sent just this past October. |
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| Many school trips are made to the museum near the Genbaku Dome in Hiroshima. The Japanese people are unwilling to let the newest generations go without learning about the brutality about the events in 1945. Along side that knowledge, they also want to impart the importance of peace with the youth of their country. |
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| Students gathering at the Children's Monument, celebrating Sadako's life as well as the lives of all of the rest of the Japanese children her age who died because of the bombing. |
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The Genbaku Dome (原爆ドム) and the near by river. The dome was preserved in the condition that the bombing left it in while the rest of Hiroshima built up around it.
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| Unable to afford the maintenance costs for the dome, the Hiroshima government fund-raised and asked for donations from the Japanese people. If not enough was collected, they would have no choice but to demolish the building, erasing it as a monument of remembrance of the A-Bomb. The overwhelming monetary response from the country just goes to illustrate just how passionate the Japanese people are about honoring the past while still moving forward into the future with hope. |
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| Isao-san, a survivor of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima, as he recounted August 6, 1945 for our class in a private interview. The video clip below is a segment from that interview. |
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| He was fourteen years old when it happened. Luckily for him, he was called out to help with the tearing down of some old houses a few miles outside of Hiroshima. Whereas he only suffered burns from the blast, everyone else in his class was incinerated. |
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Japan Center for Michigan University's May short course, Politics of Peace, with Isao-san and the other members of HIP (Hiroshima Interpreters for Peace).
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The devastation that resulted from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was vast. And yet, despite the endless list of grievances that could be brought forth by the people affected, the sentiment that is paramount among them is not hatred toward the United States or its citizens. Any anger or disdain they felt was reserved for the War itself, the true culprit in their eyes. The War was responsible for putting the citizens of Hiroshima (and the rest of Japan) in danger and since the bomb was dropped as an act of war, resentment and anger does not fall on the United States.
One of the things that Isao-san mentioned in the interview is that as a Buddhist, he more or less came to terms with what had happened to him as his “fate”. He (speaking about himself, personally, and generalizing for most Japanese people since they are also Buddhist) felt that even though it was the United States who dropped the atomic bomb, it was their fate for it to happen. And so, instead of getting angry at the United States and it's citizens, he accepted the course of action that his life had taken. Even though it was sad that lives were lost in the manner that they were, they were not taken from them unjustly or before their time.
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| Paper cranes have become the image of peace for the Japanese people. |
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| The peace arch in the memorial park for the bombing of Hiroshima. Looking through it, you can see the flame of peace as well as the Genbaku Dome. |
At the Peace Park in Hiroshima, the message it is trying to express is not one of accusation, but one of hope. Hope that the actions of the past will not be repeated, and that no one else will have to suffer the same horror as the people of Hiroshima in 1945.
