Hiroshima

On August 31, 1946, a little more than a year after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a journalist named John Hersey published a 31,000 word article in the New Yorker about six people who survived the bombing.

Here is the opening sentence:

“At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning, on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk.”

I implore you to read his work. A recent article in Esquire calls it out as still relevant to read today. If you cannot find a copy, let me know and I will get one to you.

I won’t lie, this was a very difficult stop. The emotional weight of Hiroshima is heavy and meaningful. So many lives lost in one place, at one time.

Of course you gravitate towards the building now known as the Atomic Bomb Dome. In an earlier life the building was an exposition hall. It survived the bomb because it was nearly directly below the hypocenter and the blast force mainly directed downwards rather than out and so the brick walls managed to stay standing. Of course it was consumed in the conflagration that followed but today it is still there, as a silent reminder.

There is an information panel in front of the Dome that shows you what it looked like before and after the bombing.

Also in front of the Dome is a memorial marker where people have left flowers and bottles of water.

Heartbreaking even to write now but the water has been left at the memorial because so there were many accounts of those who survived talking about the crying out of the wounded for water as they died in the hours after the bombing.

Across the river is the Peace Park, and in the park is a burial mound that contains the ashes of over 50,000 victims of the bombing. Leading up to it are the stairs from the Bank of Japan building that survived the blast.

Close to it is the cenotaph to those who died. It is updated annually with the named of those who lived in Hiroshima at that time but have now died. There are now over 297,000 names on the cenotaph.

Gut wrenching to be sure. There also is a museum on the Peace Park grounds but we just couldn’t go.

Honestly, if you come to Japan, Hiroshima is just a 2 hour bullet train from Osaka (4 hours from Tokyo). That makes a day trip possible. If you can make it, you should come.