We left Kyoto after six days of magical time for HIROSHIMA by SS-2 hours ride-stayed for two days a blok away from PEACE MEMORIAL PARK in a small ryokan.
Hiroshima is a young vibrant internatoinally minded city,will always be remembered for that instant on 6th AUGUST 1945 when it became the WORLDS FIRST ATOMIC BOMB TARGET.
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is a constant reminder of that tragic day and it attracts visitors from all over the world.
ATOM BOMB DOME-this building is THE SYMBOL OF DESTRUCTION VISITED UPON HIROSHIMA-now a UNESCO world heritage site(USA and UK voted against it!)-this building was the Industrial Promption Hall until the bomb exploded 125meters directly above it-its proped ruins,floodlit at night like a fire glow,have been left as an eterenal reminder of the tragedy.
They said at the time that nothing will grow here for 75 years-but guess what! a tree called phoneix burned to ashes strarted growing only after 3 months and that tree gave survivors hope that they can re-build their lives again and boy that is exactly what they have done-a miracle.
For many around the world,this bombing is still a potent symbol of peoples inhumanity,and even more so for the remaining 125,000 Hiroshima atomic bomb survivors today called HIBAKUSHA.
The youngest hibakusha today is 62 years old,in the womb when the bomb was dropped by ENOLA GAY(B529 US bomber).About 5000 have died each year in the past 13 years. Thousands of school children from around JAPAN visit the site every day bringing paper cranes with them,singing peace songs and placing hundreds of candle lit paper lantern in to the river and its very moving to have witness this and I had to be left alone for a moment as I overcame with emotions.
The bomb killed 75,000 instantly and other 75,000 died from burns and radiations over the next few weeks -3km radius everything destroyed.
Peace Memorial Park includes CENOTAPH that contains the names of all the known victims of the bomb-it also contains FLAME OF PEACE,which will only be extinguished once the last nuclear weapon on earth has been destroyed,and the Atomic Bomb Dome across the river.
Peace Memorial Park also contains CHILDRENS PEACE MEMORIAL inspired by young bomb leukaemia victim SADAKO.She died long time ago but her dream and her work is carried on by youngsters of JAPAN even today.
Peace Memorial Park also contains PEACE MEMORIAL MUSEUM.This museum narrates the events preceding,during and after the atomic bombing of Hirosima. Museum contains real life stories,burnt out clothes,bits of skin,nails etc,explains Japans role in the war and Japanese do blame themselves for starting the war with USA and not accepting the ceasefire when it was offered by USA before bombing but it also explains the real reasons for USA to drop two aomic bombs over Japan(the other in NAGASAKI-3 dyas latter-this was twice the size of Hiroshima bomb).The reasons were political as JAPAN was losing the war at the time anyway-but the atomic bombing did bring WWII to a halt. For us and Dipak in particular this was an overwhelming experience and a potent symbol of idiocy of atomic weapons and war in general.
Hiroshima is a young vibrant internatoinally minded city,will always be remembered for that instant on 6th AUGUST 1945 when it became the WORLDS FIRST ATOMIC BOMB TARGET.
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is a constant reminder of that tragic day and it attracts visitors from all over the world.
ATOM BOMB DOME-this building is THE SYMBOL OF DESTRUCTION VISITED UPON HIROSHIMA-now a UNESCO world heritage site(USA and UK voted against it!)-this building was the Industrial Promption Hall until the bomb exploded 125meters directly above it-its proped ruins,floodlit at night like a fire glow,have been left as an eterenal reminder of the tragedy.
They said at the time that nothing will grow here for 75 years-but guess what! a tree called phoneix burned to ashes strarted growing only after 3 months and that tree gave survivors hope that they can re-build their lives again and boy that is exactly what they have done-a miracle.
For many around the world,this bombing is still a potent symbol of peoples inhumanity,and even more so for the remaining 125,000 Hiroshima atomic bomb survivors today called HIBAKUSHA.
The youngest hibakusha today is 62 years old,in the womb when the bomb was dropped by ENOLA GAY(B529 US bomber).About 5000 have died each year in the past 13 years. Thousands of school children from around JAPAN visit the site every day bringing paper cranes with them,singing peace songs and placing hundreds of candle lit paper lantern in to the river and its very moving to have witness this and I had to be left alone for a moment as I overcame with emotions.
The bomb killed 75,000 instantly and other 75,000 died from burns and radiations over the next few weeks -3km radius everything destroyed.
Peace Memorial Park includes CENOTAPH that contains the names of all the known victims of the bomb-it also contains FLAME OF PEACE,which will only be extinguished once the last nuclear weapon on earth has been destroyed,and the Atomic Bomb Dome across the river.
Peace Memorial Park also contains CHILDRENS PEACE MEMORIAL inspired by young bomb leukaemia victim SADAKO.She died long time ago but her dream and her work is carried on by youngsters of JAPAN even today.
Peace Memorial Park also contains PEACE MEMORIAL MUSEUM.This museum narrates the events preceding,during and after the atomic bombing of Hirosima. Museum contains real life stories,burnt out clothes,bits of skin,nails etc,explains Japans role in the war and Japanese do blame themselves for starting the war with USA and not accepting the ceasefire when it was offered by USA before bombing but it also explains the real reasons for USA to drop two aomic bombs over Japan(the other in NAGASAKI-3 dyas latter-this was twice the size of Hiroshima bomb).The reasons were political as JAPAN was losing the war at the time anyway-but the atomic bombing did bring WWII to a halt. For us and Dipak in particular this was an overwhelming experience and a potent symbol of idiocy of atomic weapons and war in general.
The Dome Building before the bomb explosion.
Clock frozen at exact time of explosion.
The Dome Building after explosion-now known as ATOMIC BOMB DOME
Atomic Bomb Dome at night
Day scene
We all had a very emotional day
Cenotaph(containing names of all known victims) and Flame Of Peace
Children offering prayers for world peace
This prayer bell has prayers written in Hindi all over-we think it was gift given to Japanese people from people of India
Paper cranes-thousands of them
2 comments:
The story was Japan, was trying to surrender but inspite of that the US chose to bomb, 1st to experiment, 2nd to deter others Russia in particular.
US policy was kill as many Japs as possible, this was an act of Barbarism on part of the USA and a War crime, but as you know they are answerable to nobody, since WWII they murdered 3 million Vietnamese men women and children to no end. On 20th June 2007 they murdered 4 women and 3 babies by Air bombardment of a school in Afghanistan so they carry on
Dipak...
Atomic bombs were dropped for political reasons rather than to bring WWII to an end and this was explained at the museum ...two main reasons were given and this is backed up by copies of secret letters on view between President of US and his generals.
(Germany had already surrender Hitler was dead,Japan was losing the war and was going to lose in a month or two with or without atomic bombing)
Firstly Russians were looking to carv up Europe and Asia and so to prove to Russians that America is strong and mighty and has these bombs and will use against Russians if needed so they dropped them on Japan to scare Russia.
Secondly...American public opinion was against America spending 4 billion dollars plus over 120,000 manpower to produce a bomb the American public have not yet seen so they dropp two on Japan to prove that money was well spent.
There are many more reasons like you said experiment and so on...You have to admire people of Hiroshima for forgiving the Americans though...Japan atomic bombing made one thing sure for future wars with US and that is US will never use atomic weapons again unless US mainland is
threatened,this again is seen from secret letters on display...
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