This article is based on a visit made on Monday, 21 November 2016.
Edit 8 October 2019: Updated prices to reflect the increase in Japan's national sales tax.
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (広島平和記念資料館,
Hiroshima Heiwa Kin'en Shiryōkan) is a part of the Peace Park, a plot of land near the epicentre of the atomic bombing in 1945 that was set aside as a monument for peace and nuclear disarmament. Lots of sculptures inspired by those events and concepts dot the grounds of this park, but the museum serves as its centrepiece. It was opened in 1955 and designed by architect
Kenzo Tange, who also designed the
Yoyogi National Gymnasium (1964) and the
Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (1991).
The museum is divided into two halves, the Main Wing and the East Wing. The Main Wing explains the effects of the atomic bomb, and shows various artifacts that survived. The East Wing focuses on the history of Hiroshima and nuclear weapons. At the time of my visit, the East Wing was closed for renovations. It reopened in April 2017, followed by the closure of the Main Wing until April 2019.
A clock in the lobby includes counters of the number of days since the first A-bomb attack on Hiroshima, and the number of days since the last nuclear weapon test. Thanks a lot, North Korea...
Right next to it is a sculpture with a quote from Pope John Paul II. Delivered at Peace Memorial Park in 1981, it says:
"War is the work of man. War is the destruction of human life. War is death. To remember the past is to commit oneself to the future. To remember Hiroshima is to abhor nuclear war. To remember Hiroshima is to commit oneself to peace."
Once we go in to the museum, a life-size diorama depicts the ruins of Hiroshima just after the explosion, and a couple of mannequin people who had been mortally burned. As gruesome as this scene is, it would have been more so if the lighting were brighter. But I guess the mushroom cloud, along with the smoke from all the fires around the place, would have effectively blocked out the sun.
A model re-creation of Little Boy, the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. At a basic level, how it works is thus: a uranium "bullet" is shot into a uranium core at the front of the bomb. When the two pieces are forced together, this intense pressure causes a chain reaction of atomic fission, releasing energy in the forms of kinetic force, heat, and radiation.
This model in the centre of the room illustrates the damage caused by the blast. There was hardly anything left afterwards, as most of the buildings in Hiroshima were still made out of wood. What few structures stood were newer concrete creations. The red ball above the model represents the size of the fireball one second after detonation, at a scaled size of 260 meters in diameter.
The detonation of Little Boy began with a blinding flash of light. It was so powerful that it bleached stone surfaces nearby, except for this spot where a man was sitting in front to block it, only to be evaporated himself.
Charts and photographs along the walls of the museum illustrate the many forms of damage that the bomb inflicted: the flash, the shockwave, the fireball, and the radiation. Some of the pictures depict graphic injuries; I have left them out of my uploaded photos in the interest of sensitivity. There aren't a lot of them, but if you do visit this museum yourself, just be mindful of this prospect.
For what it's worth, the museum does not bother with the political motives behind the use of the bomb, at least not in the parts I visited. Historians have proposed reasons why its deployment may or may not have been as simple as shocking Japan into surrender. Personally, I think this omission is a good thing. For one, it assuages the guilt associated with its use, especially for American visitors. And more importantly, the presence of those facts or opinions would overshadow the most important messages this museum conveys. For all the talk about the bomb's use preventing further war, nobody can deny that being the victim of a nuclear weapon would be a horrible way to go.
Among the more tasteful, but no less impactful, images are these drawings of the fires that engulfed the city overnight. And mind you, the bomb was dropped in the morning, so that conflagration must have lasted a long time!
A wide variety of artifacts had suffered forms of damage, but were recovered and collected for this museum. Clay broke, stone crumbled, glass warped, and even ink burned up while leaving the surrounding paper mostly intact. There are even a few things you are allowed to touch yourself; they are safely devoid of radiation, if you're concerned.
As the dust settled from the bombing, a new form of destruction slowly began to come to notice. Gamma radiation from the bomb had infected the city, damaging cells within living beings and inducing various fatal diseases. A hands-on exhibit demonstrates how radiation, despite being invisible, can be measured. Visitors can crank the handle below to move the reader on the left to or away a block of radioactive metal, and see its findings reflected on the Geiger counter.
Another phenomenon caused by the radioactive fallout was the so-called "black rain". Dirt and soot were kicked up from the ground by the blast's mushroom cloud, absorbed radiation, got absorbed in turn by airborne water vapour, and fell back to earth in rain form.
One of the most well-known victims of radiation was
Sadako Sasaki (佐々木 禎子,
Sasaki Sadako, 1943-1955). Only two years old when the bomb dropped, she was eventually diagnosed with leukemia and given a year to live. With her bleak prognosis, she embarked on a personal mission to fold and craft one thousand origami cranes, as a legend states that doing so will grant a wish. There are conflicting stories as to whether or not she accomplished this task before finally dying in November of 1955; materials on display at the museum say that she had indeed done so. Whether or not it's true, the paper crane has become a symbol of peace and recovery from atomic weapons. There are many more cranes installed on artworks throughout the Peace Park, which I will get to eventually.
Another set of cranes was made by the United States president Barack Obama, who paid a visit to the city during the 2016 G7 summit in Ise-Shima. This made him the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima since the bombing. And Obama would know about nuclear disarmament; in 2010, he signed the New START treaty to mutually reduce the nuclear weapon stockpiles of the US and Russia. His cranes are accompanied by the following quote:
"We have known the agony of war. Let us now find the courage, together, to spread peace, and pursue a world without nuclear weapons."
But one of the most meaningful things imprinted in my mind came near the end of the Main Wing. This photograph was accompanied by the following quote:
"That autumn, in Hiroshima where it was said, 'For seventy-five years nothing will grow', new buds sprouted in the green that came back to life. Among the charred ruins, people recovered their living hopes and courage."
It actually is almost 75 years after the bombing, and I can say first-hand that quite a bit of natural growth has occurred among the "charred ruins". There will be more on display at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, next time on Sekai Ichi!
Hours: Open 8:30 AM to 6:00 PM. Open until 7:00 PM in August, 8:00 PM on 5 and 6 August, and 5:00 PM from December through February. Admission ends 30 minutes before closing time. Closed on 30 and 31 December.
Costs: ¥200. Audio guides, available in Japanese and English, cost ¥200 to rent.
Address: 1-2 Nakajima-chō, Naka-ku, Hiroshima-shi, Hiroshima-ken 〒730-0811
Access: From Hiroshima Station, take tram line
2 or
6 to Genbaku Dome-mae / Atomic Bomb Dome (M10, 15 minutes, ¥190). Walk south for 7 minutes, through the Peace Park, to reach the museum. Alternatively, take tram line
1 to Fukuro-machi (U2, 15 minutes, ¥190), and walk west for 5 minutes, on Heiwa-dori, to reach the museum from the south.
The Peace Memorial Museum is also a stop on the Maple-oop bus. From Hiroshima Station, take any of the three lines to Peace Memorial Park (16 minutes, ¥200, JR Pass OK).
Website:
(English) (Japanese)
