The Agony and Resilience of Hiroshima
Though burdened with painful past, Hiroshima is a city of hope.
Cover photo: View of the Genbaku Domu (原爆ドーム) [The Atomic Bomb Dome], Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, and Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (left), from Hiroshima Orizuru Tower, Hiroshima, Japan (2023). Photo by Danny With Love.
Intro
Monday, August 6th, 1945, began as a typical summer day. The weather was beautiful, bright and sunny. Across the city of Hiroshima (広島市) — “The Wide Island” — some 350,000 people prepared for the day. Commuters rushed to work, children left for school, and soldiers began routine calisthenics.
The previous night had been restless with the sound of wailing sirens, and yet another U.S. plane had just been spotted in the clear, windless skies overhead. Japanese-American Howard Kakita (蠣田 ハワード) was seven years old. He recalls, “school was canceled that day. Happily, we ran home … then the air raid siren sounded again.”
At 8:15 AM, the world’s first atomic bomb was deployed. The weapon possessed a force equivalent to nearly 20,000 tons of TNT. Upon impact, surface temperatures reached 4,000 degrees Celsius (7,230 degrees Fahrenheit), approaching the heat of the sun (5540°C / 10,000°F). The initial blast destroyed nearly everything within a mile radius, incinerating all life. Some 70,000 people died instantly.
A powerful shockwave, firestorm, and torrent of black rain followed in quick succession. Depending on proximity to the bomb’s hypocenter, people suffered varying degrees of burns and radiation.
Hibakusha (被爆者) [atomic bomb survivors] testify to nightmarish scenes of disfigured bodies, melting flesh, and wailing screams. Eight-year-old Emiko Okada (岡田 恵美子) lost her sister. Later, she recalled, “My hair fell out, my gums bled, and I was too ill to attend school.”
By the end of 1945, the bomb and its effects had killed an estimated 140,000 people; after five years the death toll exceeded 200,000.
Atomic Bomb Dome
The bomb exploded approximately 600 meters (2,000 feet) above and 160 meters (525 feet) southeast of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. Nearby Aoi Bridge (相生橋) was the likely target.
Designed by the Czech architect Jan Letzel, the government building had been built in 1915 as an exhibition hall to promote local goods. Because the blast came from directly above, the structure’s brick walls and iron frame endured.
The ruins became known simply as Genbaku Domu (原爆ドーム) [The Atomic Bomb Dome]. Preservation of the remains proved controversial. Opponents argued the dilapidated building was a physical hazard and a symbol of memories too painful to remember.
Finally, the city passed a resolution in 1966 to preserve the hall, and — aside from cement adhesive and additional steel supports — the ruins appear today as they did immediately after the bombing.
The dome was inscribed by UNESCO as a world heritage site in 1996. According to the organization, “It symbolizes the tremendous destructive power, which humankind can invent … [however] it also reminds us of the hope for world permanent peace.” Prior to COVID-19, the site was visited by 1 million tourists annually.
Sadako Sasaki
Sadako Sasaki (佐々木 禎子) was just two-years-old when the bomb was dropped. Her family’s house collapsed but miraculously, she survived, seemingly unscathed. Sadako grew to become a beloved classmate and talented athlete. She was the fastest runner at her school. Then in 1955, ten years after the attack, the suddenly-ill sixth-grader was diagnosed with cancer.
According to Japanese folklore, cranes live for a thousand years, and anyone who folds an orizuru (折鶴) paper crane for each year of a crane’s life will have a wish granted.
Bedridden in the hospital, Sadako began her mission to make senbazuru (千羽鶴) [one thousand cranes] so that she may be healed. Using anything from medicine to candy wrappers, it’s said that she folded 1,000 cranes in just one month, but her prayers remained unanswered.
Sadako continued to make cranes until her death at the age of 12, leaving some 1,300 cranes after her eight-month-battle. Sadako’s classmates vowed to remember her forever. Tomiko Kawano (川野 登美子), Sadako’s best friend, says, “our next four years were consumed with the campaign to build the Children’s Peace Monument.”
The memorial was finally unveiled in 1958, dedicated to Sadako Sasaki and all the children killed by the atomic bomb. The monument was realized with financial contributions from over 3,200 schools in Japan, as well as international donations. Still today, 10 million paper cranes are sent every year from all over the world.
Complicated Legacy
In 2016, Barack Obama was the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima. He declared, “above all, we must reimagine our connection to one another as members of one human race.” In Japan, he left behind four paper cranes he personally folded.
While Obama lamented the loss of life, he stopped short of an official apology. A slim majority of the American public still supports the deployment of the atomic bombs on Japan, but the number appears to decline with each new generation.
Provoked by physicist Albert Einstein, the bomb’s development began in 1941. At its peak, the Manhattan Project employed 130,000 workers across more than 30 sites around the United States.
The secret project ultimately cost a total $2.2 billion, a figure that approaches $30 billion today, adjusting for inflation. Director of War Mobilization James Brynes warned U.S. President Roosevelt, “if the project proves a failure, it will then be subjected to relentless investigation and criticism.”
Motivated by unforgiving public opinion, revenge for the bombing of the Pearl Harbor naval base, fears of growing Soviet influence, the seemingly-suicidal determination of the Japanese Empire, and a desire for unconditional surrender, President Harry Truman approved the immediate deployment of two atomic bombs.
Italy had surrendered in September of 1943 and Germany surrendered in May of 1945, but while Japan was on the defensive, there was no obvious end to bloodshed. Truman announced, “We shall continue to use [atomic bombs] until we completely destroy Japan’s power to make war.”
Days after the bombing of Hiroshima, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on the evening of August 14th, ending World War II.
“I believe, with complete conviction, that the use of the atomic bomb saved hundreds of thousands — perhaps several millions — of lives, both American and Japanese,” argued Manhattan Project physicist Karl T. Compton. Yet another, Luis Alvarez, wrote, “What regrets I have … are tempered with the hope that this terrible weapon … may … prevent further wars.”
In 1947, Hiroshima’s new mayor, Shinzo Hamai (浜井 信三) himself acknowledged, “Yet as some slight consolation for this horror, the dropping of the atomic bomb became a factor in ending the war and calling a halt to the fighting.”
Historians continue to debate the ethics and efficacy of dropping the atomic bomb; while WWII ended, the threat of nuclear annihilation has failed to prevent additional wars. The development of nuclear weapons ushered in the Cold War, provided false justification for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and now lends credibility to Russian threats of devastation amidst the invasion of Ukraine.
Peace
In the atomic aftermath, the city was initially described as a “wasteland.” Manhattan Project scientist, Dr. Harold Jacobsen predicted that Hiroshima would remain uninhabitable for 70 years, yet by autumn weeds emerged from the scorched soil. Radiation levels returned to normal in just one year.
Surviving residents soon returned. Hiroshima was reimagined as a Peace Memorial City, the first in the world. Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park was established in 1954, featuring multiple monuments, memorials, and museums.
Hiroshima is now home to over one million people, triple the population prior to the bombing. While intellectually I understood Hiroshima to be a functioning modern city, I was still amazed to see the metropolis in person, bustling with life, almost as if nothing terrible ever happened here.
Walking the park, I realized I had only once before felt so emotional: at the German concentration camp of Auschwitz. As a Polish-American, in Oświęcim I experienced only grief, but in Hiroshima I was overwhelmed with shame and anger. This tremendous act of violence was done by my own government, ostensibly on my behalf.
At the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall, I found myself in the bomb’s hypocenter, surrounded by 360° panorama of devastation. In another room, I watched the faces of endless victims flash on screen monitors, people of every age. They looked just like my students, my coworkers, and my neighbors. It was impossible not to cry.
At the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, I saw on display burned clothes fused with skin, wallets with singed photos of loved ones, once-carefully-packed lunchboxes, building fragments, gruesome images of bodies, and vivid art of apocalypse created by haunted hibakusha. The museum was torturous in detail, but I was heartened to see the large crowds of international and domestic visitors.
Nearby, the Hiroshima Victims Memorial Cenotaph offers shelter for souls lost to the bomb. The inscription reads, “Let all the souls here rest in peace; For we shall not repeat the evil.” Fujio Torikoshi (鳥越 不二夫) was fourteen-years-old during the attack. He explained, “All I want to do is forget, but … [a]ll I can do is pray – earnestly, relentlessly – for world peace.”
Today
Hiroshima is — and forever will be — synonymous with destruction, but the city is now a thriving metropolis in testament to the tenacity of the human spirit.
Nationally, the city is known for its delicious local cuisine, including fresh kaki (牡蠣) [oysters], okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) [savory noodle pancakes], and momiji (紅葉) [maple] sweets. The nearby island of Miyajima (Itsukushima) offers one of Japan’s most famous sights, the grand floating torii (鳥居) [shrine gate].
While visiting the Atomic Bomb Dome, my friend and I came across Orizuru Tower. We were invited to make paper cranes outside the entrance. Inside, the building held a shop featuring local items, like the destroyed Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall once did.
From the top of the tower, we could see the restored castle in the distance, the festivities of a craft gyoza (餃子) [Japanese dumpling] fair, and the construction of a new football (soccer) stadium. Later, we enjoyed the vibrant nightlife of the entertainment district, Nagarekawa. It’s astounding to think nothing existed here nearly 80 years ago.
Politics
Now, May 19th to 21st, Japan is hosting the annual G7 summit in Hiroshima. For the first time in history, G7 leaders will visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park together. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (岸田 文雄) wrote the following.
I chose Hiroshima to host the G-7 summit because there is no better place to send an urgent message, spoken in one voice by the seven leaders: that we must do everything we can to continue the 77-year-old record of the nonuse of nuclear weapons since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
To that end, I have made it a priority to focus on … enhancing transparency; further reducing the global nuclear stockpile; securing nuclear nonproliferation and promoting the peaceful uses of nuclear energy on that basis; and promoting an accurate understanding of the realities of nuclear weapons use by encouraging visits to Hiroshima and Nagasaki by international leaders and others.
Especially today, with no end in sight for the war in Ukraine, it’s difficult to imagine a future with nuclear disarmament but hibakusha remain hopeful. Sadaki’s friend Kawano — now 80-years-old — urges, “I hope [G7 leaders] come to understand deep down that anyone could suffer the horrifying experience of nuclear devastation so long as nuclear weapons exist on earth and … turn that understanding into political action.”
For the sake of all hibakusha, and for humanity itself, we must remember the tragedy of atomic warfare and eradicate these weapons forever so that history is never repeated.
