DISCLAIMER: This post has a photo of the deceased in her coffin. If this content would be difficult to view, please skip this blog post.
If there is one hibakusha (bombing survivor) from the atomic bombing on Hiroshima that inspires hope, that would be Sasaki Sadako (Note: Sasaki is her last name, Sadako is her first name).
The photo above is Sadako in her coffin and the photo of her with her roomate.
Sadako was caught up in the bombing at the age of two and was severely irradiated but she survived for another ten years until she succumbed to Leukemia due to the atomic bomb radiation
Before her death, Sadako believed that if she folded one thousand origami cranes, she had a chance of survival.
The story of “One Thousand Origami Cranes” is an ancient Japanese legend which promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by the gods. Some stories believe that you will be granted happiness and eternal good luck.
When you go to Japan, you will see these cranes held together by strings, especially in Hiroshima.
For Sadako, she developed leukemia and at the age of 12, at the hospital, she set out a goal to make a thousand paper cranes.
in the book, “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes”, the book says that she was only able to fold 644 before she became too weak and died on October 25, 1995. To honor her memory, her classmates agreed to fold the remaining 356 cranes for her.
At the museum, it states that she did complete the 1,000 cranes and continued past that when her wish failed to come true.
The following paper cranes that were folded by Sadako were donated by Sasaki Shigeo and Masahiro.
These paper cranes were folded from medicine wrapping paper and other scraps by Sadako, while she was hospitalized for luekemia. She died after fighting her disease for eight months.
A photo of Sadako’s drawstring bag and zori donated to the museum by Sasaki Shigeo and Masahiro.
When the doctors told Sadako’s parents that she had no more than a year to live, her parents wanted to make her happy and bought a silk cloth to make her a beautiful new kimono and when she received her first kimono, she was touched. The bag and the zori (Japanese sandals) were bought to match her kimono. Sadako loved to wear her zori while in the hospital.
The blood test results of Sadako are also featured in the museum. The piece of paper was found under her bed after she had died.
But her belief in making the thousand paper cranes inspired hope and thus she and many children inspired the creation of the Children’s Peace Monument at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum Park. A girl on top of the monument can be seen holding a crane.
This monument stands in memory of all children who died as a result of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The monument was originally inspired by the death of Sasaki Sadako, who was exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb at the age of two. Ten years later, Sadako developed leukemia that ultimately ended her life.
Sadako’s untimely death compelled her classmates to begin a call for the construction of a monument for all children who died due to the atomic bomb. Built with the contributions from more than 3,200 schools in Japan and donors in nine countries, the Children’s Peace Monument was unveiled on May 5, 1958.
At the top of the nine-meter monument, a bronze statue of a young girl lifts a golden crane entrusted with dreams for a peaceful future. Figures of a boy and a girl are located on the sides of the monument.
The inscription on the stone block under the monument reads: “This is our cry. This is our prayer for building peace in the world”. On the surface of the bell hung inside the monument, the phrases “A Thousand Paper Cranes” and “Peace on the Earth and in the Heavens” are carved in the handwriting of Dr. Yukawa Hideki, Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics. The bell and golden crane suspended inside the monument are replicas produced in 2003.
In tomorrow, I continue to post about the heartbreaking images from Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
