Children's Peace Monument - Hiroshima, Japan
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denben
N 34° 23.646 E 132° 27.167
53S E 265833 N 3808795
The Children's Peace Monument is a monument for peace to commemorate Sadako Sasaki and the thousands of child victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. It is located in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan.
Waymark Code: WMZBDP
Location: Hiroshima, Japan
Date Posted: 10/13/2018
Views: 2
Sadako Sasaki, a young girl, died of leukemia from radiation of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945.
Designed by native artists Kazuo Kikuchi and Kiyoshi Ikebe, the monument was built using money derived from a fund-raising campaign by Japanese school children, including Sadako Sasaki's classmates, with the main statue entitled "Atomic Bomb Children".
The statue was unveiled on 5 May 1958, the Japanese Children's Day holiday. Sadako Sasaki, who died of an atomic bomb disease radiation poisoning is immortalized at the top of the statue, where she holds a wire crane above her head. Shortly before she passed, she had a vision to create a thousand cranes. Japanese tradition says that if one creates a thousand cranes, they are granted one wish. Sadako's wish was to have a world without nuclear weapons.
Thousands of origami cranes from all over the world are offered around the monument. They serve as a sign that the children who make them and those who visit the statue desire a world without nuclear war, having been tied to the statue by the story that Sadako died from radiation-induced leukemia after folding just under a thousand cranes, wishing for world peace.
Beneath the main structure lies a bronze crane that works as a wind chime when pushed against a traditional peace bell from which it is suspended. The two pieces were donated by Nobel Prize winner, Hideki Yukawa.
At the base of the monument is a black marble slab on which is inscribed in Japanese: Kore wa bokura no sakebi desu. Kore wa watashitachi no inori desu. Sekai ni heiwa o kizuku tame no.
"This is our cry, this is our prayer: for building peace in the world".
The figures that surround the monument are angels, representing that Sadako is in heaven among the other fallen angels who died during the atomic bombing in Hiroshima.
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