Page 228 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Japan

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HIROSHIMA PEACE

MEMORIAL PARK
EXPERIENCE Western Honshu ! B5 ⌂ Hiroshima Prefecture ~ Hiroshima Airport 25 miles (40 km) E
広島平和記念公園

£ Shin kansen line g v Genbaku-Domu-mae # Peace Memorial Museum:
8:30am–6pm daily (to 5pm Dec–Feb; to 7pm Aug) ∑visithiroshima.net

For the worst of reasons, Hiroshima needs no introduction. Each year
millions of visitors are drawn to the city where so many people were
wiped out in one instance of apocalyptic destruction. Built in the 1950s,
this poignant park remembers this earth-shattering event.

The half-melted wreckage of the A-Bomb Dome – the former
Industrial Promotion Hall – stands at the hypercenter of the blast. THE BOMBING OF
By the northern entrance to the park is the Peace Bell and the HIROSHIMA
Memorial Mound, which contains the ashes of tens of thousands As World War II dragged
of people cremated here. Farther into the park is the Children’s on into the summer of
Peace Monument, depicting a girl with a crane. A victim of the 1945, the US decided to
bomb, this girl believed that she would recover if she made deploy an entirely new
1,000 paper cranes. She did not survive, but fresh paper cranes weapon to force Japan
sent by school children adorn the memorial. Across the road is to surrender. On August
the Flame of Peace, which will only be extinguished when nuclear 6 a B-29 bomber sent

weapons have been eliminated, and the Cenotaph. Designed by the first atomic bomb
Kenzo Tange for the victims of the bomb, this chest contains down on Hiroshima, a
the names of all those who died, together with an inscription city that had seen little
that reads “Rest in peace. We will never repeat the error.” The conventional bombing.
centerpiece of the park is the Peace Memorial Museum. Poignant It exploded at 8:15am,
exhibits include a half-melted bronze Buddha, a mangled 1,900 ft (580 m) above
tricycle, and the imprint of a dark shadow on the granite steps the city center. Tens of
of the Sumi tomo Bank building – the sole remains of someone. thousands of people
were killed instantly by
the blast, and the death
toll rose to 200,000 over
the following years as
after-effects took hold.
Nagasaki (p266) suf-
fered a similar fate
three days later.

Paying respect to
the victims at the
curved Cenotaph

Strings of paper cranes hanging on
the Children’s Peace Monument
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