Hiroshima

This series of pictures has a different tone from the rest, not at all joyful but a sorrowful one. This is inevitable. In the year of 1945, until August 6th, 08:15 Hiroshima had been entirely saved from the bomb carpets that had fallen on so many other Japanese cities. It turned out that there was a special reason for this. USA had been contemplating to use the newly developed atomic bomb to get an end to the war against Japan. And to be able really study the effects of this newly developed weapon, they excepted the cities that were candidates for atomic bombs from conventional bombing. That list did for quite some time include Kyoto. By the beginning of August, Kyoto had been deleted, but the very idea of this cultural onslaught being considered is frightening. Well, the effects in Hiroshima are frightening enough. Most buildings in a 3 km range were destroyed and about 80 000 persons perished immediately. Another 60 000 died within a year, and many years after people would fell ill in diseases related to the radiation.

I've arranged the pictures, so that first are the pictures from the Peace Park, built on an island in central Hiroshima. The park is full of monuments that in various ways commemorate the bombing, and in many cases I've included both the monument and the explaining signpost that goes with it. Next there are pictures from the Peace Memorial Museum. The entrance fee for this museum is 50 yen (less than a euro!), and it takes a long time to see it all. The last few pictures are from Hiroshima of today.

It was very fitting that this was the rainiest day of the entire trip.

1. Atomic Bomb Dome	2. The T-Shaped Bridge	3. The Peace Bell I	4. The Peace Bell II
5. Children's Peace Monument I	6. Children's Peace Monument II	7. Children's Peace Monument III	8. Children's Peace Monument IV
9. The Peace Cairn I	10. The Peace Cairn II	11. Nakajima Commercial Promotion Center	12. Memorial Mound I
13. Memorial Mound II	14. Memorial Mound III	15. The Koreans' Monument	16. Map
17. Map II	18. Merciful Goddess Kannon of Peace	19. A-Bombed Gravestone	20. Nakajima September 1945
21. Peace Park and Museum	22. Statue of a Prayer for Peace	23. Flame of Peace	24. Cenotaph I
25. Cenotaph II	26. Monument of Prayer	27. Memorial Hall I	28. Memorial Hall II
29. Memorial Hall III	30. Memorial Hall IV	31. Memorial Hall V	32. Memorial Hall VI
33. All Victims	34. All Victims II	35. Memorial Tower I	36. Memorial Tower II
37. Watch	38. Devastation	39. Before the Bomb	40. Lunch Box
41. Nails	42. Assorted Objects I	43. Assorted Objects II	44. A-bomb Dome by Night
45. Tram Bridge	46. Contemporary Art	47. Foggy View	48. Street Scene
49. Aioi-dori	50. Illuminated Building	51. Lights on the River

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