Like a Phoenix

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When you think of the city of Hiroshima, what comes to your mind? Atomic bomb, nuclear weapons, a cloud rising ever higher into the sky, forming an enormous mushroom? That was Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. To the people of that city, it must have looked like the end of the world, and for many of them it was. However, for those who came into contact with the radiation, the nightmare was just beginning. Diseases and deformities manifested themselves years, even decades after Little Boy exploded. Even today, the horrors are not over. Hibakusha, or atomic bomb survivors, now are worried about the onset of cancer. No one knows what effect the radiation will have.
This is what I learned in my American textbook. There was a city in western Japan that contained a large number of facilities dedicated for use by the military. It was bombed by the United States to help put an end to the Second World War. Many got hurt, and many died. The End. The only problem with that story is that is not the Hiroshima that I visited. I saw a thriving, bustling, lively city, full of high-rises and restaurants, clubs and movie theaters. The people there were occupied with their daily lives, going about with their jobs, their classes, and their lives. They were not concerned with the events of fifty-five years ago as they rushed to get to the bank before it closed or home in time for dinner.
So, will the real Hiroshima please stand up? As far as I could tell, they both are real. The city remains very aware of their past. Every time there is a nuclear test anywhere, the mayor of Hiroshima writes a letter to that nation’s leader informing him or her of the drastic consequences should another bomb ever fall on human beings. The letters number in the hundreds. The site of the explosion is now a peace park dedicated to universal understanding of the events of August 6, 1945. Inside the park, there is a statue of a little girl. Her name was Sadako, and she was stricken with leukemia at the age of twelve, ten years after being exposed to the bomb’s radiation. She set upon herself the task of constructing a thousand paper cranes, the Japanese symbol of happiness and longevity, from her hospital bed. Although she passed away having only completed 650, children from around Japan finished the task. To this day, schoolchildren make paper cranes and send them by the hundreds to Sadako’s statue to ensure her immortality. The A Bomb Dome across the river was the Industrial Promotion Hall, but a near direct hit from the bomb changed its destiny. It now serves as an eternal reminder of nuclear holocaust, is an iron shell where once there was life and prosperity.
There is also a museum. Its message is simple, driven home with sledgehammer force. The exhibits include the tattered clothes of children who managed to return home to their parents only to die in their arms. There is a giant-sized panoramic view of Hiroshima the day the bomb fell; the picture shows only rubble and dead bodies. Another exhibit is a map marking every location that hosted a nuclear bomb test since 1945, and a corresponding chart informing the world of all the accidental deaths those bomb tests caused. The message presented is painfully simple. There must never again be a nuclear bomb. Many leaders of the world’s nations have come to this museum and pledged a message to that effect. Current leaders of the nuclear powers were conspicuously absent from the sign-in books, but the hope remains that they too will come.

Hiroshima: castle town, site of nuclear devastation, thriving commercial town, international city of peace. Why was this city chosen to be the victim? Most of the other cities in Japan were already in ruins. It was a great opportunity for America to see just how effective their A-bomb could be. The bomb affected not just the Japanese. Hundreds of Koreans were working in Hiroshima at that time, and perished in the cataclysm. Sadly, no memorial was created for foreigners until 1970. Now the Japanese government has made great efforts to offer medical aid to victims who returned to other countries, but it is difficult to find them.
In Hiroshima, they will never forget what happened. Many still suffer, either physically or psychologically from the bomb and the radiation. However, the silver lining that I saw was bright and clear. Hiroshima, reborn like a phoenix, is a testament to the world that humanity will survive and triumph no matter the odds. Many citizens have dedicated their lives towards international cooperation and the pursuit of the destruction of all nuclear weapons from the Earth. There is a flame that burns days and night underneath the cenotaph that contains all the names of the Japanese victims. It has been burning since the creation of the memorial, but it is not eternal. It will be extinguished when nuclear weapons are no more. The entire peace park exists not only to understand that terrible day in 1945, but also to make sure that the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be the only two in history. Under the T-shaped bridge, which is thought to be the target for Little Boy, I saw a pair of jet-skiers playing and laughing, oblivious to the severity of the monument mere feet from them. Do you want to understand Hiroshima? It is a place that remembers the past, relishes the present, and fights for a better future. It is an ancient castle town, the site of nuclear holocaust, and the brightest beacon for the future that currently exists on Earth.

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