Understanding the Atomic Bomb Tragedy at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

I had mixed emotions about our visit at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Though we enjoyed the beauty of the cherry blossoms around the park, I will be honest that I also had an emotional experience while we were in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park may look like a typical park with plenty of cherry blossom trees, fountains, a river, and lawns. However, it is still a memorial park.

The park has Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Hall. Both of which were built to share the tragedy of the atomic bombing and advocate for peace.

In the 1940s, the USA launched atomic bombs that targeted Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan. Due to the bombings’ devastating effects, Japan was forced to surrender, thus ending the World War II in East and Southeast Asia.

To give you my personal perspective– I’m a Filipino. My country was one of the nations badly affected by the Japanese invasion. Growing up, I share the sentiments of my elders. I know from stories what my grandparents and my great-grandparents endured during the Japanese invasion. I’ve always thought that the US atomic bombing against Japan was just another necessary move. A sweeping action is needed to defeat the enemy and put an end to the war. Many war histories I’ve read support this view. But I never considered the story from the “other side”, the side of the Japanese people who suffered from the atomic bombing.

And the stories proved to be harrowing. I cannot go so much into the details as I’ve read those stories more than a year ago but let me share some highlights—

In several stories, the victims shared that right after the bombing, they had difficulty seeing and breathing. The air felt thick and hot. Their eyes and skin began to feel sore. It turned out that nuclear bombing causes immense heat. The heat slowly burns whoever touches its air. To be blunt, it is much like slowly burning someone alive.

Some hours and days passed and they began to feel severely thirsty. They tried to drink water from the river. But the river was also contaminated with radiation and drinking water from the river only worsened their condition. They tried to drink water from the rainfall but that too was contaminated. Many of them died from burn injuries from radiation. The burning process took a few days to weeks. It was a terrible way to die.

Those who survived endured other consequences of radiation. They suffered from loss of limbs, cancer, and skin diseases. The list goes on.

This is in the Peace Memorial Hall. Water was used to symbolize the severe thirst that the burn victims experienced because of the atomic bombing. This shape also symbolizes the time that the atomic bomb was launched at Hiroshima. 8:15 am. On the wall are the names of the thousands of victims who suffered during the bombing.

The most difficult part of this is that the victims were civilians. They were children, mothers, fathers, and grandparents. They thought that day was just another ordinary day. They believed they would all see their loved ones again for another day. Then, this atomic bombing permanently devastated their lives.

Midway through our visit in the museum, I had to excuse myself to the washroom. I let out a tear, took deep breaths, and said a prayer. I’m a Catholic. I said the Our Father but it didn’t feel right when it came to the part of “Thy will be done” and “Forgive us our sins”. It made me question if this event is God’s will and how can anyone forgive this monstrosity. I mention this in this blog post not to discourage faith, but to highlight the museum’s evocative effect.

Honestly, the tours in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and Peace Memorial Hall can be deeply saddening. Paradoxically, it is this evocative effect that makes Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park a must-see tourist spot in Hiroshima. It gives a different perspective on suffering. At the same time, it forces one to appreciate the peace we have now in our generation.

At the end of our visit I realized that the World War II wasn’t a story of “us vs them”. It was collective story. All of “us”, a whole of humanity, forced in a war, in a chaos, and a tragedy, a shared history where really no one won at the end.