Saturday 30 April 2016

Peace Park

The Peace Park stretched near Aioi Bridge on the banks of the Ota River. It was overcast and humid, the low-hanging clouds threatening rain. Sakura trees in full bloom lined the path along the river, and the bank was crowded with small bands of locals enjoying hanami — picnics under the cherry blossoms. People laughed and ate and drank sake in the park, the ghost of the Atomic Bomb Dome behind them. 

Today, skyscrapers, sports stadiums, and high-rise apartments crowd Hiroshima’s skyline, and the city’s train and streetcars are always packed with commuters and tourists. The castle has been fully restored, trees have been planted, and conbinis have popped up on every corner. Hiroshima feels, in many ways, like every other big city, and much more metropolitan than any place I’ve been in Ehime.

***

A few weeks before, when we were planning our trip, John had asked me what I wanted to do in Hiroshima. The first thing I told him was that I wanted to visit the Peace Memorial. Maybe saying I ‘wanted’ to visit the memorial is misleading; it was more like something I felt compelled to do, that I needed to do. 

But when John asked me why I wanted to go, I was at a loss. I eventually told him I thought it was important to do, as an American, but that didn’t quite capture it. For once, I had trouble finding the words.

***

There is no entrance to the Peace Park; the first sign we encountered was a plaque on the Aioi Bridge, directly over which the bomb was dropped. The bridge buckled and snapped in the shockwaves, I read, but it didn’t collapse until many years later.

The focal point of the Peace Park is the Atomic Bomb Dome, the shell of a former prefectural exhibit hall, where government work and events were held for the entire Chugoku region, as well as for Shikoku, where I live. Today, the iron framework of the once-green dome and the building’s peeling exterior remain the only visible signs of the bombing.

The plaque outside the dome informed me that many wanted the building demolished— it was a reminder of an event no one wanted to remember — but eventually, those in favor of preservation won the battle, and the dome was being reinforced with steel beams when we were there, to ensure that it will remain the same.

Smaller memorials dotted the walkway, and we visited each one in turn. Other tourists posed for photos as they rang the bell for peace, a large iron bell like the ones found in Buddhist temples, inscribed with sanskrit around the edges. A clock stood on top of an iron double-helix, and I learned that it tolls at 8:15 every morning — the time when the bomb was dropped.

***

My freshman year of college, I remember reading John Hersey’s “Hiroshima” in my Freshman Year Seminar. When I finished, my head was swimming. My country did this. We did this in a “good” war. We did this with an idea of what the bomb could do. We did this, but history books still record us as the heroes.

***

Near the middle of the park stood a display consisting of thousands of multi-colored paper cranes, in memory of a 6th-grade girl who developed fatal leukemia from the radiation and folded increasingly tiny cranes during her hospitalization. At the center of this display was a statue of children with a crane at the top; this memorial was the result of a petition by the girl’s classmates, and it commemorated the child victims of the bombing. 


***

Japan is not perfect. It is a country — beautiful, rich in culture, populated by many wonderful people — like any other. It has committed atrocities in China, and during World War II, it wasn’t blameless either.

But whether or not Japan is innocent is not the issue. 

Hiroshima was chosen as a target based on its population (around 300,000 at the time) and its influence in the country and the region. The bomb was dropped in a location guaranteed to do damage. It is estimated that around 140,000 people died in the year following the bombing, and 90 percent of the buildings in Hiroshima were either leveled or damaged beyond repair. In the blast, which reached around 3,000 degrees celsius, sandstone Buddhas were melted, human shadows were burned into buildings’ edifices, and trees were incinerated from the inside.

***

Inside the museum (half of which was closed for renovation and won’t reopen until 2018), the primary exhibit comprised artifacts collected after the bombing. We moved slowly through the exhibit hall, which was crammed full of people, and I read every plaque. A student’s lunch sat carbonized, but still uneaten, in his bento box. A teacher’s eyeglasses and nametag were the only things returned to her son when she disappeared. One woman kept her son’s fingernails and bits of skin to show her husband when he returned home. A boy on his tricycle was engulfed in flames in the blast; he and the tricycle were buried together in the backyard. 

***

I left the exhibit and found John sitting on a bench, looking straight ahead. I joined him, and together we sat for a few minutes, not saying anything. Some visitors left comments in the visitor’s notebook, but everything I wanted to write had already been said.

The Hiroshima bombing is not my story, but I feel bound to it; it’s a reminder of the horrors that people — Americans, like me — are capable of. In the atrium of the museum I’d read a quote from Pope  John Paul II about the bombing: “To remember the past is to commit oneself to the future.” 

***

We left the museum and walked again among the picnickers. Later that afternoon, we visited Hiroshima castle, where we saw samurai armor and ate sake-flavored ice cream under the cherry blossoms.

At the museum, a docent had told John in Japanese that researchers and archaeologists still discover melted roof tiles in the Ota River. I read that, today, survivors still have shards of glass removed from their bodies. At the castle grounds, two trees — a eucalyptus and a willow — that survived the bombing stood, supported by twine and stakes.

Yet, everywhere in Hiroshima, life goes on. Office workers swipe their streetcar passes on their daily commutes. Children run through parks and complain that their parents are too slow. Picnickers drunk on sake stumble home, trying not to drop their blankets along the way.

Hiroshima has remembered the past. But the city’s story doesn’t end on Aug. 6, 1945.



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