Hiroshima

Hiroshima was at the top of my list of what I wanted to do in Japan.  I felt that as an American, if given an opportunity, I needed to go.  I can't really explain that eloquently, but it's a mixture of wanting to learn, wanting to simply see it in person, and needing to understand the impact that my country has on the rest of the world.  And maybe the latter is so that I understand my significance and responsibility as a citizen a little bit better. So today we took the bullet train to Hiroshima.  

I read historical fiction all the time as a kid and at an early age could tell you about Egypt, the Civil War, Revolutionary War, and Holocaust--but Hiroshima never came up in those books. Japanese internment camps did rarely, but more frequently Pearl Harbor and the Nazis.  In high school and junior high, our science classes watched a 1980's-quality bore-fest documentary about the making of the atomic bomb about the time that we studied atoms.  (But more commonly whenever we had a substitute teacher).  We learned in history that the US had used atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WWII and retaliate for Pearl Harbor.  It always included a picture or video of the practice bombs so we could understand the mushroom cloud effects, but then we moved onto the next event or topic without much more discussion.

Today I gained a new perspective.  Being in Hiroshima, I felt extremely uneducated about our own history, and so for that reason, I'm going to share some of what I experienced and learned.

We took the old timey streetcar to the "A-Bomb Dome", which is one of the few remaining buildings from 1945.  There were several tourists and even groups, but it was quiet and respectful.  The building is only partially standing because of some physics equation in how the bomb exploded almost directly above and how that didn't allow the vacuum it created knock it down.  Physics makes minimal sense to me, so google that if you want more info.

Knowing that, in this building, hundreds of people died instantly was very sobering.  It was sobering knowing that all of the area surrounding us was flattened instantaneously while the fireball burned mothers, fathers, and children at 300,000 degrees F.  For the first time in my life, I felt very, very uncomfortable for being an American.

The sidewalks were literally lifted up and moved to the side,
and the rubble made it difficult to escape, so survivors swam across the river.
One survivor's story said it wasn't long before the entire river
was full of bloated bodies.

The museum was graphic.  1945, in history books, feels so far away to my 25 year old self, but it's really not--and the details showed that, making it somehow both more graphic and personal.  It was not just "a victim's" school uniform or survivor's card, it recorded the name and age of the person, where they were, and what they were doing at the moment of death or injury. Photos of victims with 90-100% of their bodies burned, 4 foot tall dioramas of melted skin hanging off people's bodies as they tried to locate their family or homes in the rubble, the tricycle and partly melted helmet a 3 year old was riding in front of his house.  I have dissected human bodies in gross anatomy, and yet there were several times I had to turn my eyes away. 

I learned that the Japanese press was prohibited from reporting about the bomb and that maybe half the victims survived in utter pain for 1-4 days before dying. 12 American prisoners of war were killed as well as thousands of Koreans and Chinese who were brought to Japan to assist with the labor shortage. I learned that ink letters and numbers could literally be burned off a page, leaving holes in their shapes, that a crate of glass bottles could fuse together into one mass, watches stopped at the exact second of the explosion.  I learned thousands of the corpses were brought to America for research purposes, to study the bomb's effects on the human body (despicable, I think, but at least they were returned to Japan 20 years later).   And, I learned America almost accidentally dropped a bomb on itself not one, but three times afterwards.  (Which is a little terrifying!)

Because our high school history books only briefly mention an utterly devastating event in human history, I am extremely grateful we were able to go today and learn and gain perspective.  I am also grateful to be an American and have the freedom to learn (and write) about both the positive and negative sides of our country's past.  

Origami cranes on the children's memorial,
signifying hope & wishes for peace

Here is an in-utero survivor's story, with lots of interesting info I didn't know (with a little propaganda on the side, if you're into that).