Haven’t had very many moments to blog, but here’s a powerful moment that happened in the middle of our trip:

When we decided to go to Japan, we all knew that visiting Hiroshima was a foregone conclusion. The site of one of the seminal moments in world history, it was our responsibility as American’s to educate ourselves as to what happened there.

The World Peace Museum was very impressive. The first part of the Museum showed the history of Hiroshima and its pace in Japan’s culture. I hadn’t known, for instance, that Hiroshima had been a garrison city, or that it has at one point been the provisional capital. Nor did I know that it was an center of education. This part of the museum also explained, briefly, Japan’s involvement in World War 2, as well as the genesis, creation, and decision to use the Atomic Bomb.

I was impressed by the candor of the museum. It mentioned how the Japanese public was celebrating in the streets over the capture of Nanking, while at the same moment Japanese soldiers were massacring hundreds of thousands of people. It also dealt with the history of the bomb in very sober terms. There was one detail which I hope is not true about the decision to use the bomb- that in addition to the concerns over lives lost/saved by the choice, there was also pressure to use the technology in order to justify the high amount of money spent developing it, as well as pressure to bring Japan to a quick surrender in order to limit Soviet influence, as the USSR had then only just declared war on the Empire.

The devastation was obviously incredible, and the various pictures and models helped the imagination. The next part of the museum was a section devoted to the long-term aftermath of the bomb- the rebuilding of Hiroshima, the post-war occupation period with the United States, the long-term building of trust between the two nations (jump started by the American public’s efforts to secure medical treatment for several survivors with heavy scarring), and the transition of Hiroshima’s identify from being a garrison city- a city of war- to The City of Peace.

And that was it. We hit the gift shop and Jennifer bought a trinket. We moved on to the next hallway, ready to leave.

We entered the next room and instead found a nightmare. We rounded the corner to an exhibit reproducing Hiroshima right at the moment it exploded. Literally the entire city was engulfed in flames for days. Women and children ran from buildings, ther skin literally melting off of their bodies. People, overcome with pain and horror, tried to drown themselves in buckets of water only to find the water boiling hot. People thrown meters through the air when the bomb exploded burned horribly over their entire bodies, and now trying to find their way back to their homes. All reproduced from the memories of survivors.

It got worse, if you can believe it. In glass cases were the physical evidence of the destruction- an entire section was devoted to the uniforms of schoolchildren, worn while they had been forced to work demolition duty, now tattered and gooey with blood. Each came with the story of that child’s death, none of which were instantaneous and all of which were gorier than you would see in a horror movie. One glass case contained the finger tips and skin flaps which had melted off of a child. His mother collected them as he died to show his father. One picture showed a woman who, though well away from the blast, was nevertheless maimed as the super-intense light instantaneously ignited the black pattern on her Kimono, permanently burned into her skin.

The next sections showed examples of destruction to the buildings- twisted metal and boiled shingles. There was the infamous human shadow, where the bomb’s light bleached a building, except where a human being stood to block it.

We had to leave, skipping the section where survivors colored and drew their memories, or the written testimonials. It was just too much.

Altogether, we came away with a much greater sense of what happened that day, and a much greater appreciation for how Hiroshima has recovered. Parts of the streetcar system were operational 3 days after the blast. Mayors of Hiroshima have formally objected to every nuclear weapons test conducted since, and the people of Hiroshima continue to push in myriad ways for nuclear disarmament. Yet they also recognize that nuclear weapons are merely a symptom of war, and that our true duty as a world society is to engender a permanent peace.

Last year, the people of Hiroshima issued a declaration of peace. In it, they recognize Barack Obama for stating that “as the only nation to have used nuclear weapons, the United States has a responsibility to act [for the elimination of such weapons].” The people of Hiroshima are so enthusiastic about Obama that they call themselves, the global majority for peace, the “Obamajority”. They have even created T-shirts with this slogan. I think their hopes may unfortunately be a little high or misplaced, but I guess that’s the mental state you just have to force yourself to exist in when, even after such a dire warning, the world has steadily disappointed for 65 years.