Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park – Beau Photo Supplies Inc.

Earlier this month, I was reminded it was the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. At 8:15am on the morning of Saturday, August 6, 1945, a brilliant flash accompanied by unimaginable heat & sound blasted the city, instantly killing an estimated 65,000 people, which would eventually rise to an estimated 140,000 by the end of the year. Why is this significant for me? My mother lived through it. She saw the brilliant flash. She and her childhood friend were drenched by the black rain. Thankfully, they were protected from the effects of the blast by both distance and a small mountain between them and the small village where they lived.

I was last in Japan to visit family way back in the summer of 1994, when I was but a wee lad. We stayed with my mother’s family in and I also stayed with family on my father’s side. As we stayed in the for over a month, I ventured out on my own to explore. One of the places I went to (twice) is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, which also included the famous dome (UNESCO Heritage Site) in many photographs of the city. I also went to the newly rebuilt (at the time) Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Here are some of the photographs taken by me with a Minolta 7xi SLR and a Minolta 28-105mm xi lens, my first serious camera most likely shot on the greatly missed Fuji Reala film.

The Peace Flame with the Peace Memorial Museum in the background.

The Children’s Peace Monument is a statue dedicated to the memory of the children who died as a result of the bombing. The statue is of a girl with outstretched arms with a folded paper crane rising above her. The statue is based on the true story of Sadako Sasaki (佐々木禎子, Sasaki Sadako), a young girl who died from radiation from the bomb. She is known for folding over 1,000 paper cranes in response to a Japanese legend. To this day, people (mostly children) from around the world fold cranes and send them to Hiroshima where they are placed near the statue. The statue has a continuously replenished collection of folded cranes nearby. – Wikipedia

Close up of the origami cranes.

Close up of the origami cranes.

Some detail shots.

Rental row boats.

The former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall is now the world famous UNESCO Heritage Site, the Genbaku Dome. Because the explosion was almost directly overhead, the building kept its shape. Its vertical columns resisted the blast’s nearly vertical downward force, and parts of the concrete and brick outer walls remained intact. The building’s durability can also be attributed to its earthquake-resistant design; it has survived earthquakes before and since the bombing. Wikipedia