Hiroshima
6-15-2012 3:22:23 PM
Friday, June 15th
Today, Chris and I went to the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Museum. This museum remembers the victims of the atomic bomb. They had displays that told the actions leading to the event, lists of the 140,000 victims next to their pictures, pieces of the destruction, and even testimonials from survivors. It reminded me of the Holocaust Museum.
A-Bomb Dome
When the atomic bomb went off over Hiroshima at the end of WWII, only a few buildings were left (somewhat) standing. The few that were left were made of concrete and reinforced steel beams. The insides were incinerated, like the rest of everything in the city. The A-Bomb Dome has been preserved for future generations to see what happened and know the truth. It was formerly the government’s Prefecture Industrial Promotion Hall, which was the building that served to promote Hiroshima’s industries.
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
The most disturbing effects of the bomb were not the mangled possessions or the blown apart city, but the effect that the bomb had on the inhabitants of the city. If you managed to live through the explosion, then you had to survive the massive fires that broke out all over the city. With the combined heat from the bomb and fires, people had horrible afflictions, ranging from terrible burns that seared the patterns of their kimonos and yukatas into their skins to burns that literally caused their skin to start melting off their bodies, as seen in the picture below. If you managed to survive this, it was very likely you would die by radiation poisoning, contaminated water, or cancer.