During our week-long field trip across Japan, our group stayed in Hiroshima for two nights. The city of Hiroshima and the surrounding area are beautiful and peaceful. In the beginning of our visit, we enjoyed the scenery, shrines, and temples of Miyajima Island and interacted with the native deer (who are slightly aggressive and will eat absolutely anything!). We also tried various foods, such as okonomiyaki – a Hiroshima speciality. Still, in my opinion, the most impactful aspect of our trip to Hiroshima was visiting the Hiroshima Peace Museum.
The Hiroshima Peace Museum highlights how important it is to be immersed in a subject in order to truly understand it. Before visiting Japan, I researched the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and was horrified by the destruction that occurred. As a part of the research process, I read first-hand accounts of individual experiences with the atomic bombings. With this, I began to understand the magnitude of these disasters and how many lives were destroyed by the bombings. But researching a topic from a distance still cannot expose the true reality of an event, so the Hiroshima Peace Museum was crucial to my understanding of this tragedy.
Upon arriving at the museum, a line of visitors was forming – even though we got to the museum before it opened. We were also greeted by several TV reporters. The craze was due to the G7 Peace Summit, which coincidentally took place on the same weekend of our visit! This meant the museum was closed all weekend, so many people wanted to visit on the same Monday morning as us. The TV reporters were eager to interview visitors to gauge reactions to the G7 Summit, so some people in our group were interviewed! Despite the commotion outside, the tone greatly shifted once we entered the museum. When I visit most museums, I’m used to crowds excitedly discussing the exhibits, but most people at the Hiroshima Peace Museum kept to themselves throughout their experience. The main exhibit began with an introduction and a floor simulation of the bombing. This was followed with an extensive collection of artwork, photographs, and artifacts that document the bombing of Hiroshima. I was consistently speechless, shocked, and moved by each item that told a story about the bombing. Photographs were gory and difficult to view – which emphasizes the harsh reality that many individuals had to face after the bombing attack. It was most challenging to view the artifacts from the Hiroshima bombing. Some of these items included destroyed pieces of houses or melted glass, which showed how much damage Hiroshima’s infrastructure suffered. However, many of the artifacts belonged to individuals who were killed by the bombing or who lost loved ones. Some items were personal belongings, like a pair of glasses or a lunch box. There were dozens of journals, diaries, and letters. The museum also includes many articles of clothing, such as dresses or children’s’ school uniforms. Nearly all of these artifacts were accompanied by a story about the victim. One artifact I viewed was a pinkish-brown silk shirt that belonged to a victim. I began to read their story, where their loved one explained that they attempted to clean the shirt but were never able to remove the bloodstains. I was horrified when I read that this silk shirt was initially white – there was no trace of the clean, white color left.
These lasting impacts, leaving their mark on history, highlight how the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki truly destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives. One of the primary messages I received from my visit to the Hiroshima Peace Museum was that humanity cannot make the same disastrous mistakes again. There are countless victims who lived through the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings who want to spread this lesson to the world. I feel that visiting this museum forces individuals to confront the reality of nuclear weapons, which is one of the most persuasive ways to prove that we must not use these weapons again. The museum proves how many innocent lives were changed forever after the atomic bombings, so I hope that messages promoting peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons can continue to spread.
