Hiroshima is a city of peace.

This is not to distract from the obvious tragedy that has befallen the large city. Reminders of what happened can be found concentrated in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, which is where we spent most of our time while in the city. It’s a large park, dotted with memorials and museums and remainders of the dropping of the A-bomb. Wherever you turn, you’re likely to see something dedicated to the estimated 140,000 victims. Before we went to Hiroshima, I expected something like this; I expected to never be able to forget what happened. I definitely expected the horrible pain that I felt while walking through the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. But there was another feeling I got in Hiroshima, especially in the park, that was totally unexpected. I felt peace.

This is not to say that I am okay with what happened, or that I am trying to forget about what happened and not let it haunt me, because it certainly does. This is just the feeling I got from the park, the memorials, the various works of art in the form of tiny and connected origami paper cranes. I first felt this peace after visiting the A-bomb Dome, located in the park, which is one of the last reminders of the damage that was done to the city of Hiroshima in the bombing. It stands cracked and open to the sky and acts as a resting place for stray cats. We visited the dome after our tour of the museum, and I came from there harrowed and heartbroken. After the dome we took a few minutes to just sit on the edge of the river, the river that held dozens of burning bodies. And the picture was so serene, so different from 74 years ago. I had my first sense of the peace that the people of Hiroshima, the people of the museum and the survivors, wanted for the world instead of the tragedy that they received. This was not the first time I would feel at peace in the park, the park commemorating one of the worst tragedies to happen in world history.

On our second day in Hiroshima, we heard from a speaker who is a second-generation survivor of the A-bomb, and she told us the story of her mother and her aunt and what happened to them during the tragedy. Afterwards, we took tours guided by volunteers, and visited the mound for the victims as well as the Children’s Peace Monument, for the young victim of radiation from the A-bomb, Sadako, whose classmates learned of her untimely death from leukemia and made an effort to erect a monument remembering her and every other child lost to the A-bomb. On this lovely sunny day, we learned about the dedication towards remembering each and every victim and the way that even children were able to come together for this purpose. I felt the special sense of peace I felt the previous day upon learning about the paper cranes, started by Sadako, and what they came to represent for Hiroshima. It is said in Japan that folding one thousand paper cranes will grant you a wish. Sadako knew of this and decided to embark on this mission. Since they were so important to her, paper cranes now decorate Hiroshima’s park at the Children’s Peace Monument and other monuments such as the mound. There are chains hung containing hundreds of the cranes, and art made out of cranes of different colors. This collection of cranes, the community coming together to make a wish, really spoke to me and showed me Hiroshima’s dedication towards their wish for peace.

I’m afraid it comes off as insensitive of me that I found such peace in a park meant to remind you of the untimely and tragic deaths of 140,000 people. This is not what I mean to convey. I was heartbroken walking through the museum, reading the stories of even just a few people, and my heart aches and aches for all the lives lost and changed for the worse. This is one of the worst tragedies in world history, and we should recognize it as such. But I learned an important lesson from Hiroshima, one that I’ll never forget. I learned a lesson about war and peace. Our storyteller from the museum stressed to us that the survivors and second-generation survivors hold no grudges and place no blame on countries or governments, but on the tragedy of war itself. They blame war, and in turn strive so, so hard for peace in the world through their actions.  It is from this that I learned how much Hiroshima values peace and realized how much peace is stressed throughout the park, and was then able to appreciate this feeling of peace I found while walking through.

I hope, if you’re ever in Hiroshima, you can not only remember the victims and their stories, but also recognize the sense of peace that Hiroshima has built for itself and plans to spread to the rest of the world. Hiroshima takes what has happened to it, learns from it, and brings everyone together to fight it and learn from it going forward.