Hiroshima, Japan: An Eternal Hope

Had it not been for the events of August 6, 1945, Hiroshima would no doubt only attract a small proportion of the visitors who come here every year. When we first planned our trip to Japan, my husband said to me at an early stage that we had to visit Hiroshima. In his words, “It’s one of only two places in the world where a nuclear bomb was dropped and we have to see it.” I couldn’t disagree with his logic and I was keen to visit the city, although there was a part of me that wondered whether it was almost as if we were preying on a truly terrible event. I did wonder whether the residents would almost resent tourists coming here to remember the worst day in this city’s history, but nothing could be further from the truth.

It was a warm day when we visited Hiroshima, with a beautiful blue sky, and I caught myself wondering on a number of occasions whether this was the weather on the day that the bomb was actually dropped. It was so peaceful that you could almost imagine life here before that terrible event took place. There’s no danger of anyone ever forgetting what happened, as the center of the city is home to a massive Peace Memorial Park that stretches along the banks of the river. All around the park, Hiroshima is a thriving, modern city with offices and shops. It’s quite an odd feeling to stand on the edges of the park and look the other way and see life carrying on as you would expect in any other major city.

The centerpiece of the Peace Memorial Park is the A Bomb Dome, the one building that remained intact following the bombing. After much deliberation, it was decided in the 1960s to preserve this building and now it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Originally this was the Industrial Promotion Hall and what saved it was the fact that it was so close to the epicenter of the bombing. It’s amazing to look at the building and see how much has survived, with walls completely intact in places and huge gaps elsewhere. It’s a haunting sight and we walked around it in complete silence, almost numbed by what we were seeing. It’s a place for somber contemplation and, although it is a tourist attraction in every sense of the world, it’s not somewhere you come to for photos of you laughing and smiling.