LIVE Hiroshima 80 years later- Peace Memorial Park

LIVE Hiroshima 80 years later- Peace Memorial Park

Hi everyone, JJ Walsh here in Hiroshima. It’s August 3rd. Welcome. I’m walking around Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park today. JB Welsh here. Based in Hidosha, long time for 30 years. Doing a practice run today, August 3rd. I’ll be live streaming again on the actual 80th commemorations on August 6th. And then I’ll be going to doing live streaming and videos again on this channel. Seek Sustainable Japan. I hope you will join if you can’t be here in person uh in Japan this time. It’s always a very powerful event and very important to remember what happened here, but to also find hope and awesome again in the future, which is really the philosophy of the Hiroshima Peace Park. So, I’ll be walking around a little bit. Uh, today I’ve tried different formats. Uh, this is using Prism. Uh, see if the sound and stabilization is a bit better. So, I’d love to hear your comments. I have a few different versions. Let me know which one you like the best and we’ll try to replicate that for August 6th. I’ll turn it around now. So this Abum dome as it’s called now was originally made in 1915 by Czech designer Jan Leo to promote Hiroshima tourism and Hiroshima products and now most certainly it’s the most important reason people want to come and visit Hiroshima. A lot of people had heard of this amazing building that survived the bombing and even days after were making their way here to see this structure. A lot of survivors and their family. They remember growing up playing in the rubble here, playing in the structure. When we came in 1996 was when it was deemed world heritage and that’s when they put this gate around it. But until then it was open and you could walk right into it. But we were happy when the gate and the support beams went inside to protect it and preserve it so future visitors for many generations. We hope and feel the power of a nuclear weapon and imagine the devastation that happens to people if structures like this are so severely damaged. They say the heat of the blast in this immediate area was 3,000 to 4,000 degree heat. And I’ve heard that’s hotter than lava. People who were in the immediate area, if they were out had even if they were inside buildings, if they were near windows in this 2 km blast zone, they had no chance. But there are stories of survivors who were under enough concrete that they were able to survive or who lived beyond the mountain range and the mountains. Here we can see what the building looked like from when it was built in 1915 and what it looked like after. And in 1996 when they started preserving it and the bird’s eye view when it became UNESCO with a gate around it. It’s amazing to see volunteers coming almost every day talking about their stories, their family stories, carrying on the legacy of testimony in Japanese and English. [Music] My kids went to school here and it really impressed me that all Japanese students, all students in Japan have to study peace education and part of it is folding cranes and talking about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But a lot of teachers also get the students to visit these places and talk about how peace could be stronger in their lives. And isn’t it something we should all be doing around the world is promoting peace and trying to learn from the past and hope it never happens in the future. Hey R. Great to see you. Thanks for joining. Say hi if you’re joining me live. You can see the original fountain here and hear the sound of the new fountain behind. This woman has been here from early morning talking about her experience as a survivor and she has photos to emphasize her story. This is actually quite a good day to walk around and see the entire Peace Memorial Park. On August 6, there will be a lot more visitors and a lot of barricades and checkpoints, which is keeping everyone safe, which is important, but it restricts how easily we can walk around on August 6th. So, it’s nice to see a little bit less encumbered today. This is the monument for the mobilized students. Students in junior high school and high school were recruited to work for the military doing different jobs and many of them died here. I love this statue in the front. and all the beautiful paper cranes. So many wonderful colors. Each of these strands likely has a thousand cranes in it, which in Japanese culture symbolizes giving a special wish. You can see the illustrations of the mobilized students at work here in the back. Yeah, it is beautiful, isn’t it, Nikasa? And you can see the illustration of the floating lanterns there. That’s what we’ll be able to see on the evening of August 6th. More mobilized students. A lot of the the girls were working in the making uniforms, repairing uniforms, uh storage. There was a big warehouse which also survived the bombing. It’s called the Abum warehouse in Gishio. And they’ve just designated that they’re preserving that building, too. We’re hoping it’ll be part of an extension of the museum in the future. You can see students here u making fire breaks, clearing the wooden structures to stop fires from spreading once the bombing started. It’s quite heartbreaking to hear the stories from a lot of the families who sponsored this monument as they expected their students to come home because their schools were outside the blast radius or protected inside the school, but they never came home. And a lot of the students were sworn to secrecy not to talk about what they were doing. And so when they didn’t come home, it was a horrible realization to the families that they were working for the military or they weren’t actually the families felt so horribly guilty that they hadn’t protected their children. when you hadn’t known about what they were doing. There’s a lot of heartbreak in the uh stories of the war all over the world. But the whole push telling people not even to tell their families created so much horrible mental anguish. Can see one of the low boats here is making its way to Miaima Island. It’s a nice way to directly link from the peace park here to our other UNESCO World Heritage site of Miaima. Our main shopping street, Honduri. The covered mall goes down here to the left. And this bridge was rebuilt as it used to look. And this whole peace park area was completely destroyed by the bomb. So they rebuilt it, designated as a public park to promote peace and really be a hub for tourism. So all the people wanting to come and learn about what happened here can take part in events and see the beauty of the park and the meaningful monuments. But it was a bustling town. There were lots of restaurants here, houses, temples, schools. This was on the left here. This was one of the surviving buildings before the bomb. It was used as a kimono shop. During the war, it was used as an office allocating fuel. And one person actually survived in here. He was in the top floor uh having a meeting with everyone. He forgot some paperwork. He went down to the basement and he was under enough concrete that he was able to survive. He lived with a lot of survivor guilt as many survivors did. But he dedicated his life to giving testimony saying because he did survive he felt it was his duty to carry on the legacy of telling the story so it never happens again. Here we have the rose garden and we can see the peace line and the beautiful roses are in bloom right now. You can smell the lovely fragrance of rose as we’re standing here. And if we follow this peace line next to the children’s monument here all the way through, you can see the flame of peace and the senotapath and the long horizontal museum all along the main. This children’s monument is in honor of Saddaku Sasaki, a young girl who was two years old at the time of the blast. And she seemed okay. Uh she was very active at elementary school. She was very sporty and she had lots of friends. Um but 10 years later like so many children she developed leukemia and went into hospital. And when she went to hospital her friends and family were folding peace cranes origami sudu cranes of peace. And the idea is if you fold a thousand you get a special wish. and she was also folding cranes but giving them away because she knew she wasn’t getting better. And so in peace education class, all students in Japan are studying peace education and they fold these cranes together as a school. And then when they come to visit, they bring their thousand cranes that they’ve folded and they hang them here after a song or a ceremony or reading a poem just folding cranes and what is peace but I think it’s beautiful and wonderful that we have a chance for the next generation to even consider peace. And look at all of these beautiful handfolded origami cranes. Each thousand cranes hung together symbolizes a special wish. The cranes that can’t be kept here anymore. Many of them are recycled into other materials. You can see they’re even making designs with the cranes. And the cranes they can’t reuse or they can’t keep cuz so many are brought here every year. They take to the sacred island of Miaima and they’re burned at Daishoin at the sacred temple on the mountain and local potters collect the ash from the cranes and reuse it in some of their pottery. It’s such a beautiful, meaningful way to reuse the hopes and wishes of so many people who fold these cranes. We’ll do a little loop here past the flame of peace and the senotap and then I’ll end the video there. I’m trying a few times in different formats. So, if you’re enjoying one of the videos and the sound and the images look good, please write a comment and I’ll try to use the same format when I go live on the 6, the actual commemorations of the 80th anniversary. So, we’re walking up to the flame of peace. And some people think of it as an eternal flame, but the designers of the peace park, they actually want to turn it off when there is no more war and no more nuclear weapons. And I was here in May when punk icon peace activist Patty Smith was here and she was walking to the senotap with a survivor Koa and Koa told her the story of the peace flame and how they want to turn it off when there’s no more war. No more nuclear weapons. And the first thing Patty Smith said to Ko, she said, “I hope that happens really soon,” Patty uh Ko and I was listening. I was in earshot and it was so wonderful to hear and it made me think right on Patty. I love that optimistic view that there could be peace in this world. I think most of us tenants have arch here from this side. We can see the reflection and the beautiful reflection pool here. And then we can see all the tents being set up where thousands of people will sit [Music] and the memorial museum all behind. This will be a very busy day in a few days. So, it’s nice to be able to share it with you today. Thanks for joining everyone. Let’s see if I can get the senate attack by Isamu Noguchi behind me. So, Isamu Noguchi, a Japanese American architect designer. Uh, his design for the whole peace park wasn’t chosen. Kenzo Tang designed the whole park. But Kenzo Tang respected Isamoguchi so much that he chose his central design and that dates back 3,000 years in Japanese history to an ancient burial design. Thanks so much for joining. I hope you enjoyed this walk around Peace Park. Join me again live in 3 days as we come back for the official 80th commemorations.

August 3, 2025 walk around Hiroshima peace memorial park before August 6 live
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