Our Day in Hiroshima: A Moving Experience

Our Day in Hiroshima: A Moving Experience

Our first stop was at the Ruins of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, now called the Atomic Bomb Dome. It felt almost surreal. Our feelings quickly shifted to reflection. As our Japanese guide spoke about the raw destructive force of the atomic bomb, his words shifted to forgiveness, resilience, and the future.

As we listened to his words, we could hear the sounds of a beautiful spring day. Life around the site has returned. We enjoyed the beauty of trees, the laughter of schoolchildren, and a skyline of modern buildings. There was a bittersweet sense of hope.

The Atomic Bomb Dome stands in skeletal remains. Its steel dome is twisted and blackened, its brick walls half-standing, half-collapsed. And yet, it’s still there, stubbornly existing, reminding us of unimaginable destruction.

We approached the Children’s Peace Monument, also known as the tower of 1,000 cranes. Our guide retold the true story of the figure at the top of the monument, a little girl named Sadako Sasaki. Sadako was two years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945. At age 11, Sadako developed leukemia, or as the inhabitants of Hiroshima called “the atomic bomb disease”, derived from exposure to radiation. Unfortunately, Sadako was not able to complete her goal of creating 1,000 origami cranes, but her story inspired a global movement of peace and hope. Children today continue to make paper cranes in her memory.

We continued on to the Hiroshima Peace Museum. When we entered the museum we felt what could be described as guardedness. As we moved through the museum our belief that dropping the bomb was a hard, just decision didn’t feel as simple anymore.
We started to see the human cost: charred clothing from children, a tricycle twisted from the blast, melted glass bottles, black rain falling after the explosion. A piece of history had become personal.
As we continued to move through the museum we began to develop a sense of admiration for the survivors. The stories of the survivors and the Japanese people of today aren’t filled with blame. Instead, we heard calls for peace. Pleas for a world where no one else has to experience what they did.

As American Baby Boomers our time in Hiroshima had shifted an event in history from something we knew to something we could feel. At times the sorrow was overwhelming, but there was no anger — only a quiet plea for peace. We left humbled, realizing that true travel isn’t just seeing places; it’s letting our hearts be changed by them.