A SINGLE atomic bomb indiscriminately killed tens of thousands of people, profoundly altering the lives of survivors. Through belongings left by the victims, A-bombed artefacts, testimonies of survivors, and related materials, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum conveys to the world the horror of nuclear weapons and spreads the message of “No more Hiroshima”. This is the statement displayed at the Hiro­shima Peace Memorial Museum.

Though the city has been transformed into a well-planned, developed and modern location, inside the peace memorial park the A-bomb dome reminds you of the doomsday for the Japanese of the time. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, located in a park, takes visitors to scenes before the dropping of the A-bomb: there are pictures showing life as it was, with some people at work, others enjoying swimming, and some schoolchildren posing for a photo with their teachers, all smiling. But the next moments — Aug 6, 1945 — are cataclysmic. This unfortunate city witnessed the ugliest face of mankind when the American B-29 Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb at 8:15am, that exploded 600 metres above the Shima hospital.

“It made me gloomy and sad to see horrible photos of people lying dead in pieces and many other severely injured and suffering,” said Suirman Nasir, an Indonesian scholar who was at the museum. He said he had learned about Hiroshima and Nagasaki when he was in primary school and since then he always wanted to visit both cities. “The photo of the schoolchildren with the teaching staff smiling before the dropping of A-bomb made my heart sink with sadness,” he said, adding that human beings must learn from the tragedies of war.

Many artefacts are displayed in the museum: clothes, wristwatches, bowls, toys, and many more, which cause tears to roll down visitors’ cheeks.

“When I saw a tricycle in the museum which belonged to a three-year-old boy, Shinichi Tetsutani, it left me heartbroken after I read his story. Shinichi loved his tricycle and on the morning of A-bomb drop, he was riding it in front of his house. In that sudden flash, he and his tricycle were badly burned and he died that night. His father felt he was too young to be buried in a lonely grave away from home, so he buried Shinichi with his tricycle in the backyard. Forty years later, in the summer of 1985, his father dug up Shinichi’s remains and transferred them to the family grave, and the tricycle, after sleeping for 40 years in the backyard with Shinichi, was donated to the Peace Memorial Museum,” said Rumiko Koyanagi, a schoolgirl who was visiting the museum with her schoolmates.

Every image of that tragic incident screams to visitors to not repeat that awful occurrence. One of the galleries in the museum relates the entire story of the events, the meetings and correspondences leading to the final decision to drop the A-bomb on Hiroshima. The museum houses information about the development of nuclear bombs and treaties in this regard.

“To my surprise, I saw a photo of the Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan. The photo seemed to have been taken at the time when Dr Khan, on February 4, 2004, was admitting to his role in transferring nuclear information to North Korea in a TV interview,” said Naveed Ahmad, a Pakistani visitor.

Outside the museum, in the Peace Memorial Park, many young students were distributing gifts and cards among the visitors with messages of peace and love. “I liked the way Japanese students were greeting me at the park,” said Nancy Gastel, an American visitor. “They gave me an origami gift, a way of welcoming visitors. They wanted to rebuild peace.”

Sharing their experiences of the tragic day, Hiroshima atomic-bomb survivors appealed to the world to abolish the nuclear weapons. Hattori Michiko, a survivor who was a 16-year-old nurse on the day of A-bombing, shared her experiences.

“Countless people rushed into the aid station. They were all badly burned. Their mouths were ripped, eyeballs popped out, and their hair was all standing. They were walking around with their hands facing the front, waving like seaweed. You could not even distinguish if they were a man or a woman,” she recalled.

She said hundreds of thousands of people were so badly burned that they looked like zombies. “I was so scared seeing that scene and I ran around trying to escape. I was not able to cure anyone at that moment. Many died just like insects and no family members saw their final moments,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “People who experienced the nuclear weapon went through absolute hell. The atomic bomb did not allow anyone to die or live with dignity. That day, in Hiroshima, my 16-year-old body, has felt the inhumanity of nuclear weapon with all five senses,” she said.

“As a victim of the nuclear weapon, I would like to make an appeal: ‘Never start a nuclear war! Abolish all nuclear weapons!’ I want to cry out for abolition, with people from all over the world hand in hand, no matter what our ideologies or beliefs are. We have no other choice but abolition,” she said.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2017