Children's Peace Monument
The Children's Peace Monument (原爆の子の像, Genbaku no Ko no Zō) is a monument for peace to commemorate Sadako Sasaki and the thousands of child victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and is located in in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, itself in the city of Hiroshima. Designed by native artists Kazuo Kikuchi and Kiyoshi Ikebe, the monument was built using money derived from a fund-raising campaign by Japanese school children including Sadako's classmates, with the main statue entitled 'A-bomb Children' being unveiled on the 5th of May, 1958, or (Children's Day in Japan). Sadako is immortalized at the top of the statue, where she holds a crane. Thousands of origami cranes from all over the world are offered around the monument on a daily basis, with ancient Japanese tradition holding that one who folds a thousand cranes can have one wish granted. They serve as a sign that the children who make them and those who visit the statue desire a world without nuclear war, having been tied to the statue by the fact that Sadako died from radiation-induced leukemia after folding over a thousand cranes, wishing for world peace. Beneath the main structure lies a bronze crane that works as a wind chime when pushed against a traditional peace bell from which it is suspended, the two pieces having been donated by Nobel Laureate in Physics Hideki Yukawa.
Sister statue
The monument inspired a youth-funded and designed sister statue in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, in the state where "Little Boy", the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, was built. The sister statue was dedicated in 1995, the 50th anniversary of the bombings.[1]
See also
- Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
- Hiroshima Witness
- Sadako Sasaki
- Thousand origami cranes