@31 days until Hiroshima Summit: A-bomb related items donated to Peace Museum
Apr. 18, 2023
by Fumiyasu Miyano, Staff Writer
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward collects A-bomb related items to convey the reality of the atomic bombing. In fiscal 2020, the year that marked the 75th anniversary of the tragic event, 307 items were donated from around the country, many of them by the aged survivors or the families of the victims who hoped to preserve them for posterity. The museum stores about 70,000 photographs and 22,000 authentic items, including lunch boxes, clothes, and diaries that belonged to the victims at that time.
Among the materials are the original illustration of Barefoot Gen, an autobiographical comic written by the late Keiji Nakazawa, and the comic magazines which carry the cartoon. Mr. Nakazawa donated them in 2011 hoping that they would tell the cruelty of the atomic bombing and the preciousness of peace, for which the main character “Gen” continued to wish. He died in 2012 at the age of 73. The museum displays the original and copies of the cartoon at special exhibitions, conveying the anger toward war and the suffering of the atomic bombing.
(Originally published on April 18, 2023)
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward collects A-bomb related items to convey the reality of the atomic bombing. In fiscal 2020, the year that marked the 75th anniversary of the tragic event, 307 items were donated from around the country, many of them by the aged survivors or the families of the victims who hoped to preserve them for posterity. The museum stores about 70,000 photographs and 22,000 authentic items, including lunch boxes, clothes, and diaries that belonged to the victims at that time.
Among the materials are the original illustration of Barefoot Gen, an autobiographical comic written by the late Keiji Nakazawa, and the comic magazines which carry the cartoon. Mr. Nakazawa donated them in 2011 hoping that they would tell the cruelty of the atomic bombing and the preciousness of peace, for which the main character “Gen” continued to wish. He died in 2012 at the age of 73. The museum displays the original and copies of the cartoon at special exhibitions, conveying the anger toward war and the suffering of the atomic bombing.
(Originally published on April 18, 2023)
