@2 days until Hiroshima Summit: The A-bomb Monument for the Hiroshima First Municipal Girls’ School
May 17, 2023
by Yuichi Ito, Staff Writer
The A-bomb Monument for the Hiroshima First Municipal Girls’ School (First Girls’ School; now Funairi High School) stands on the bank of the Motoyasu River on the south side of Peace Memorial Park located in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward. A total of 541 first- and second-year students, who had been mobilized to engage in the work of creating fire lanes in the downtown area, were exposed to the atomic bombing. All of them were killed.
The relief on the monument depicts girls in baggy work pants, one holding a box with the equation “E=MC2.” It was erected in 1948, when Japan was under occupation of the General Headquarters of the Allied Forces (GHQ). It was difficult to directly use the words “atomic bomb,” so it had to be expressed symbolically using the formula for the theory of relativity, which led to the creation of the A-bomb.
The Peace Memorial Museum located in Naka Ward, which is scheduled to be visited by the leaders of the Seven industrialized nations, displays such artifacts as a cloth bag from a student at First Girls’ School, which her relatives found at the site, as well as photos of students when they were still alive.
(Originally published on May 17, 2023)
The A-bomb Monument for the Hiroshima First Municipal Girls’ School (First Girls’ School; now Funairi High School) stands on the bank of the Motoyasu River on the south side of Peace Memorial Park located in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward. A total of 541 first- and second-year students, who had been mobilized to engage in the work of creating fire lanes in the downtown area, were exposed to the atomic bombing. All of them were killed.
The relief on the monument depicts girls in baggy work pants, one holding a box with the equation “E=MC2.” It was erected in 1948, when Japan was under occupation of the General Headquarters of the Allied Forces (GHQ). It was difficult to directly use the words “atomic bomb,” so it had to be expressed symbolically using the formula for the theory of relativity, which led to the creation of the A-bomb.
The Peace Memorial Museum located in Naka Ward, which is scheduled to be visited by the leaders of the Seven industrialized nations, displays such artifacts as a cloth bag from a student at First Girls’ School, which her relatives found at the site, as well as photos of students when they were still alive.
(Originally published on May 17, 2023)
