Junior and senior high school students from Hiroshima and Daegu, its sister city in South Korea; the next generation to lead the future of the two nations, share a history of the atomic bombing
Nov. 12, 2023
Flowers are offered to the Monument in Memory of the Korean Victims of the A-bomb
by Maho Yamamoto, Staff Writer
On November 11, junior and senior high school students from Daegu, Hiroshima’s sister city in South Korea, visited Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in the city’s Naka Ward, and offered flowers to the Monument in Memory of the Korean Victims of the A-bomb, together with junior and senior high school students from Hiroshima. The students faced the history of their predecessors on the spot together, and deepened their interaction with one another.
Fifteen students from Hiroshima and eighteen students from Daegu got together in front of the monument, laid a flower wreath, and paid silent prayers. The students in Hiroshima served as guides and told of the situation back then that Korean people had come to Japan seeking jobs because of difficulties in making a living under Japan’s colonial occupation, and experienced the atomic bombing. They explained that a turtle, which is used as base for the monument, looks in the direction of its homeland in Korea.
Park Ahyeon, 15, a third-year junior high school student visiting Hiroshima for the first time listened to the explanation carefully and said she didn’t know about people from her country who had perished in the atomic bombing except for their number, but could feel their significance when she stood near the monument. Koharu Higashi, 16, a second-year student at Hiroshima Jogakuin High School expressed her hope, by saying, “Japanese are not the only people affected by damages of the atomic bombing. I hope this would be an opportunity for us to share the reality of the history and our views.”
During the G7 Hiroshima Summit held in May, Yoon Suk-yeol visited the monument for the first time in history, as the sitting South Korean president. In September, some South Korean A-bomb survivors living in Hiroshima visited South Korea upon invitation from the South Korean government. This exchange event for students from the two nations was organized by Hiroshima UNESCO association with the aim to have young people from both nations deepen their interactions with one another.
(Originally published on November 12, 2023)
