Mothers’ sorrow for losing children conveyed at Peace Memorial Museum
Apr. 9, 2010
by Junji Akechi, Staff Writer
An exhibition presenting personal belongings of children who died in the bombing and the memoirs written by their mothers opened at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum on April 8. The exhibition will run until October 6.
Five personal items such as severely-burnt school uniforms and working pants for women, along with memoirs written by their mothers and siblings, are on display. These items belonged to school children raging in age from 12 to 15, who died in the bombing while engaging in the dismantling of buildings to create firebreaks.
Visitors were moved to tears by the description by one mother, who wrote that she watched helplessly as her daughter, who came home with severe burns, died before her eyes. A picture drawn by a survivor, depicting a mother calling the name of her child at a river crowded with floating bodies, is also on display.
Jo Townshend, 40, a London-based architect visiting Hiroshima with three family members, commented, "I can't imagine losing my own children. What we have to remember is not only the raw number of victims, but, more importantly, the pain and sorrow that people experienced."
(Originally published on April 9, 2010)
An exhibition presenting personal belongings of children who died in the bombing and the memoirs written by their mothers opened at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum on April 8. The exhibition will run until October 6.
Five personal items such as severely-burnt school uniforms and working pants for women, along with memoirs written by their mothers and siblings, are on display. These items belonged to school children raging in age from 12 to 15, who died in the bombing while engaging in the dismantling of buildings to create firebreaks.
Visitors were moved to tears by the description by one mother, who wrote that she watched helplessly as her daughter, who came home with severe burns, died before her eyes. A picture drawn by a survivor, depicting a mother calling the name of her child at a river crowded with floating bodies, is also on display.
Jo Townshend, 40, a London-based architect visiting Hiroshima with three family members, commented, "I can't imagine losing my own children. What we have to remember is not only the raw number of victims, but, more importantly, the pain and sorrow that people experienced."
(Originally published on April 9, 2010)
