News

by Michio Shimotaka, Staff Writer

On August 24, 1955, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, built by the Hiroshima City government in Peace Memorial Park (in the city’s present-day Naka Ward), opened its doors for the first time. In what is now known as the museum’s Main Building, designed by architect Kenzo Tange, “hundreds of items” were on display (as reported by the Chugoku Shimbun on the same date). On that first day, around 600 people visited the museum.

Photographs taken inside the museum around the time of the museum’s opening show the exhibited items at the time, which included a panoramic model of the ruins, rooftiles that had been exposed to the atomic bombing’s thermal rays, explanatory panels about the health effects from radiation, and other displays. Also exhibited were photos of the scorched ruins taken by local citizens, including Yoshita Kishimoto, who was managing a photo studio in the city and had lost his oldest, eight-year-old daughter in the bombing.

In its ordinance enacted on August 6 directing establishment of the museum, the city government elaborated its objectives of collecting, preserving, and displaying “objects, models, photographs, records, and documents” related to the damages caused by the atomic bombing. Shogo Nagaoka, a geologist who had been engaged in the collection of A-bombed rocks and other items, was appointed to serve as the museum’s director.

Support group formed

Mr. Nagaoka played a key role in the management of the A-bomb Reference Material Display Room, which Hiroshima City opened in the Hiroshima City Central Community Hall, located in the area of Motomachi (in the city’s present-day Naka Ward), in 1949, as well as of the single-story Atomic Bomb Memorial Hall that was built next door the following year. A wide range of citizens supportive of Mr. Nagaoka’s work formed the Support Group for Hiroshima A-bomb Materials Collection (later renamed the A-bomb Materials Preservation Society). The support group cooperated in the collection of exhibit materials for the museum.

A string of nuclear tests carried out at the time further motivated the citizens of the A-bombed city. The support group’s prospectus for establishment (dated September 20, 1954), which is held at the museum, referred to U.S. nuclear tests conducted at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, which exposed local residents and Japanese fishing boat crews to radiation, in its statement, “We hope to learn about how serious a humanitarian issue the use of atomic and hydrogen bombs is and, at the same time, to appeal to people around the world to ensure that such disasters are never repeated.”

By May 1955, the support group had around 50 members. Yosaburo Yamasaki, a former teacher who had lost many of his students in the atomic bombing, not only took a leading role in the collection of a wide range of reference materials including survivors’ personal accounts of the bombing but also took charge of managing the museum’s gift shop. Michihiko Hachiya, who dedicated his life to helping A-bomb survivors as director of the Hiroshima Teishin Hospital, was also a member of the group.

Personal belongings entrusted to museum

When the museum first opened it only had a staff of eight people and a limited budget, but the number of personal belongings of A-bomb victims continued to increase based on donations made by local residents. Such donated items included gaiters that had been worn by Masayuki Ueda, a first-year student at Hiroshima Municipal Middle School (present-day Motomachi High School), which are now displayed on a single mannequin in the museum, as well as the caps, belts, and school uniforms of two other students.

Masayuki, who was 12 years old at the time, experienced the atomic bombing while mobilized to help with building-demolition work in the area of Koami-cho (in Hiroshima’s present-day Naka Ward), in the city center, dying two days later. His mother Kiyo, who died in 1986 at the age of 86, donated her son’s personal belongings to the museum. Masayuki had been taken to a relief station on Ninoshima Island (in Hiroshima’s present-day Minami Ward) because of injuries he suffered after being trapped under a collapsed building, making a reunion with his mother impossible.

Keiko Tanaka, 70, Kiyo’s granddaughter and Masayuki’s niece who lives in Tokyo, remembers attending the Peace Memorial Ceremony with Kiyo when she was a child. She said, “My uncle apparently called out, ‘mother, mother’ just before he died. How great my grandmother’s grief must have been.”

In its first fiscal year of operations, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum welcomed more than 115,000 visitors. Mr. Nagaoka, who served as director of the museum through fiscal 1961, expressed his hope that “the materials exhibited here will be seen by visitors not just as mere burnt bottles or rooftiles but as artifacts that convey the horrors of the atomic bombing” (as reported in the Chugoku Shimbun on February 1, 1962).

(Originally published on March 18, 2025)