A-bomb Dome silhouetted in the morning glow

1949 Ote-machi 1-chome

Hiroshima’s survivors have led their lives swallowing reproachful words such as “due to the bombing” and “if not for the A-bomb.” There is no way they can forgive the bomb that took away everything from them—their families, their property, and their healthy bodies. But they have sought at least to teach their children to value not rage or hatred but their own lives and empathy for the pain of others.
“No one else should ever suffer as we did.” The wish of Hiroshima for the abolition of nuclear weapons and lasting world peace represents the cries from the souls of those who experienced the bombing. Fierce memories and heartbreaking grief are hidden in this short expression. There were days of surviving poverty and hunger in a city that had been reduced to ashes, and days of suffering from despair and loneliness in corners of the prosperous city. The empty eyes of lonely elderly people, the bowed backs of bereaved families, and the old leaning monuments are silently speaking something. Yuichiro Sasaki’s enormous collection of photographs can be said to exist in order to convey these silent cries.
Inheriting our predecessors’ wills, we engaged ourselves in building the Peace Memorial City Hiroshima. Sasaki’s photographs teach us that the meaning of constructing a peace memorial city lies in the course of efforts toward that purpose. Keeping in mind the wish of Hiroshima, we must focus our minds to do our best in order to build a peaceful world without nuclear weapons.