It's too bad she missed the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims.
When you walk down the circular path into the main chamber you read the facts about the bombing. And then you reach the main chamber and it hits you like a ton of bricks.
It is large and round and with a 360 degree panorama photograph of the devastation on the upper half of the wall that was taken from that point. The lower half is separated into the districts and lists names of the victims if they were known. The farther from the bottom of the wall the farther away from the epicenter. In the middle of the room, where the epicenter was judged to be is a fountain made to look like a clock with the hands at 8:15am. It was quiet, somber, and I had to sit for a while. I had seen the A-Bomb Dome, Sadako-chan's memorial (and nearly cried there as well), I had rung the Buddhist bell for peace, prayed at the burial mound, and at the arch, but that, that quietness, that sight of the devastation, it all hit home then, what happened. Here's a picture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hall_of_Remembrance.jpg Wiki said the panorama was built with 140,000 tiles, about the number of people estimated to have died by 1945.
When you pass through the room into the next chamber, the human element is brought down upon you, like a ton of bricks.
In the chamber is a wall of TV screens. And on each screen is a photo. Next to the photos are names, ages, and other information about the victims. Just as Charlotte saw the human element through the belongings of victims, I saw the human element in the actual photos of victims. I saw the faces. The photos also included the American and other foreign POWs who died, the indentured Koreans, everyone. Any family who had a member die in the bombing and who had a picture and wanted to, could donate that photo for this database. It was... huge. They had collected about 1000 names and pictures. There were terminals on the other side of the room where you could look up individual names and pictures.
Then I took the escalator up and ended at a round room where the special exhibits were viewed. It was filled with artifacts as well as testimonials hand written by survivors and rescuers and witnesses and translated into numerous languages. The theme for that exhibit was 'Water'. I sat at a terminal and looked through the selection of testimonials available and listened as a young actress read about how the witness was told by soldiers not to give water to the victims and how hard it was to listen to her younger brother begging for water until he died and how guilty she felt after wards. The others were much the same.
One I remember was a girl who gave water to a stranger and how he smiled and sighed as his horrible thirst was parched a little, and then died. She felt guilty that she had maybe caused his death by defying orders and giving him the water. But then she as she grew older, she rationalized that he was too hurt to survive and by giving him water she had provided him a little comfort before he succumbed to his wounds.
Or the soldier who watched as a woman, holding her badly burned baby begged him and his superior officer for water for the baby and how they refused coldly. The solider saw the woman and the baby later, but the baby was dead and the mother most likely died soon after as well. They were told that giving water would kill the victims. Most of them died anyway.
I left then, leaving a hefty donation and headed for the museum where I had much the same experience as Charlotte had.
She should try and get the paper published. It's amazing. And congrats to her for getting a 105% on it!
no subject
When you walk down the circular path into the main chamber you read the facts about the bombing. And then you reach the main chamber and it hits you like a ton of bricks.
It is large and round and with a 360 degree panorama photograph of the devastation on the upper half of the wall that was taken from that point. The lower half is separated into the districts and lists names of the victims if they were known. The farther from the bottom of the wall the farther away from the epicenter. In the middle of the room, where the epicenter was judged to be is a fountain made to look like a clock with the hands at 8:15am. It was quiet, somber, and I had to sit for a while. I had seen the A-Bomb Dome, Sadako-chan's memorial (and nearly cried there as well), I had rung the Buddhist bell for peace, prayed at the burial mound, and at the arch, but that, that quietness, that sight of the devastation, it all hit home then, what happened. Here's a picture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hall_of_Remembrance.jpg Wiki said the panorama was built with 140,000 tiles, about the number of people estimated to have died by 1945.
When you pass through the room into the next chamber, the human element is brought down upon you, like a ton of bricks.
In the chamber is a wall of TV screens. And on each screen is a photo. Next to the photos are names, ages, and other information about the victims. Just as Charlotte saw the human element through the belongings of victims, I saw the human element in the actual photos of victims. I saw the faces. The photos also included the American and other foreign POWs who died, the indentured Koreans, everyone. Any family who had a member die in the bombing and who had a picture and wanted to, could donate that photo for this database. It was... huge. They had collected about 1000 names and pictures. There were terminals on the other side of the room where you could look up individual names and pictures.
Then I took the escalator up and ended at a round room where the special exhibits were viewed. It was filled with artifacts as well as testimonials hand written by survivors and rescuers and witnesses and translated into numerous languages. The theme for that exhibit was 'Water'. I sat at a terminal and looked through the selection of testimonials available and listened as a young actress read about how the witness was told by soldiers not to give water to the victims and how hard it was to listen to her younger brother begging for water until he died and how guilty she felt after wards. The others were much the same.
One I remember was a girl who gave water to a stranger and how he smiled and sighed as his horrible thirst was parched a little, and then died. She felt guilty that she had maybe caused his death by defying orders and giving him the water. But then she as she grew older, she rationalized that he was too hurt to survive and by giving him water she had provided him a little comfort before he succumbed to his wounds.
Or the soldier who watched as a woman, holding her badly burned baby begged him and his superior officer for water for the baby and how they refused coldly. The solider saw the woman and the baby later, but the baby was dead and the mother most likely died soon after as well. They were told that giving water would kill the victims. Most of them died anyway.
I left then, leaving a hefty donation and headed for the museum where I had much the same experience as Charlotte had.
She should try and get the paper published. It's amazing. And congrats to her for getting a 105% on it!