Guestling Bradshaw CE Primary School

Hiroshima Day commemorates 6th August 1945, the day when an atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, followed a few days later by another dropped on the city of Nagasaki.

The bombings effectively ended World War II by bringing about the surrender of Japan, but at a terrible price: the two cities were destroyed and around 200,000 people killed, mostly civilians, with many more people dying later from injuries and illness.

Hiroshima Day is now a focus for anti-war and anti-nuclear discussions and demonstrations.

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is a non-fiction children’s book written by American author Eleanor Coerr. It is the true story of Sadako Sasaki, a girl who lived in Hiroshima at the time of the atomic bombing. Although she was not killed directly from the blast (she was blown through a window out of the house), she developed leukaemia from the radiation.

While hospitalised, her closest friend reminded her of the Japanese legend that if she folded a thousand paper cranes, the gods might grant her wish to be well again. With hope and determination, Sadako began folding. Sadly, she only managed to make 644 cranes before she became too weak to fold any more; she died on 25th October 1955 at the age of 12. Her friends and family helped finish her dream by folding the rest of the cranes, which were buried with her.

After her death, Sadako's friends and classmates published a collection of letters in order to raise funds to build a memorial to her and to all of the children who had died from the effects of the atomic bomb. In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. At the foot of the statue is a plaque that reads:

"This is our cry. This is our prayer. For building peace in the world."

Sadako has become a leading symbol of the impact of nuclear war, and she is a heroine for many Japanese girls.