6. Children' s Peace Monument
Wishing with their fingertips
That the evil should not be repeated,
Youths of Hiroshima fold paper cranes.
Youths around the world fold paper cranes.
Many thousands of paper cranes are the declaration of the will
To fulfill their promise to the future.
Explanation
Sadako Sasaki, who was exposed to the Atomic Bomb at the age of two, developed leukemia ten years later, when she was in the sixth grade of elementary school. She started folding paper cranes, believing that a thousand paper cranes would bring her recovery. Her classmates, shocked at her death, started fund-raising to erect a monument for her and “for all children who passed away in the A-bombing and from A-bomb diseases.”
The monument was erected with aid from children from over 3,100 schools throughout Japan and from nine countries around the world.
The stone inscription under the monument reads, “This is our cry, this is our prayer for building peace in the world.”
Location : Peace Memorial Park, Naka-ku