Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

There are websites and emotional videos galore that show what is inside the Hiroshima Memorial Museum, but it is not until you yourself walk through the exhibits do you begin to soak in the actual devastation of August 6th, 1945.

For many, it is just too much. The stuck-in-time shadows, mannequins with melting skin, the museum is not meant to be casually experienced. You must prepare to become immersed in that moment. This, after all, is the entire reason for the memorial’s existence—to cause you to not forget.

The museum opened in late August of 1955, a little more than ten years after the bomb was dropped. Its long structure was put together by four Japanese designers, the lead architect being Kenzo Tange. The reason for the space between the ground and the bottom of the building (you can actually walk underneath the museum) is profound: Tange wanted to express the human ability to “rise from the ashes” and elevate one’s self above the earth’s surface.

Amidst the memorabilia, you will see inside are pocket watches frozen on the time of the explosion (approximately 8:15a.m… which ends up also being the exact month and day Japan surrendered), and pieces of rock or granite manipulated by the bomb blast.

Visitors can feel the bumpy texture to get a sense of how the rock’s surface had boiled from the bomb’s heat waves. Also, after the mushroom cloud had finished expanding, the debris and soot in the air, mixed with water vapors, resulted in black rain…proof of which can be seen along walls in the museum.