Nagasaki Ground Zero
It was inevitable that the first thing we’d do on arriving in Nagasaki would be to take a tram to the area where the atomic bomb dropped in 1945.
There is a park there, and a monument which marks the hypocentre – the spot directly below where the bomb exploded, at 11:02 on 9 August.
There is a statue to the women victims, who accounted for 70% of the dead.
We visited the atomic bomb museum but weren’t allowed to take pictures. There were a number of bomb-damaged clocks on display all stopped at 2 minutes past eleven.
Before visiting the museum I didn’t really have a clear picture of the Japanese perspective on the bombing and it’s aftermath, but I can now sum it up as:
“Using an atomic bomb is a terrible and evil thing. We have suffered a terrible fate that should never have been inflicted on anybody. War is a terrible thing. We do not seek retribution, we seek an end to war so that no-one should ever have to suffer this again”.
This is understandable because the impact of the bomb, on the ground, was clearly a horrific and terrifying event that shattered them and shocked them, and they have continued to suffer the effects for decades.
However, their closeness to the direct effects of the bombing means that they have been denied the outsider’s perspective – a preparedness to consider the possibility that the bombing might have prevented a worse calamity. Whether such a viewpoint is reasonable or not, it seems to have been closed to the Japanese to the extent that their Defence Minister Fumio Kyuma was forced to resign last month for suggesting that the bomb was an “inevitable way to end the war”.
Next to the bomb museum is a Peace Memorial building containing the names of all the people who died.
There is also a Peace Park which contains many statues or other works of art presented to Nagasaki by various nations to express their sympathy and sorrow.
It’s precisely this kind of mindset Yashir Pacasum has that causes wars around the world..
U shud be obliterated.
uhhh… did you suggest he be obliterated for satirical effect, or are you really that hypocritical?
go f+++ yourself, you f+++ Yashir Pacasum.
nothings justifies this kind of genocide.
I wish you and all your family appear dead suddenly, you idiot.
go f+++ yourself, you f+++ Yashir Pacasum.
nothings justifies this kind of genocide.
I wish you and all your family appear dead suddenly, you idiot.
Yes the Japanese did some terrible things during the war. But if every nation that did something bad during wartime were punished with genocide then the globe would be close to depopulated. Would that makes things right?
For what they did during world war two, two atomic bombs were not enough for Japan. I think the whole Japanese race should be obliterated. They don’t deserve any memorial.
Yashir Pacasum, You are a very very simple minded moron!
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