New Arrivals Exhibition
■ Period: Until June 15 (Sun), 2014
■ Venue: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, East Building, B1 exhibition room (4)
■ Artifacts on display: 99 A-bomb artifacts donated in 2012
|
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum has continued to collect documents, mementos, photographs and other objects from the atomic bombing held by A-bomb survivors and bereaved families, for the purpose of communicating the actual damage inflicted by the bombing.
In 2012 there were 950 items newly donated by 67 people, and some of these are on display at the museum.
Buddhist statue
Akira Yamada (then, 31), the donor's father, was exposed to the bomb from his home in Onaga-machi about 3km from the hypocenter.
Although the roof of the house was blown off, he wasn't seriously injured and he went in to the center of the city the next day to search for family members.
Akira found this Buddhist statue in the burnt out ruins of the shoe store run by his older brother and his wife in Tate-machi.
In front of the bomb shelter, he found the remains of 2 people and thought they were his brother and brother's wife.
Akira was the youngest of 6 children, and only he survived the atomic bombing.
Altogether, he lost 10 family members.
|
A Buddhist statue lovingly kept as a family memento
Donated by: Mr. Mikio Yamada
|
Mikio Yamada recalls:
My father, who lost many relatives all at once, hardly ever talked about the atomic bombing in his lifetime.
He placed this Buddhist statue where he could easily see it and took good care of it.
He told me to donate it to the Peace Memorial Museum after his death, but it was so important to him that it was hard for me to part with it after he died.
I finally decided to donate it after my mother died in August.
|
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, East Building,
B1 exhibition room (4)
|
|
| (Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum Curatorial Division) |
|
|
|
