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Visiting Hiroshima during one of our longer trips to Japan moved us deeply. It is not possible to walk past the "Atomic Bomb Dome" of the former Chamber of Commerce and Industry building without shuddering inwardly. The shock wave of the nuclear explosion hit this dome almost vertically at a height of 600 meters, so that parts of its construction resisted. Today the dome stands as a memorial against the use of nuclear weapons and was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1996. The atomic bomb was called Little Boy by the Americans.
Many monuments in Hiroshima Peace Park commemorate the horror caused by the American nuclear attack in World War II. The children's peace monument, erected in 1958 and dedicated to Sadako Sasaki, who died in 1955 at the age of 12 from the long-term effects of radiation, is particularly touching. She firmly believed in the Japanese legend that if she folded 1000 origami cranes, the gods would grant her wish for healing. She passed away and still today people place folded cranes at the Peace Monument to commemorate their difficult life. From us, too, two cranes folded and offered here keep alive the memory of Sadako Sasaki and the atomic attack on Hiroshima.
I am writing this post today because Putin threatened possible supporters of the people of Ukraine with nuclear weapons during his attack on Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, thus showing under what inhuman and people-despising government under the leadership of Putin the formerly admirable Russia in the year 2022 stands.
