Posted by Rachel on: 08.06.2007 /
In honor of the 62nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Benjamin and I wanted to tell about a recent experience that our two families have shared. Earlier this year, my daughter Anna and her 5th grade classmates read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. Anna was deeply moved by the story and learned that children worldwide express their hope for peace by sending paper cranes to be placed on a statue of Sadako. We learned that there was a Sadako statue in Seattle Peace Park, so Anna folded 100 cranes and we mailed them to Benjamin and Megan. This picture is of their lovely daughters Eowyn (left) and Coco hanging the cranes. I will let Anna share more about the story of Sadako and about her wish for peace…
Sadako Sasaki was an ordinary 11 year old Japenese girl, that had survived the Hiroshima bombing when she was 2 years old. Nine years later, she had a dizzy spell on the playground at school. She was brought to the school nurse and she told Sadako’s family that they should have her checked out at a hospital. So they did and sure enough Sadako had luekemia, “the atom bomb disease”. She was shipped to a hospital for people with diseases, mostly luekemia, and while she was in the hospital, her friend visited her and gave her a crane she had folded. There is a Japanese tale that if a sick person folds one thousand paper cranes, the gods will make them better. Her friend taught her how to fold them and she got started. For a long time she stayed in the hospital, folding cranes. She got over 600 folded, but she died before she was done. Her classmates folded the rest and buried them with her.
In Hiroshima, Japan there was an enormous statue made of her, and a smaller one in Seatle, Washington. To this day, children all over the world show their wish for peace by making paper cranes and hanging them on the statues. I decided to make cranes and send them to the Adys in Seatle. Folding cranes was extremely hard at first, but my hands got used to the motions and it was really easy after I made a bunch! My mom had this cool idea to use junk mail and magazine pages for the cranes and I did. It was cool, and a good use of junk mail! The cranes I folded stand for a wish for peace and justice in the world. I did this for Sadako, and because it was fun! :-) Also, thank you Eowyn and Coco for hanging the cranes!
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Comment by: joe
1 08/6/07 5:15 AM | Comment Link |Yeah, that is a good story.
Coventry, where I live, was flattened during the blitz. Soon after Dresden received the same treatment. Only more so.
After the war, the ruined cathedral was turned into a monument for peace and the city tried to reach out to other cities devastated by war. This monument is in the ruins and a peace garden in Hiroshima. I can’t look at it without tears forming in my eyes.
Comment by: Rachel
2 08/6/07 10:01 AM | Comment Link |That was a beautiful monument, Joe. Do the figures represent one British and one Japanese person?
Comment by: Helen
3 08/6/07 11:48 AM | Comment Link |Joe, the ruins of Coventry Cathedral certainly are striking. (I think I’ve told you I was at Warwick University - just down the road from Coventry, so I was there often) I didn’t remember that statue - how neat that it’s also in Hiroshima.
Rachel thank you for sharing what your and Benjamin’s children did. How wonderful. I think they will remember acts like those more than what they are taught from books about peace and war.
Comment by: benjamin ady
4 08/6/07 5:47 PM | Comment Link |Anna
I want to say thankyou so much for choosing to include our family in your paper cranes project. The cranes were beautiful and looked pretty difficult to learn how to fold. Megan cried when she learned the story of Sadako from you. It was such a kewl thing to do together as a family to go down and hang your cranes and to tell Eowyn and Coco the story of Sadako and of Anna. I hope that you and Eowyn and Coco can meet in person sometime–i know they would really like that.
Your story reminds me that I’ve been wanting to find out exactly what “non-violent disarmament of nuclear capacity” is all about. Did you know that there are lots of people in the world involved in attempting to use non-violent and yet direct methods to disarm the nuclear weapons of various nuclear powers? This makes a lot of sense to me.
Comment by: Anna
5 08/11/07 3:57 PM | Comment Link |No I didn’t kno that! Thats kewl!!! (I think ur starting a trend cuz my mom started to type kewl, now me and my friends do it too! Lol) But yah that would be really kewl to meet Eowyn and Coco! They sound like kewl peoples!!!