Hiroshima, Japan
22 June 2014

The Children’s Peace Monument, one of the main tourist spots of the Peace Memorial Park, remembers Sadako Sasaki and the one thousand paper cranes she folded.

Sadako Sasaki was 2 years old when she was exposed to the Hiroshima nuclear bombing at approximately 1.6 kilometers from the hypocenter. Although she was unharmed, she later on acquired leukemia on her 6th grade in 1955.

Believing an ancient Japan legend that if she folds one thousand pieces of origami cranes, her wish will be granted. Sadako steadily moved towards the goal of making these paper cranes from all sorts of paper she could find. However, eight months later since fighting the disease, Sadako died at 12 years old in the same year.

Sadako’s classmates became the driving force to remember her and the other children victims of the atomic bomb. On 5 May 1958, the Children’s Peace Monument was unveiled in the Peace Memorial Arch.

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