An amazing moment of peace On 6 August, 1945 Sadako Sasaki was at home in Hiroshima, Japan when the atomic bomb was dropped. Nine years later in 1954, Sadako began to develop signs of leukemia. In February1955, Sadako was hospitalised and given less than a year to live. Whilst in hospital, Sadakos best friend cut a gold piece of paper into a square to fold it into a paper crane, in reference to the ancient Japanese story that promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish. Sadako set about folding 1000 cranes. By the end of August, Sadako had folded over 1000 cranes. On 25 October, 1955 Sadako died at the age of 12. Sadako’s classmates set about to honour Sadako’s memory by building a monument. 3000 young people all over Japan helped to collect money for the project. In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled in Hiroshima Peace Park. At the bottom of the monument is inscribed a message from the children of Japan: This is our cry, This is our prayer, Peace in the world. Today people all over the world fold paper cranes and send them to the Sadakos monument in Hiroshima, in memory of Sadako and as a symbol of peace. (Adapted from Wikipedia, “Sadako and the thousand cranes”, “The Nuclear Abolitionist”, “The Buddhist Council”, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park)
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 11:43:25 +0000
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