THE A-BOMB MUSEUM, hhIROSHIMA MEMORIAL PEACE PARK
This facility, run by Director Kazuharu Mamasaki contains
photographs, scale-model reproductions and artifacts relating to
the air burst which destroyed Hiroshima.
It is as though that
instant of destruction still exists today;
for as
a visitor enters
the museum he is thrust backward in time to 8:15 on the morning of
August 6,
1945:
aead clocks record the time; pictures show charred,
scarred and blistered bodies mutely frazen forever in obscene poses
of death;
there are bottles and coins which were melted like wax
figures under a too hot sun; one photo shows a man's outline
burned into a ghostly silhouette on a building, a glass case holds
the charred remains of a schoolboy's uniform, and a painting depicts
the dirty, grey, mushroom cloud hanging over the city.
THE RED CROSS A-BOMB HOSPITAL
The Committee was introduced to Dr.
Dr.
Fumio Shigeto, Director.
Shigeto is one of the A-bomb survivors and has worked in Hiroshima
since the bomb and with the hospital since it was built in 1956.
Funding for the Hospital came from the sale of Easter Seal-type
stamps.
care.
It has a 160-bed capacity and the patients receive free medical
Operational costs are divided equally by the central, prefectural
and municipal governments.
Ihe youngest patient is 38, but persons as
young as 27 or 28 can be admitted (in utero exposure).
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