Nagasaki Peace Park is a park located in Nagasaki, Japan, commemorating the atomic bombing of the city on August 9, 1945 during World War II. It is next to the Atomic Bomb Museum and near the Peace Memorial Hall.

History

Established in 1955, and near to the hypocenter of the explosion, remnants of a concrete wall of Urakami Cathedral can still be seen. Urakami Cathedral was the grandest church in east Asia at the time. At the park's north end is the 10-meter-tall Peace Statue created by sculptor Seibo Kitamura of Nagasaki Prefecture. The statue's right hand points to the threat of nuclear weapons while the extended left hand symbolizes eternal peace. The mild face symbolizes divine grace and the gently closed eyes offer a prayer for the repose of the bomb victims' souls. The folded right leg and extended left leg signify both meditation and the initiative to stand up and rescue the people of the world. The statue represents a mixture of western and eastern art, religion, and ideology. Installed in front of the statue is a black marble vault containing the names of the atomic bomb victims and survivors who died in subsequent years. A plaque by the Peace Statue is titled Words from the Sculptor and reads: "After experiencing that nightmarish war, that blood-curdling carnage, that unendurable horror, Who could walk away without praying for peace? This statue was created as a signpost in the struggle for global harmony. Standing ten meters tall, it conveys the profundity of knowledge and the beauty of health and virility. The right hand points to the atomic bomb, the left hand points to peace, and the face prays deeply for the victims of war. Transcending the barriers of race and evoking the qualities of Buddha and God, it is a symbol of the greatest determination ever known in the history of Nagasaki and the highest hope of all mankind."

Plaque

A plaque at the nearby hypocenter gives the following account and statistics of the damage caused that day. "At 11:02 A.M., August 9, 1945 an atomic bomb exploded 500 meters above this spot. The black stone monolith marks the hypocenter. The fierce blast wind, heat rays reaching several thousand degrees and deadly radiation generated by the explosion crushed, burned, and killed everything in sight and reduced this entire area to a barren field of rubble. About one-third of Nagasaki City was destroyed and 150,000 people killed or injured and it was said at the time that this area would be devoid of vegetation for 75 years. Now, the hypocenter remains as an international peace park and a symbol of the aspiration for world harmony." (Large numbers of people have died in the following years from the effects of radioactive poisoning.)

Peace Memorial Ceremony

Every year, on 9 August, the anniversary of the atomic bombing, a Peace Memorial Ceremony is held in front of the statue and the Mayor of Nagasaki delivers a Peace Declaration to the World. At the south end of the park is a "Fountain of Peace". This was constructed in August, 1969, as a prayer for the repose of the souls of the many atomic bomb victims who died searching for water, and as a dedication to world peace. Lines from a poem by a girl named Sachiko Yamaguchi, who was nine at the time of the bombing, are carved on a black stone plaque in front of the fountain. It reads: "I was thirsty beyond endurance. There was something oily on the surface of the water, but I wanted water so badly that I drank it just as it was." In 2024, on the eve of the 79th anniversary of the bombing, ambassadors from all members of the G7 as well as the European Union announced that they will be skipping the ceremony due to Israel's exclusion, instead sending representatives, citing fears of politicization of the ceremony in light of the ongoing Israel–Hamas war. The Mayor of Nagasaki City, Shiro Suzuki, justified his decision to exclude Israel (as well as Russia and Belarus, who are involved in the invasion of Ukraine) in an interview with the Mainichi Shimbun stating that "something might happen if we invite participants of a conflict where the ceremony cannot proceed peacefully and solemnly". This was in contrast to Hiroshima City which had invited the Israeli Ambassador to its ceremony held three days prior. Of the G7 members' ambassadors that skipped the 2024 ceremony, the British and American ambassadors, together with the Israeli Ambassador, attended a memorial service on that day held at Zojoji in Tokyo.

Peace Symbols Zone

In 1978 the city of Nagasaki established a "Peace Symbols Zone" on both sides of the park and invited donations of monuments from countries round the world. The following monuments can be seen in the park: The Monument for Korean Atomic Victims is located in Nagasaki Peace Park in Nagasaki, Japan. At the time of the atomic bombing in Nagasaki, there were many people of nationalities other than Japanese that were living in the area. There were an estimated 12,000 to 14,000 Koreans living in Nagasaki during the bombing. It is believed that up to 2,000 of them died because of the atomic bomb. At the time, many of those Koreans were being used as forced labor as a part of the Japanese war effort. This monument commemorates the Korean victims and serves as a message asking for peace in the world, an abolition of nuclear weapons, and a peaceful reunification of the Korean nation. The Monument for Korean Atomic Victims was unveiled on August 9, 1979.

Photos

In film

The park was shown in the 1991 Akira Kurosawa film Rhapsody in August, in which a Japanese child points out that there is no sculpture in the Peace Symbols Zone from the United States. "Constellation Earth" was donated in 1992, a year after the film's release, after this omission was noted by St. Paul mayor James Schiebel during a trip to Nagasaki in 1990.