Sadako Sasaki
Sadako Sasaki (佐々木 禎子 Sasaki Sadako?, January 7, 1943 – October 25, 1955) was a Japanese girl who lived near Misasa Bridge in Hiroshima, Japan, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. At the time of the explosion Sadako was at home, about 1 mile from ground zero.
Her story, has of course, become mythologized. But it is true taht she first became aware of her illness when she fell during sports day. She was diagnosed with leukemia, which her mother referred to as 'atom bomb disease'. These days leukemia is curable, and the majority of children with leukemia make a full recover, but in the 1950s it was usually fatal.
Sadako's friend, Chiziko, made her a crane out of a single sheet of gold paper. In Japan, cranes symbolize long life and the two friends began to build 1000 cranes in the hope that Sadako would recover. Lacking paper at hospital, Sadako began to make cranes out of whatever she could lay her hands on.
Sadako completed 644 cranes before she died. Her friends made the rest. She has become an international symbol of resilience and peace.
Her story, has of course, become mythologized. But it is true taht she first became aware of her illness when she fell during sports day. She was diagnosed with leukemia, which her mother referred to as 'atom bomb disease'. These days leukemia is curable, and the majority of children with leukemia make a full recover, but in the 1950s it was usually fatal.
Sadako's friend, Chiziko, made her a crane out of a single sheet of gold paper. In Japan, cranes symbolize long life and the two friends began to build 1000 cranes in the hope that Sadako would recover. Lacking paper at hospital, Sadako began to make cranes out of whatever she could lay her hands on.
Sadako completed 644 cranes before she died. Her friends made the rest. She has become an international symbol of resilience and peace.
One Thousand Paper Cranes for Peace: The Story of Sadako Sasaki
Thanks to one young Japanese girl,
Sadako Sasaki and one thousand paper cranes, millions of people around
the world are coming together in peace. Here is her story.
In my dream, Sadako says to me, “Leave it to me, mom” and I wake up calling, “Sadako!”
Then I realize it was a dream and I wonder how she is. For a while,
I’m lost in my sad thoughts and join my hands in prayer before the
tablet of the deceased.
from a letter by Fujiko Sasaki, Sadako Sasaki’s mother
from a letter by Fujiko Sasaki, Sadako Sasaki’s mother
On August 6th, 1945, World War II’s Allied forces dropped an atomic
bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. In an instant, the city was
obliterated. When the dust had cleared, people’s shadows remained frozen
in place on sidewalks and the sides of buildings. The people themselves
simply vanished. On that tragic day, 140,000 civilians were killed.
The Sasaki family lived one mile from the spot where the bomb went
off. The couple and their two-year-old daughter, Sadako, managed to
survive the nuclear attack, though soon after the explosion, thick black
clouds of radioactive soot and dust began to fall like snow. Though the
family tried to protect themselves, they could not avoid breathing the
contaminated air.
As time went on, the young family tried to rebuild their damaged
lives. The war had ended; they could put it behind them. The Sasakis had
three more children, though Sadako was always her mother’s favorite:
“She was so considerate and thoughtful that I relied on her,” she wrote.
As Sadako grew older, she became a strong, healthy, athletic young
woman – she was the fastest runner on her school track team.
But when Sadako was twelve years old, she noticed that her lymph
nodes were becoming swollen. A doctor’s visit confirmed her parents’
greatest fears: Sadako had been contaminated with radiation poisoning
from the atomic bomb. She was dying of leukemia.
Soon, Sadako was forced to enter the Hiroshima Red Cross hospital for
treatment. She spent months there, her disease progressing day by day.
In August 1955, residents of Nagoya sent a gift of colored origami paper
cranes to Sadako and the other hospital residents as a get-well
present. The gift brightened the sick child’s day – and it gave her an
idea.
“She believed in a saying that if you fold a thousand cranes, you’d
get over your sickness,” her mother wrote. “She folded paper cranes
carefully, one by one using a piece of paper of advertisement, medicine
and wrapping. Her eyes were shining while she was folding the cranes,
showing she wanted to survive by all means.”
Though she was very weak, Sadako dedicated hours each day to folding
cranes out of whatever materials she could scrounge together. “We warned
her, ‘If you keep up that pace you’ll wear yourself out,’” her father, Shigeo Sasaki, recounted. “Sadako continued to fold, saying, ‘It’s okay, it’s okay. I have a plan,’ “
When she got to one thousand, she kept on going, hopeful that the
paper birds might magically cure her illness. But it was not to be:
Sadako died on the morning of October 25, 1955, surrounded by her
family.
As for Sadako’s thousand paper cranes, her mother gave some of them
to her school friends, “and put the rest of them in her coffin as well
as flowers so that she could bring them to the next world.”
Although Sadako’s thousand paper cranes could not save her life, they
would take flight in another way, serving as a symbol of the growing
movement for peace on Earth.
The following year, an Austrian journalist, Robert Jungk, traveled to
Hiroshima, where he heard the story of young Sadako and her one
thousand cranes. He was so moved by the tale of her determination that
he told a modified version of her story to the world in a book, Light in
the Ruins. In the years since, variations of Sadako’s story have
appeared in hundreds of other publications, most notably, a children’s
book called Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, written in 1977 by American author Eleanor Coerr. The story has been used in peace education programs around the world.
Sadako’s short life has also inspired another sort of legacy: the Children’s Peace Monument
in Hiroshima. After Sadako’s death, her classmates sought to honor
their friend by creating “a monument to mourn all the children who died
from the atomic bombing.” With support from more than 3,100 schools
around the world, the students created a nine-meter high bronze statue,
topped with a figure of a girl holding a folded crane. Beneath the
pedestal, there is an inscription: “This is our cry. This is our prayer.
For building peace in this world.”
Each year, children and adults from all over the world travel to the
Children’s Peace Monument, bringing their own folded paper cranes as a
gift to Sadako’s memory, and as a symbol of their desire for peace and
for the abolition of nuclear weapons. In hundreds of other cities around
the world, from Kuwait City to Santa Barbara, California, children have
become involved in projects to create paper cranes as symbols of peace,
honoring Sadako’s legacy.
Though she could not save her own life with one thousand cranes, her story may yet save millions.
No comments:
Post a Comment