The monument is located in
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in
Hiroshima, Japan. Designed by native artists Kazuo Kikuchi and Kiyoshi Ikebe, the monument was built using money derived from a fund-raising campaign by Japanese school children, including Sadako Sasaki's classmates, with the main statue entitled "
Atomic Bomb Children". The statue was unveiled on 5 May 1958, the Japanese
Children's Day holiday. Sadako Sasaki, who died of an atomic bomb disease
radiation poisoning is immortalized at the top of the statue, where she holds a wire crane above her head. Shortly before she passed, she had a vision to create a
thousand cranes. Japanese tradition says that if one creates a thousand cranes, they are granted one wish. Sadako's wish was to have a world
without nuclear weapons.
Thousands of origami cranes from all over the world are offered around the monument. They serve as a sign that the children who make them and those who visit the statue desire a world without
nuclear war, having been tied to the statue by the story that Sadako died from radiation-induced leukemia after folding just under a thousand cranes, wishing for
world peace. However, an exhibit which appeared in the
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum stated that by the end of August 1955, Sadako had achieved her 1000-crane goal and continued to fold more cranes. Unfortunately, her wish was not granted and she died of the leukemia on October 25, 1955. Her main cause of death was from the radiation poisoning from the atomic bomb
Little Boy. The organization, Nihon Hidankyo, received the
Nobel Peace Prize on October 11, 2024, for their effort to create a world free of nuclear weapons and to prove through eyewitness testimony that nuclear weapons should never be used again. ==Monument==