Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum Audio Guide

Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum

   Welcome to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, known in Japanese as Nagasaki Genbaku Shiryokan. It stands in the city of Nagasaki, in the Hirano-machi area, as part of the Peace Park. Beside it you will find the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, which opened in 2003. This is a place of remembrance, and it asks you to slow down. The museum tells the story as a continuous narrative. It begins with the events that led to the bombing and moves through the morning of August 9, 1945, the damage to the city, and the long history of nuclear weapons that followed. The bomb exploded at two minutes past 11 that morning, and that moment sits at the center of everything you will see. Over the next few stops, I will walk you through the neighborhood that became the hypocenter, the objects that survived, and the museum's wider message about the nuclear age. Take your time, and expect some of it to be heavy. The museum itself calls for that kind of quiet attention.

2. 02

   Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum: The City Before the Bomb

   The museum starts before the bomb, with the story of the place itself. The hypocenter of the explosion was the Urakami district, which had long been a rustic and rather isolated suburb. After the 1920s that changed. The district was chosen as a site for munitions factories, and its population soared. A section of the museum called Events Leading up to the Nagasaki Atomic Bombing sets out the chain of historical developments behind the attack, and it aims to present them apart from the biases of the present day. The wider exhibition also looks back at the wars that formed the background, the conflict between Japan and China and then the Pacific War. Then comes the day itself. At two minutes past 11 a.m. on August 9, 1945, the bomb nicknamed Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. Its code name came from the United States, where Robert Serber chose it, after a character played by Sydney Greenstreet in the film The Maltese Falcon. A mushroom cloud rose to about 45,000 feet, roughly 14,000 meters, above the city. A model of Fat Man is among the displays, so you can see the shape of the weapon that did this.

3. 03

   Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum: Objects That Survived

   The heart of the permanent exhibition is the physical evidence. The aim is to recreate the state of the city just after the bombing, and the objects do this far better than any description could. Look for the clock stopped at two minutes past 11, the moment the bomb exploded. You will also see bent steel beams from a factory and a bridge girder whose side facing the hypocenter was scorched by the heat rays. There is also a replica of a side wall of Urakami Cathedral, which was struck by the blast. Items melted by the heat are on display, and some materials are set out so that visitors can touch them. Alongside them are photographs and facts, and belongings left behind by the people who died. Burnt clothes and broken toys sit among them. Near the center of the exhibition, a terrain model of Nagasaki and its surroundings helps you see how far the damage spread across the land. Film footage and video testimony from survivors fill in the human side. Together they give you a sense of the whole event, from the shape of the hills to the voices of people who lived through it.

4. 04

   Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum: Numbers, Nuclear Age, and a Call for Peace

   An estimate published in 1950 by the Nagasaki City Atomic Bomb Materials Preservation Committee, covering the end of 1945, counts 73,884 people dead and 74,909 seriously or lightly injured. It also records 11,574 houses burned down completely and 1,326 destroyed outright. These figures help explain why the museum exists, to pass on the unimaginable scale of the harm to future generations. But the story does not stop in 1945. The museum has a section on the age of nuclear weapons and the state of nuclear arms and testing today. Another section is devoted to the victims of nuclear weapons development and testing. It covers people such as the crew of the fishing boat Daigo Fukuryu Maru, and also residents living downwind of American and Soviet tests and workers in uranium mines who suffered radiation harm. Hiroshima's museum later added a comparable corner when it was renewed in 2019. The museum states its purpose plainly. It wants to convey the wishes for peace of the people of Nagasaki at home and abroad, and to contribute to the abolition of nuclear weapons and lasting world peace. Nagasaki's mission as a bombed city, it says, is to keep appealing to the world so that such devastation is never repeated.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   As you finish, remember that the museum is easy to combine with the Peace Park, which lies just below it. Walking between the exhibition rooms and the open park is a natural way to let the visit settle. If getting around is difficult, the museum lends electric assist wheelchairs for the trip between the museum and the park, free of charge, with advance reservation. No booking is needed for the museum itself, though groups of 10 or more are asked to register their visit beforehand. There is one more thread to follow. On the lower floor of the Peace Hall next door, the Nagasaki City Historical and Folk Museum looks at everyday life in wartime Nagasaki, inviting you to compare it with life today and reflect on the value of peace. The museum has now been open for more than 30 years. Most people today feel that war belongs to a distant era, and the number of survivors falls each year. So as you leave, you might ask yourself what it means to pass this story on, and what you will carry out the door with you.