Nagasaki Peace Park Audio Guide

Nagasaki Peace Park: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Nagasaki Peace Park

   Nagasaki Peace Park: According to the prefecture's cultural properties record, construction began in 1951 and the park opened in 1955.

   Welcome to Nagasaki Peace Park, known in Japanese as 長崎市平和公園. This guide follows the park's purpose, its founding and the monuments that gather here. It does not describe each corner of the grounds. You are in Nagasaki, the capital and largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu. The city's name means Long Cape. It grew up as a harbor town and became a meeting point of Japanese and foreign cultures. The park lies about two and a half kilometers north of Nagasaki Station. It covers roughly eighteen and a half hectares and is classed as a comprehensive park. The park was created to pray for peace. It takes in the hypocenter of the atomic bomb dropped on the ninth of August, 1945, and the hilltop just to the north. Residents of Nagasaki who say simply "Peace Park" mean this area. Let's begin with how it came to be.

2. 02

   How Nagasaki Peace Park Was Born

   Nagasaki Peace Park: At the tram depot at Hotarujaya, 3.2 kilometers from the hypocenter, he survived.

   On the ninth of August, 1945, at two minutes past 11 a.m., the atomic bomb exploded over this part of Nagasaki. Within a few years the city decided that the ground should speak. In 1949 Japan enacted the Nagasaki International Culture City Construction Law. It is the legal foundation on which this park rests. Under that law, the park was laid out in 1951 as a memorial place with two aims. One was to make the reality of the atomic bombing known. The other was to serve world peace and cultural exchange. According to the prefecture's cultural properties record, construction began in 1951 and the park opened in 1955. The park has been renewed since. As the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing approached in 1995, the city planned a redevelopment of the whole park. The work ran from the 1994 fiscal year to the 1997 fiscal year. So the park you walk through today carries its original postwar purpose and a major renewal marking half a century of remembrance.

3. 03

   The Statue and the Ceremony at Nagasaki Peace Park

   Nagasaki Peace Park: The Atomic Bomb Museum stands nearby, and many visitors pair it with the park.

   Nagasaki Peace Park is organized into zones, each with its own character. The one most visitors picture first is the Zone of Prayer, where the Peace Statue stands. It is the work of the sculptor Kitamura Seibo. Around the park, many memorial monuments sent from countries across the world are set among the grounds. In front of the Peace Statue lies the ceremony plaza. Every year on the ninth of August, the date of the bombing, it hosts the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Victims Memorial Peace Ceremony. On that day the park becomes the place where the city gathers to remember. Take a moment to notice how the park holds two kinds of memory. One is the single day it commemorates. The other is the wider hope for peace, voiced by monuments from many nations.

4. 04

   Witnesses and Voices at Nagasaki Peace Park

   Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs has designated Nagasaki Peace Park a Place of Scenic Beauty. Its description names the hypocenter, the remaining wall of the Urakami Prison branch of Nagasaki Prison, and the surviving wall of Urakami Cathedral. It describes these as physical evidence of the bombing, and it describes the park as a place that calls on the world to prohibit nuclear weapons and realize peace. Personal stories sit among the monuments too. A poem monument, erected on the third of August, 1969, carries verses about a girl searching for water in the blaze of the bombing. There is also the story of Wada Koichi. He was 18, a student at Nagasaki Municipal Second Commercial School, mobilized to work as a tram driver. At the tram depot at Hotarujaya, 3.2 kilometers from the hypocenter, he survived. Twelve student drivers never came back, so he walked the tracks to the Ohashi depot to find out what had happened. After the war he worked to raise a memorial for about 120 tram workers who died in the bombing.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off from Nagasaki Peace Park

   As you finish your walk through Nagasaki Peace Park, look back at what shapes the place. A city law passed in 1949 started it. A hilltop and a hypocenter are joined within its boundaries. Monuments from around the world line its paths, and a ceremony fills it each August. The Atomic Bomb Museum stands nearby, and many visitors pair it with the park. Together they tell the story from two angles: the place itself, and the objects and testimonies that explain it. Before you go, let your eyes follow the monuments one by one. Ask yourself who raised each one, and for whom. Every stone here has its own answer.