HIROSHIMA, Aug. 1 Kyodo - A state-run memorial hall for victims of the 1945 atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima opened Thursday in the western Japan city with the aim of reminding later generations of the terror of atomic bombs.

The Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims houses more than 4,700 photographs of victims and a database of around 100,000 testimonies about survivors' experiences.

Veteran Japanese actress Sayuri Yoshinaga recorded an audio guidance for the museum. She is also appealing for the eradication of nuclear weapons by holding meetings to read poems about the atomic bombing.

Yoshinaga held a news conference in the museum and criticized comments made regarding the possible use of nuclear weapons after the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States, as well as Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda's remarks on May 31 hinting at a review of Japan's non-nuclear policies.

Regarding U.S. President George W. Bush, Yoshinaga said, ''U.S. President Bush is the very person I want to visit the museum.''

''If he see articles (left by A-bomb victims) and photographs, he will not think of using nuclear weapons,'' she said.

Yoshinaga also criticized the recent cancellation of an atomic bomb exhibition which survivors planned to hold at the United Nations headquarters in New York from September.

''I heard it was canceled as the A-bomb photos were too miserable to be seen. It is strange because the exhibition is meant to convey misery,'' she said.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the facility on the 57th anniversary of the bombing next Tuesday.

The hall, built in the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima's Naka Ward, recreates on a small scale the devastated city by using about 140,000 tiles, which was the death toll by the end of 1945 from the U.S. bombing and its aftereffects.

An explanatory passage says people were victimized due to erroneous state policy and includes condolence remarks for them.

The hall opened a special exhibition Thursday on the experiences of students mobilized to work at military plants in the city during World War II. The exhibition will run through the end of next March.

A similar facility is expected to open next year in Nagasaki, which was attacked with an atomic bomb three days after Hiroshima.