Chugoku Shimbun Peace News
Hibakusha: How could he? Just before August 6	'03/8/2
On August 1, just before the 58th August 6, paper cranes folded with prayers for peace were deliberately burned. At the Children's Peace Monument in Peace Memorial Park in Naka-ku, Hiroshima, hibakusha and others visiting the monument expressed their anger over an act that tramples on the desire for peace. As if to console and encourage the monument, they swiftly folded new paper cranes. Chikara Kigawa (86, living in Fuchu-cho, Hiroshima Prefecture, now retired) presents flowers to the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims on the first of every month. Looking at the pitiful scene, he said, "The people who did this should be ashamed of themselves." Kigawa's wife Fusako (83) said, "I lost relatives and friends in the A-bombing. The idea that they could.." Rising emotion kept her from finishing her sentence. Cranes were burned previously in February last year. Responding to this repeated vandalism, Kazuto Fujikawa (86) chairman of the Hiroshima Prefectural A-bomb Sufferers Association said angrily, "This is a problem of individual morals." Kazushi Kaneko (77), chairman of another prefectural survivors association, said, "We need to think about what we can do to keep this from happening again." Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba at today's press conference criticized the act saying, "This is an absolute affront to the people around the world, mostly children, who are thinking about peace." Coming just before "that day," beginning immediately after the incident, a stream of visitors visited the monument to present paper cranes. Twenty-two children from the Nakajima Preschool (Naka-ku) were unable to present their cranes because the area was cordoned off for the investigation. Instead, they gave their cranes to the policemen and went back to school. Child-care worker (25) said sorrowfully, "The children have been practicing for this day since May. Finally they were able to come here, but.."