The Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum (本川小学校平和資料館 Honkawa Shogakkou Heiwa Shiryokan) is a museum of the Peace in Honkawacho, Naka-ku

Naka-ku, Hiroshima

is the heart of Hiroshima, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. Naka-ku is home to Hiroshima's central business district and Peace Memorial Park. Major attractions include the Hondori shopping arcade, a covered mall-like street of shops extending east from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park to Hacchobori...

, Hiroshima

Hiroshima

is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

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The school was the closest school to ground zero

Ground zero

The term ground zero describes the point on the Earth's surface closest to a detonation...

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They lost about 400 students and more than 10 teachers, and the building took great amounts of damage from the atomic bomb dropped on August 6, 1945.

The Peace Museum is the part of the school building with the basement of the former Hiroshima City Honkawa Elementary School; it is kept as a place to learn about the importance of peace.

The museum is operated by the PTA

Parent-Teacher Association

In the U.S. a parent-teacher association or Parent-Teacher-Student Association is a formal organization composed of parents, teachers and staff that is intended to facilitate parental participation in a public or private school. Most public and private K-8 schools in the U.S. have a PTA, a...

, as well as former members of the PTA, and is cleaned and maintained by the students.

The memorial service for the students and teachers killed in the blast is held every August 5 at the school. The school has also appeared in the manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 Barefoot Gen

Barefoot Gen

is a Japanese manga series by Keiji Nakazawa. Loosely based on Nakazawa's own experiences as a Hiroshima survivor, the series begins in 1945 in and around Hiroshima, Japan, where the six-year-old boy Gen lives with his family...

, written by Keiji Nakazawa

Keiji Nakazawa

is a Japanese manga artist and writer.He was born in Hiroshima and was in the city when it was destroyed by an atomic bomb in 1945. All of his family members who had not been evacuated died in the bombing except for his mother, and an infant sister who died several weeks after the bombing...

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History

• Opened as a school in the Myochoji, a temple of the Nichiren sect, on January 10, 1873.
• Built a schoolhouse at the current place in 1884.
• Constructed as the first reinforced concrete school building in Hiroshima, in July, 1928.
• Students in third grade or older were evacuated to another school in the suburbs in April, 1945.
• About 400 students and more than 10 teachers were killed by the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945.
• Reopened the school for 45 students with 4 teachers in February, 1946.
• Renamed as Hiroshima City Honkawa Elementary School, current name, in June, 1947.
• Designated as the School of the Peace Memorial City by the Ministry of Education in 1950.
• Started the relations with a sister school Peter-Petersen-Schule in Hanover
  Hanover
  Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
  
   in 1984.
• Built the new school building and the part of the old building was opened as the Peace Museum in April, 1988.
• Built the memorial for the atomic bomb victims in November, 1998.
• The total number of visitors for the museum reached 100,000 in September, 1998.
• The collection of the stories about the atomic bomb, Negai was made in March, 2005.
• Memorial Lecture was given by one of the survivors, Ms. Imori Kiyoko, in August, 2005.
• A student was participated in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony
  Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony
  Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony is an annual Japanese vigil.Every August 6, "A-Bomb Day", the city of Hiroshima holds the Peace Memorial Ceremony to console the victims of the atomic bombs and to pray for the realization of lasting world peace. The ceremony is held in front of the Memorial...
  
   and performed the Commitment to Peace as the Children's repress*entatives on August 6, 2005.
• The Peace musical by all students was held on their parents visiting Sunday in November, 2005.
• Plant the a-bombed cherry trees in March, 2006.

Exhibitions

• Photographs
• Pictures and calligraphies by students of the school
• Damaged objects
• Thousand Paper Cranes
  Thousand origami cranes
  is a group of one thousand origami paper cranes held together by strings.An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury...
  
   from schools and people

Education programs

• Volunteer Guide Services - appointment is required in advance
  • by the atomic bomb survivors for the visitors
  • by the students of the school for the students visiting from other schools

See also

• Hiroshima City Honkawa Elementary School
• Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
  Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
  During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.For six months...
  
  
• Barefoot Gen
  Barefoot Gen
  is a Japanese manga series by Keiji Nakazawa. Loosely based on Nakazawa's own experiences as a Hiroshima survivor, the series begins in 1945 in and around Hiroshima, Japan, where the six-year-old boy Gen lives with his family...
  
   - a school in the story
• Fukuromachi Elementary School Peace Museum
  Fukuromachi Elementary School Peace Museum
  The Fukuromachi Elementary School Peace Museum is a museum of the Peace in Fukuromachi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima, Japan. The school was one of the closest schools to the ground zero. They lost about 160 students and teachers and the building had great damage by the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945...
  
  - the school has same history and the peace museum

External links

• Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum (the school web site)
• Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum (by the school Alumni association)
• Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum (by NHK Hiroshima)
• Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum (by the "architecture in Hiroshima")