01 Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum
Date of completion of the old school building
July 1928
Date of completion of the new school building and Peace Museum
April 1988
Shape
Part of an L-shaped three story re-inforced concrete school building (first school buidling in Hiroshima made of re-inforced concrete)
Noteworthy characteristics
1. School closest to the hypocenter
As the closest school to the hypocenter (about 410 meters away), Honkawa National School (today Honkawa Elemtary School) received great damage. The interior of the building was totally gutted and destroyed, and of the principal, ten staff members, and around 400 first and second graders, only one student and one teacher miraculously survived.
2. Temporary first-aid station
The school that had been burnt down to its outer walls from the following day became a temporary first-aid station soon crowded with many wounded. Also, on the school grounds many corpses were cremated.
3. Resuming classes and rebuilding the school
Classes resumed in February the following year in a minimally repaired school building.
In later years the A-bombed school building was repeatedly repaired and remodeled, but in April 1988, a new school building was constructed and the old one removed except for one section above ground and another underground.
4. Preservation of the A-bombed school building and the Peace Museum
A part of the school building and an underground section were maintained and preserved as the "Peace Museum" which opened in May 1988. It is preserved as a "witness" to the damage caused by the atomic bombing by leaving the burnt remains centered around the underground rooms as they were. Most of the artifacts on display were gathered by former Honkawa School teachers from A-bombed districts.
- Exhibitied materials -
Framed document: Epitaph of the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims "Rest in peace..."
(Original handwriting of Tadayoshi Saika)
Photo panels: 30 pieces (Depicting the damage of the A-bomb caused to Hiroshima City and Honkawa Elementary School)
A-bomb materials: 30 items (melted glass, burnt work trousers)
5. "Barefoot Gen"
Honkawa Elementary School is the school appearing in Keiji Nakazawa's "Barefoot Gen" (Hadashi no Gen)
