Sadako Sasaki
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Sadako_Memorial.jpg
Sadako Sasaki (Japanese:佐々木 禎子 Sasaki Sadako, January 7, 1943 –October 25, 1955) was a Japanese girl who lived near Misasa Bridge in Hiroshima, Japan. She was only two years old when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. As she grew up, Sadako was a strong, courageous and athletic girl. In 1954, at age eleven, while practicing for a big race, she became dizzy and fell to the ground. Sadako was diagnosed with leukemia, the "atom bomb disease".
Sadako's best friend told her of an old Japanese legend which said that anyone who folds a thousand origami paper cranes would be granted a wish. Sadako hoped that the gods would grant her a wish to get well so that she could run again. She spent fourteen months in the hospital, and she folded over 1,300 paper cranes before dying at the age of twelve. She folded the cranes out of her medicine bottle wrappers and any other paper she could find in hopes of getting better. (A popular version of the story is that she fell short of her goal of folding 1,000 cranes, having folded only 644 before her death, and that her friends completed the 1,000 and buried them all with her.)
After her death, her friends and schoolmates published a collection of letters to raise funds to build a memorial to her and all of the children who died from the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. It was also a popular cause for children and others in Japan. In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. There is also a statue of her in the Seattle Peace Park. Sadako has become a leading symbol of the impact of a nuclear war.
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External links
- Sadako story from the Sadako organisation (http://www.sadako.org/sadakostory.htm)
- Sadako and the Paper Cranes (http://www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/virtual/VirtualMuseum_e/exhibit_e/exh0107_e/exhi_top_e.html) — photos, a lot of various information on The Official Homepage of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
- Senzaburu Orikata (http://www.mizushobai.freeserve.co.uk/senzaburuorikata.htm) - a 1797 book of origami designs for folding 1000 cranes (well actually 97).
- "Cranes over Hiroshima" (http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/cranesov.htm) - lyrics to a song by Fred Small inspired by Sadako Sasakide:Sadako Sasaki