Hiroshima Peace Park: Photographs and JSL Video Testimonies

My research trip this summer was to Hiroshima. The first place I went to was the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park and Museum. I have been there before, on August 6, 1997. My companion was a proud Hawaiian-American of Japanese descent. He expressed many mixed emotions about our visit. I remember being overwhelmed with disbelief, sadness, anger... How could this have ever happened? (Why didn't I learn much about this in my history classes?) How can we prevent this from happening again? The artifacts, photographs and artwork were moving and powerful. Everyone, no matter what their politics or thoughts about WWII, needs to see this, to experience this.

On my second trip, after I purchased my ticket I asked if I could take photographs of the exhibition. The answer was yes, as long as I didn't use flash or anything else distracting. As I entered, I asked myself, why do I want to take pictures here? What would I do with them? Pictures of pictures taken out of the context of the reserved and solemn whole of the presentation would gut the experience. So I put my cameras away. Other visitors were snapping away on their smart phones - I wondered how they decided to choose which shots they took.

As I was leaving the museum, I realized I had seen these photos before. I am not talking about my trip 28 years ago, but what I see on the TV news and social media every day: Gaza, Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Ethiopia, Haiti... the list goes on and on. The contexts and situations are different. But they are sites of massive poverty, death, devastation and stupid, unnecessary violence utilizing advanced technological weapons (and some old-fashioned tactics as well). The power of photography is waning. These scenes are just not shocking to many people these days. So I wonder what kind of impact a visit to the Hiroshima Peace Museum would have on my students today. (This is the seed of a future class lecture; any input or suggestions are welcome.)

Still, I urge my students and everyone to go.

One thing I noticed this time, and I don't remember seeing it 28 years ago, was the use of monitors that had videos explaining some of the exhibition in Japanese Sign Language. That the museum seems concerned with barrier-free and accessibility must be noted. According to their website, they offer human interpreters for two languages: English and JSL. They also have video exhibitions of hibakusha (surviving victims of the atomic bombs). Here are some examples that can be found on YouTube:

Sign Language Testimony of Hiroshima by Tomoe Kurokawa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxR540tLiT8

Sign Language Testimony of Hiroshima - Mr. Toshihisa Nakata: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK5igwUPLjg

Sign Language Testimony of Hiroshima – Mr. Katsumi Takabu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhUyLIdOA9U

And here is some visual history from today's Newe York Times:
80 Years Ago, Nuclear Annihilation Came to Japan. What the world’s only atomic bombings, carried out by Americans, did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/world/asia/hiroshima-nagasaki-japan-nuclear-photos.html

Here are some of my photos from the Peace Park, the kind you have seen before because everybody takes the same or similar shots...

The next post of the VAoJ Hiroshima Research Trip Arc will be on traditional Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki and the Ekinishi drinking area.

ONLINE COURSE: Visualizing Japan

Announcement from H-NET Notifications:

Harvard-MIT MOOC: Visualizing Japan (1850s-1930s): Westernization, Protest, Modernity

Seminar Date: 2014-09-03 Now open for registration. Free!

A first-time MIT/Harvard MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), Visualizing Japan opens windows on Japan’s transition into the modern world through the historical visual record. Teachers include John Dower (MIT), Andrew Gordon (Harvard), and Gennifer Weisenfeld (Duke).

This co-taught course looks at Japanese history and the skills and questions involved in reading history through images now accessible in digital formats. The course is based on the MIT "Visualizing Cultures" website devoted to image-driven research on Japan and China since the 19th century (visualizingcultures.mit.edu). The introductory module considers methodologies historians use to “visualize” the past, followed by three modules that explore the themes of Westernization, in Commodore Perry’s 1853-54 expedition to Japan; social protest, in Tokyo’s 1905 Hibiya Riot; and modernity, as seen in the archives of the major Japanese cosmetics company, Shiseido.

This MOOC will be followed by Visualizing Postwar Tokyo by Shunya Yoshimi of the University of Tokyo.

REGISTER FROM THE edX COURSE SITE: https://www.edx.org/course/harvardx-mitx/harvardx-mitx-vjx-visualizing-japan-2331

"University of Michigan New Digital Image Collections in Japanese Studies"

Announcement from H-Japan:

University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service (DLPS) has completed 3 new digital image collection projects in Japanese studies. These collections are open to the public for educational and research purposes.

Brower Fund Collection: Playing Cards:
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/brower1ic

Alfred Hussey Collection: Japan's Constitution Slides: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/hussey1ic

Alfred Hussey Collection: Japan's Constitution Photo Album: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/hussey2ic

See also the UM Digital Library Production Service (DLPS) for all of their on-line resources: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/lib/colllist/

New on-line database: Enemy of the People - Visual Depictions of Chiang Kai-shek

Announcement from H-ASIA:

The 'Enemy of the People' database has recently been established by Dr Jeremy E. Taylor at the University of Nottingham, and has been designed to catalogue the ways in which the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek was visually denigrated by various groups at different points throughout the twentieth century. It includes scans of a wide range of depictions of Chiang by groups as diverse as the Imperial Japanese Army, communist Chinese cartoonists, Soviet propagandists, American caricaturists, and Taiwanese independence activists. Posters, leaflets, and oil paintings, as well as photographic images of effigies and defaced sculptures, are all included. The database also includes a background essay on the collection, and information on selected images.

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), the database has been designed to aid students, scholars, and anyone else with an interest in the depiction of Chinese (and other) leaders, propaganda art, and visual history. It is hoped that the collection will prove to be of relevance not only to those with an interest in Chiang Kai-shek, but to anyone with an interest in the depiction of authoritarian leaders in Asia and beyond.

http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/chiangkaishek/