"I will write "peace" on your wings, and you will fly all over the world".
Sadako Sasaki was a Japanese girl who lived in Hiroshima, in Japan. In August 1945, when she was two years old, the atomic bomb exploded near her home. She and her family escaped, although her grandmother died.
Sadako had a normal childhood and was a very good runner.When she was 11 years old, she fell ill during a running race.
When she was 12, her illness became worse and she was diagnosed with leukaemia, a cancer which affected many children who had been exposed to radiation because of the atom bomb. The doctors told her family that she would have less than one year to live, and she would be in the hospital.
A friend told her about an old Japanese legend which says that if you fold 1000 origami cranes, you get a wish. The crane is a Japanese symbol of long life (or longevity).
Sadako started to fold her own cranes...
She didn't always have origami paper, she used newspaper, medicine wrappings, and scraps of wrapping paper from gifts. She folded and folded. Some people say that she folded over 1000 cranes before she died. We don't know the truth, but we do know that sadly Sadako didn't survive the terrible cancer. She was courageous and happy to the end. In October 1955 she died, peacefully, in the hospital.
In memory of Sadako...The children in her class were very sad, and decided to try to get money for a special memorial for Sadako and other children who had died from the atomic bomb. They wrote a book about Sadako, and they sent letters to schools all over Japan. Three years later, they used the money to build the Children's Peace Monument, in Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima. It has a statue of Sadako and an origami crane on the top . At the bottom of the statue there is a message from the children, it reads:
"This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace in the world."
Every year, thousands of children visit the memorial and leave origami cranes in memory of children who have died because of war, and as a prayer for peace. If you look carefully at the picture above you can see thousands of cranes protected by the white structures around the edge of the memorial.
