On 6 August 1945, at 8:15, a single bomb destroyed Hiroshima. The figures speak of the dead. This walk speaks of the living: the hibakusha, who carried burns, illness, fear and discrimination for decades and ended up becoming the firmest voice against nuclear weapons. Twelve stops between the dome, the bridge that served as the target, the exact point of the explosion, the school where four hundred children died, the girl of the cranes, the memorial to the Korean victims, the museum, the hall of names, the messages written on a wall, the Red Cross hospital, the hill where they were studied but not treated and the port from which thousands of wounded were shipped out. Approximate audio duration: 20 minutes.
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Hibakusha: los que sobrevivieron a la bomba y tuvieron que sobrevivir al silencio
El 6 de agosto de 1945, a las 8:15, una sola bomba destruyó Hiroshima. Las cifras hablan de los muertos. Este recorrido habla de los vivos: los hibakusha, que cargaron durante décadas con quemaduras, enfermedades, miedo y discriminación, y que terminaron convirtiéndose en la voz más firme contra las armas nucleares. Doce paradas entre la cúpula, el puente que sirvió de blanco, el punto exacto de la explosión, la escuela donde murieron cuatrocientos chicos, la niña de las grullas, el monumento a las víctimas coreanas, el museo, la sala de los nombres, los mensajes escritos en una pared, el hospital de la Cruz Roja, la colina donde los estudiaban sin curarlos y el puerto desde donde partieron miles de heridos. Duración aproximada de audio: 20 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~20 min of audio · 9.89 km on foot (~2 h 30 min walking) · about 3 h in total
You are in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome: the iron skeleton of a dome over a ruined brick building. In 1945 it was the prefecture's Industrial Promotion Hall. It was left standing by chance.
This walk is not about the explosion but about what came afterwards. About the people who were in the city that morning and stayed alive.
In Japanese they are called hibakusha: people affected by the bomb. The word includes those who were in the city, those who came in during the following days to look for relatives or to help, and babies who were in their mothers' wombs.
By the end of 1945, according t…
2
The Target
You are on the Aioi Bridge. Look at its shape on a map: it is a T, because it joins two banks and the tip of an island. From a plane nine thousand metres up, it was easy to recognise.
That is why it was chosen as the aiming point. The Enola Gay bomber aimed at this bridge. The bomb drifted about three hundred metres as it fell and exploded some six hundred metres up, near here.
Hiroshima was a city of barracks, a military port and factories. There were some three hundred and fifty thousand people, counting soldiers, mobilised workers and students.
Many of the first survivors described the s…
3
Six Hundred Metres Above
You are on a quiet street among ordinary buildings. Look for a small plaque by the entrance of a hospital. It marks the hypocentre: the exact point over which the bomb exploded, about six hundred metres up.
Shima Hospital, a private clinic, stood here at the time. Its director, Dr Kaoru Shima, was out of the city seeing patients. Everyone inside died instantly.
The doctor came back and reopened the hospital on the same site. It still operates today, run by his family.
Look up and imagine it. Within a radius of about two kilometres almost everything was destroyed. The temperature on the grou…
4
The School of the Four Hundred
You are in front of Honkawa Elementary School. Today there are children playing in the yard. Part of the old concrete building survives and serves as a small museum.
It stood about four hundred metres from the hypocentre. It was one of the few concrete schools in the city. That morning there were some four hundred pupils and about ten teachers. Almost all of them died.
In the days that followed, the building, still standing, became a shelter for the wounded. Hundreds of burned people were brought here. And bodies were cremated in the yard for days.
In the museum's basement you can see the w…
5
A Thousand Paper Cranes
You are in front of the Children's Peace Monument. At the top a bronze girl holds a crane above her head. Around it are glass cases full of garlands of thousands of coloured paper cranes, sent by schools from all over the world.
The girl is Sadako Sasaki. She was two when the bomb fell, more than a kilometre and a half from the hypocentre. She survived with no apparent injuries. She grew up healthy, ran fast and was good at sports.
At eleven she was diagnosed with leukaemia. It was one of the illnesses that began to appear among the hibakusha years after the bomb, caused by radiation.
In ho…
6
The Victims Who Were Not on the List
You are in front of a stone monument borne by a turtle, surrounded by flowers and cranes. It is dedicated to the Korean victims of the atomic bomb.
In 1945 Korea was a Japanese colony. Tens of thousands of Koreans lived in Hiroshima. Many had come under compulsion, mobilised to work in factories, shipyards and military construction.
It is estimated that between twenty and thirty thousand Koreans died or were affected by the bomb in Hiroshima, perhaps one in ten of the victims. For a long time their names were missing from official figures.
This monument was erected in 1970, but outside the …
7
What Could Not Be Told
You are in front of the Peace Memorial Museum, a long concrete building raised on stilts, designed by the architect Kenzo Tange. Inside are the objects: a burned tricycle, a lunch box with carbonised rice, torn school uniforms, a person's shadow etched into stone steps.
Each object has a name and a story, donated by a family. Many arrived decades later, when elderly hibakusha decided it was time to speak.
In the early years it could not be told. In 1945 the American occupation authorities imposed a press code restricting information about the bomb's effects. Photos of victims and Japanese me…
8
The Hall of Names
Go down the ramp of the National Peace Memorial Hall. Below is a circular, silent room. On the walls, a panorama of the destroyed city seen from the hypocentre, made of a hundred and forty thousand tiles: the estimated number of dead by the end of 1945.
In the centre, a fountain. It stands for the water the wounded begged for that morning.
In another room, names and photographs of the dead appear one after another on screens. And there is a library of testimonies: thousands of accounts written and recorded by the hibakusha themselves.
Listen to one if you can. Many tell the same thing: I di…
9
Messages on a Wall
You are at Fukuromachi Elementary School, some four hundred and sixty metres from the hypocentre. Part of the original building serves as a museum. Go in and look at the walls.
After the bomb, the ruined building became a relief centre. People looking for relatives came here and wrote messages in chalk or charcoal on the blackened walls.
Looking for my daughter, fourteen years old. I am at my uncle's house in such-and-such village. If anyone knows anything, please tell us. The messages remained, in hurried handwriting, one over another.
Over the years the walls were covered with plaster and…
10
Glass Embedded in the Wall
You are in front of the Hiroshima Red Cross and Atomic-bomb Survivors Hospital. Beside the entrance a fragment of the old building is preserved: a window frame with shards of glass still embedded in the wall.
The hospital was a kilometre and a half from the hypocentre. The blast wave shattered every window and hurled the glass against the walls and against people.
Most of the doctors and nurses were injured. Even so, that same day they began treating a crowd. Thousands of people arrived within a few hours. There was no water, no light, no medicine.
For years this hospital was one of the few…
11
Studied, Not Treated
You are on Hijiyama hill, in a wooded park overlooking the city. At the top are some low buildings with curved roofs. They house the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, a joint Japanese and American body.
Its origins are uncomfortable. In 1947 the United States created the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, known as the ABCC, to study the effects of radiation on survivors. In 1950 it moved here.
Hibakusha were summoned for examinations: blood tests, measurements, photographs. Some said they were picked up in cars and brought to the hill. But the commission did not treat them. Its mission wa…
12
The Island of the Wounded and a Voice That Will Not Fade
You are at Ujina port, facing the sea. Look at the cone-shaped island ahead: it is Ninoshima. In 1945 Ujina was the great military port from which Japanese soldiers left for Asia.
In the days after the bomb, some ten thousand wounded were taken from here to Ninoshima, where the army had a quarantine station. There was not enough medicine. Most died within days and were buried in pits on the island. In 1971 remains were still being found.
Then came decades of silence, illness and discrimination. And, little by little, words. In 1956 the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki founded a national o…
How long does the "Hibakusha: Those Who Survived the Bomb and Then Had to Survive the Silence" audio tour take?
It has about 20 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 9.89 km walking route (~2 h 30 min on foot). Plan roughly 3 h in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Word That Did Not Exist" (coordinates 34.3955, 132.4536). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Hiroshima and pick "Hibakusha: Those Who Survived the Bomb and Then Had to Survive the Silence". No account required to start.
