Hiroshima: Home of the 1000 Crane Club

(International Schools Cyber Fair 1998 Project)

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General Information

The Hiroshima International School High School Students in cooperation with the HIS Student Council are proud to present The Thousand Crane Club. We are actively responding to the cranes sent each month and are doing our best to respond to your letters as quickly as possible. We have recognized the need of an International Children's Peace Monument and are enterprisingly developing plans for such a structure to be built that would be placed on the HIS grounds. Our hope is to build a monument that will hold the cranes sent here from children around the world. A monument that will continue to radiate the message found on Sadako's Statue: THIS IS OUR CRY AND OUR PRAYER, IN BUILDING PEACE IN THIS WORLD.

We invite your school to be a part of this project. Read Sadako and The Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr. Create your own project and send a donation toward world peace. Or send your folded cranes to HIS.  In return, we will send you a certificate of recognition and place your cranes in Peace Park at Sadako's monument. (Please note that to place your cranes at Sadako's monument, there must be 1000 folded paper cranes and the cranes must be strung together to be accepted.)

 Interested in how to fold paper cranes? Link to these sites for step by step instructions (with graphics) on how to fold your own PAPER CRANES:

Paper Crane - Site 1

Paper Crane - Site 2

 You can contact the 1000 Crane Club by writing to:

Hiroshima International School,

c/o 1000 Crane Club,

3-49-1 Kurakake, Asakita-ku,

Hiroshima, Japan 739-1743,

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History

The Thousand Crane Club was organized by Dr. Walter Enloe (former HIS principal), and Steve Leaper (Co-director of Hiroshima Center for Global Education) on October 25th, 1985.

The idea of this club originated during an HIS summer school class. The children and teachers were talking about Hiroshima and were discussing their feelings about war and peace, friendship, and nuclear weapons. The summer school students had been sent cranes folded out of paper from children in America and Canada, hoping that the students at HIS would place them at The Children's Peace Monument which is located in Hiroshima Peace Park. The Canadian and American children, like the summer school students, had read and discussed the story of "Sadako" (a girl in Hiroshima who died of leukemia as a result of atomic radiation, to which The Children's Peace Monument is dedicated - (see next article). The summer school students decided to string together all the cranes they had received together with their own cranes. They then took the cranes to be placed at the Children's Peace Monument.

The summer school students talked about what they could do to build the same kind of friendships and understanding, that was evident at their school in Hiroshima, among children all over the world. Their idea was to begin a Thousand Crane Club so that students everywhere could work together on a common project which would help to promote peace and understanding around the world.

In 1995, the 50th anniversary of the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, the HIS Student Council decided to take over the running of the Thousand Crane Club. Since then the HIS High School students have taken on the task of running the club. Through the Thousand Crane Club they plan to encourage children the world over to fold 1000 paper cranes as a way of promoting peace and making friends. The Thousand Crane Club is the last of its kind in Hiroshima which makes it very important indeed!

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The Story Of Sadako

Sadako at age 12	The Dream of a Monument Fulfilled: the tape-cutting ceremony for the Statue of the A-bomb Children on May 5, 1958 ***	The Children's Peace Memorial
***A note about the middle picture above: Many of the children who helped make the Children's monument a reality participated in the ceremony. Three students, including Sadako's younger brother Eiji Sasaki pulled the red and white tape off the statue to symbolize its completion, while Beethoven's Seventh Symphony was played. The little bell, contributed by Dr. Yukawa, inscribed with "A Thousand Paper Cranes" on the front and "Peace on Earth and in Heaven" on the back, rang out and the sound carried as far as the A-bomb Dome and the Memorial Cenotaph. Adults who supported the group later formed the "Paper Crane Club" in June. (The original Paper Crane Club disbanded in 1997).Click on any picture above for an enlarged picture

Sadako was in her first year of life when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. She was two kilometers away from where the bomb exploded. Most of Sadako's neighbors died, but Sadako wasn't injured at all, at least not in any way people could see. Right after the war there wasn't enough food and medicine to go around, making it difficult to stay alive. Fortunately several other countries sent food and money to help Japan get back on its feet.

Up until the time Sadako was in the seventh grade (1955) she was a normal, happy twelve year old girl. However, one day after an important relay race that she helped her team win, she felt extremely tired and dizzy. After a while the dizziness went away leaving Sadako to think that it was only the exertion from running the race that made her tired and dizzy. But her tranquillity did not last. Soon after her first encounter with extreme fatigue and dizziness, she experienced more incidents of the same.

One day Sadako became so dizzy that she fell down and couldn’t get up. All of her school-mates noticed and informed her teacher. Later Sadako’s parents took her to the Red Cross Hospital to see what was wrong with her. Sadako found out that she had leukemia, a kind of blood cancer. Nobody could believe it.

At that time they called leukemia the “A-bomb disease”. Almost everyone who got this disease died, and Sadako was very scared. She wanted to go back to school, but she had to stay in the hospital where she cried and cried.

Shortly thereafter, her best friend, Chizuko, came to visit her. Chizuko brought some origami (folding paper). She told Sadako of a legend. She explained that the crane, a sacred bird in Japan, lives for a hundred years, and if a sick person folds 1,000 paper cranes, then that person would soon get well. After hearing the legend, Sadako decided to fold 1,000 cranes in the hope that she would get well again.

Sadako's family worried about her a lot. They often came to visit her in hospital to talk to her and to help her fold cranes. After she folded 500 cranes she felt better and the doctors said she could go home for a short time, but by the end of the first week back home the dizziness and fatigue returned and she had to go back to the hospital.

Sadako kept folding cranes even though she was in great pain. Even during these times of great pain she tried to be cheerful and hopeful. Not long afterwards, with her family standing by her bed, Sadako went to sleep peacefully, never to wake up again. She had folded a total of 644 paper cranes.

Every one was very sad. Thirty-nine of Sadako's classmates felt saddened by the loss of their close friend and decided to form a paper crane club to honor her. Word spread quickly. Students from 3,100 schools and from 9 foreign countries gave money to the cause. On May 5, 1958, almost 3 years after Sadako died, enough money was collected to build a monument in her honor. It is now known as the Children's Peace Monument, and is located in the center of Hiroshima Peace Park, close to the spot where the atomic bomb was dropped.

Even though the original paper crane club was recently disbanded, children from all over the world still send folded paper cranes to be placed beneath Sadako’s statue on August 6 - Peace Day. And in so doing, they make the same wish which is engraved on the base of the statue:

THIS IS OUR CRY AND OUR PRAYER,

IN BUILDING PEACE IN THIS WORLD.

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