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Today, January 7, we honor the birthday of Sadako Sasaki, a hibakusha who died at 12 years old from leukemia caused by radiation exposure after the Hiroshima bombing.
Sadako’s story lives on through the 1,000 paper cranes she folded in hope that her wish for peace would come true. Her life remains a powerful symbol of the human cost of nuclear weapons and the global desire for a world without them.
Each year, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation hosts Sadako Peace Day in early August at the Sadako Peace Garden in Montecito, California. During this event, community members gather to remember Sadako and all hibakusha, participate in paper crane ceremonies, share poetry, music, and reflections, and reaffirm the commitment to nuclear disarmament and peace.
We also share President Ivana Nikolić Hughes’s poem honoring Sadako, delivered at the Choose Hope Symposium in Hiroshima below:
I think of you often
I think of you often,
Dear Sadako,
Sometimes I sit in my favorite chair,
And I cryI think about where I was
When I was two
Toddling around
In my safe homeAnd I think of you
At age two
Bathing in radiation
In flattened and burning HiroshimaI think about where I was
At age 12
Dreaming of going to AmericaI didn’t think then
About
What America had done to youWhen you were 12,
You were in the hospital
You were folding paper cranes
You didn’t live to be 13I learned to fold paper cranes
After my daughter was bornMy mother and I
Hung them over Inge’s crib
As a mobile
She looked at them oftenEven then, I didn’t know your story
I would learn it later
When it was timeI saw your statue in Hiroshima
Yesterday
I saw what you mean
To children, to people
You bring light to this worldYou didn’t get to grow old
Dear Sadako
They didn’t let you
I wonder how you would have changed
And how many origami you would have foldedYou wanted to write
On the wings of a paper crane
PEACE
You wanted the paper crane
To fly all over the worldIt now does
But peace has not come
We need to fold more cranes
And send them everywhereI think of you often
Dear Sadako
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