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Sadako and Her Paper Cranes

Many kids around the world learn to make paper cranes, a symbol of peace and
hope, as their very first piece of origami. It’s an ancient Japanese pattern, but one
little girl’s story brought the paper crane to the world. Her name was Sadako Sasaki,
and she was just two years old when she was exposed to radiation from the atomic
bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 before the end of World
War II (1939–1945). The bomb destroyed her city and spread toxic radiation
across the land and into people’s bodies. Sadako was bathed in this radiation,
which caused her to develop a form of cancer called leukemia nine years later.
A Japanese belief says that if you fold one thousand paper cranes, you
can be granted a wish. Sadako wished to get well, and she began folding crane
after crane while she was in the hospital being treated for leukemia. Her brother
believed she put her pain into every crane, never letting others know how much
she was hurting inside. When Sadako died in 1955, her classmates started a
campaign to build a monument in Sadako’s memory. In 1958 a statue of Sadako
holding a golden crane was erected in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Her
story spread around the world through Austrian author Robert Jungk’s book
Children of the Ashes. Western efforts to ban atomic bombs used Sadako as a
symbol for their movement. Sadako and her paper cranes grew to symbolize the
hope for a more peaceful world. While learning about her story, nuclear bombs,
and peace movements in school, children often learn how to fold origami paper
cranes too.
Many people send their paper cranes to Hiroshima, and the city puts them
by Sadako’s statue. Close to ten million cranes arrive each year from all
over the world. Sadako’s family has also sent her cranes to places in need
of peace and healing. The first were sent to the National 9/11
Memorial & Museum, which commemorates
the September 11, 2001, attacks on the
World Trade Center in New York City. In
2011, when an earthquake triggered
a tsunami that hit Japan and caused a
meltdown at a nuclear power plant, the
September 11th Families’ Association and
the 9/11 Tribute Center sent a gift to Japan:
a welded metal origami crane made from
the debris of the World Trade Center.

INSIDE THE FOLDS: FROM PAPER TO ROBOTS 19