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On@February 25, 1981, Pope John Paul II
made an appeal for the total abolition of
nuclear arms in his "Appeal for Peace"
before the A-bomb Cenotaph in Peace Memorial
Park. His appeal greatly impressed people
all over the world.
The appeal of a hibakusya, Yoshie
Fujieda,
to erect a monument commemorating
his visit
to Hiroshima and making his peace
appeal
a foundation for world peace,
resulted in
the organization of a committee
for erecting
a memorial monument(Tomin Harada,
chairman).
As the result of a fundraising
campaign the
monument was erected and the
unveiling ceremony
took place on February 25, 1983,
in the first-floor
lobby of the Hiroshima Peace
Memorial Hall
with the participation of Archbishop
Mario
Pio Gaspari of the Papal Court,
Mayor Araki
and some 150 others.
The monument is an abstract sculpture
from
two pieces of sstone symbolizing
a future
of harmony and stability throughout
the world.
It expresses the hope of the
people of the
world for peace. The monument
is 3 meters
high, 1.8 meters wide and 0.9
meters deep.
It is made of white mable from
Carrara, Iraly,
by a sculptor from Hiroshima,
Kazuto Kuetani,
presently living in Italy. The
committee
raised 4 millionj yen in donjations
for the
erection of this monument.
The inscription was selected from the Pope's
"Peace Appleal" and appears in
both English and Japanese (the calligraphy
was done by Hiromu Morishita). "War
is the work of man. War is destructionj of
human life. War is death. To remember the
past is to bommit oneself to the future.
To remember Hiroshima is to abhor nuclear
war. To remember Hiroshima is to commit oneself
to peace." This monument is located
in the first-floor lobby of the East Building
of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. |
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