Cell phones make life easy. In an emergency I can call my family and tell them if I’m okay and where I’m at. If I need to find someone I can call them. But what if I didn’t have that?

There’s always chalk and a prayer.

There’s a big chunk of concrete wall on display in Fukuro-machi Elementary School Peace Museum, blackened by fire and covered in chalk writing. Messages left behind for someone they couldn’t find, that they’re okay or where they’re at. There’s no way to know how many were read by the intended recipients but today this wall gives a glimpse into the  desperate situation for survivors at ground zero in the hours and days following the atomic bomb.

Fukuromachi National School (Elementary School) was 460 meters away from the hypocenter and the museum that stands today is a piece of the school’s west building which survived the blast.

The west building was a reflection of Hiroshima’s growth as an important industrial port and military hub in the 1930s. Fukuro-machi’s student body grew to 1600 students and requiring more accommodations this modern ferroconcrete three-story structure was put up Feb. 26, 1937.

During World War II, the Japanese government encouraged children to be evacuated to the country. Fukuro-machi held a mass evacuation in March 1945 and by August only about 100 students and a staff of 17 remained to tend the school.

A shell of itself, it wasn’t an issue to tear down the school’s wooden buildings to create firebreaks. Firebreaks were empty spaces created in urban areas to prevent fires started by air raids from rapidly spreading through whole cities. About 70 students were outside the morning of Aug. 6, 1945 participating in this building demolition.

When the bomb detonated it’s believed all those in the schoolyard died quickly. Those inside fared better, though they were still injured by glass and other flying debris. Three kids who’d been late to school were in the basement changing shoes at the time and so were safe from the blast. One of them said that he’d went down with a group of six, but the other five were quick to change and go back outside and that he’d only lived because he lagged behind.

Part of Hiroshima’s air raid response plan was the use of school, including Fukuro-machi as aid stations. The school was a burned out shell, all flammable material inside had combusted and set the building on fire, the windows had blown out and the frames bent, but it would still work. Fukuro-machi and Honkawa were among 19 aid station schools within .5 km of the hypocenter. As well as the injured, others came looking for missing family and friends, leaving messages on the walls in chalk letting others know their whereabouts.

Initially there were two doctors and two shift nurses to handle 350 patients suffering from burns, infections and even childbirth as well as an endless stream of regular injuries. Classrooms were used as medical wards and because so many people were dying daily the playground was converted into a makeshift crematorium. It would continue operating as an aid station until spring 1946. When it reopened as a school in May, only 37 students were in attendance.

It was during a visit in October 1945 that a Ministry of Education academic research team visited Fukuro-machi and documented the messages on the walls. Their photographs would be useful decades later in refinding the messages.

The school functioned until it had deteriorated too badly to maintain and a team was sent in 1999 to investigate and see if the messages documented in 1945 were still there. Chipping away at plaster revealed the words ‘in the dormitory’ and from there they kept searching and discovering more messages under plaster and even on the bare wall behind a chalkboard.

The walls with messages were carefully removed and a section of the school earmarked for preservation. The new school was built around and over it and the last remaining bit of west building reopened as a museum in 2002.

Both Fukuro-machi and Honkawa schools were in the same situation and chose the same course of action, preserving a section of the old building, but went about it different ways. Unlike Honkawa, which is stripped bare, Fukuromachi still feels like a normal, well-lit school but with quirks like the random spots of missing plaster and all the baseboards have been removed so visitors can see the blackened walls behind them.

The reproduction and original wall messages on the stairwell are the first thing that jumped out at me in the middle of an otherwise normal place. One was a reproduction using a blown-up black and white photograph to show what they would have looked like when fresh and the other is an original protected by plastic. The original is faint and like a photo negative because the white chalk is now black. It’s believed that the plaster had absorbed the chalk and soot, only leaving behind the soot under the chalk creating the inverse color lettering.

A section of messaged up wall has been preserved under plexiglass.

There’s a video in the basement about the work done to preserve these walls and some of the stories of the people who left the messages. Some families went decades without know what happened to a missing loved on and finding the messages in 1999 brought some closure for them. It’s a great 8 minute video with English subtitles that gives ‘the rest of the story;’ and should be watched to get the most out of your visit.

There are also other artifacts like a damaged door, window and even a taiko drum that was blown out of the building, but there are not the usual cases of melted glass. I’m not denigrating other museum artifact collections, but noting that this one is a little different so it stands out for the few unique pieces it does have displayed. The most unique being the displayed wall with messages that was behind a chalk board and the other preserved message walls, of course.

This place has a lot of personal stories to share told from the first person perspective of students, teachers, evacuees and the doctors who came after the bombing. The evacuee stories are ones that I’ve not seen at other museums. While they may have avoided bombings, their lives weren’t easy either as the children without countryside relatives to take them in lived communally, far from their parents in the country.

The museum is entirely bilingual and the translations are good.

Fukuro-machi can be a good place to begin a tour of bomb-survivor buildings because it was part of a string of buildings in this area that were still standing after the bombing, several of which still stand today. Just down the street heading toward Aioi Dori (Aioi Street), the former Imperial Bank (now Hiroshima Andersen) is still on the corner of the covered arcade intersection (Hon Dori). Its first floor is mostly obscured by modern additions but look up and you’ll see the distinct flower embellishments above every window and the corner of the original building is still exposed on the ground floor as well. If you continue up to Aioi Dori and take a right you’ll soon come to the backside of the towering Fukuya Department Store, which was built in 1938. The front has an entirely modern façade, but coming from the backside it appears to have retained its original eight-story form.

Fukuya Department Store

Former Imperial Bank

Neither of those are museums, but interesting to see if you’ve the time. The last museum I visited that is this close to the hypocenter is just around the corner from the Fukuro-machi peace museum, the former Bank of Japan.

While we were in the area we ate Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki at Gansuke. Okonomiyaki is like a crepe covered in noodles, cabbage, meats and sauce in layers, and is one of my favorite Japanese dishes. Because I came to write about Fukuro-machi we had to meet with the principal and during the conversation he recommended his favorite place, Gansuke. It’s a small local eatery on a narrow street just behind the active Fukuro-machi school property that doesn’t seem to have tourists in mind and the food itself was delicious, so if you want real okonomiyaki this is the place to get it.

Fukuro-machi Elementary School Peace Museum is free to visit and the entrance is off school grounds so there’s no need to check in.

If you’re interested in schools of this era or care to see what these places would have been like before the bomb, Toyosato Elementary School is the closest approximation you’ll find. Like Honkawa and Fukuro-machi, it is also a three-story reinforced-concrete school building and one of the classrooms has been restored to its 1937 appearance.

ADDRESS
Fukuro-machi Elementary School Peace Museum
6-36 Fukuro-machi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima 730-0036
082-541-5345
http://www.fukuromachi-e.edu.city.hiroshima.jp/shiryoukan-index.htm

Gansuke
8-11 Fukuromachi Naka-Ku, Hiroshima 730-0036

082-249-5229