Japan Guide
Kyūshū
Atomic Bomb Museum
Overlooking the park to the east, behind a surprising row of Love Hotels peering over the willows, you'll find the Atomic Bomb Museum, or Nagasaki Gembaku-shiryōkan. You enter via a symbolic, spiralling descent, then views of pre-war Nagasaki lead abruptly into a darkened room full of twisted iron girders, blackened masonry and videos constantly scrolling through horrific photos of the dead and dying. It's strong stuff, occasionally too much for some, but the most moving exhibits are always those single fragments of an individual life – a charred lunchbox, twisted pair of glasses or the chilling shadow of a man etched on wooden planks.
The purpose of the museum isn't only to shock, and the displays are packed with information, much of it in English, tracing the history of atomic weapons, the effects of the bomb and the heroic efforts of ill-equipped emergency teams who had little idea what they were facing. There's a fascinating video library of interviews with survivors, including some of the foreigners present in Nagasaki at the time; figures vary, but probably more than 12,000 foreigners were killed in the blast, mostly Korean forced-labour working in the Mitsubishi shipyards, as well as Dutch, Australian and British prisoners of war. The museum then broadens out to examine the whole issue of nuclear weapons and ends with a depressing video about the arms race and test ban treaties. Opening time: Daily: May– Aug 8.30am–6.30pm; Sept– April 8.30am–5.30pmPrice: ¥200