Years ago I ran across a Youtube video of Ralph McTell's "Streets of London" by Rappers Against Racism which blew me away. Of course the side bar had links to other song by RAR and one of these was "Hiroshima" (Fly Little Bird).
The story line in the video is very clever as it tells the story of Sadako Sasaki, one of the survivors of the bomb following the narrative from the book "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes".
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is a non-fiction children's book written by American author Eleanor Coerr and published in 1977.
This true story is of a girl, Sadako Sasaki, who lived in Hiroshima at the time of the atomic bombing by the United States. She developed leukemia from the radiation and spent her time in a nursing home creating origami (folded paper) cranes in hope of making a thousand of them. She was inspired to do so by the Japanese legend that one who created a thousand origami cranes would be cured by the gods. Her wish was simply to live. However, she managed to fold only 644 cranes before she became too weak to fold any more, and died on 25 October 1955 in the morning. Her friends and family helped finish her dream by folding the rest of the cranes, which were buried with Sadako. They also built a statue of Sadako holding a giant golden origami crane in Hiroshima Peace Park.
Now every year on Obon Day, which is a holiday in Japan to remember the departed spirits of one's ancestors, thousands of people leave paper cranes near the statue. On the statue is a plaque: "This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace on Earth."
Did she only fold 644 cranes? From her Wiki page
On August 3, 1955, Sadako's best friend, Chizuko Hamamoto, came to the hospital to visit, and cut a gold piece of paper into a square to fold it into a paper crane, in reference to the ancient Japanese story that promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by the gods. A popular version of the story is that Sadako fell short of her goal of folding 1,000 cranes, having folded only 644 before her death, and that her friends completed the 1,000 and buried them all with her. This comes from the book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. An exhibit which appeared in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum stated that by the end of August 1955, Sadako had achieved her goal and continued to fold more cranes.
Whether she folded 644 or over a thousand cranes isn't really germane to her story or the video. Her story puts a human face to the event and its aftermath. Just as the shooting of Malala Yousufzai puts a human face to the horror that is the situation of girls trying to get an education in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Sadako's story should be a lesson, "Never again".
JohnCramerPhotography