On August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb wiped out most of the city of Hiroshima, killing over 50,000 thousand people that day, and just as many later as a result of exposure to the radiation. Last spring, I stood on the soil of the city that was reborn from the ashes like a phoenix.

The Atomic Bomb Dome was located almost directly beneath the explosion. It was not destroyed completely and the remnant of the building remains as a vivid reminder of what happened in 1945. The people inside it then died instantly as the building was set ablaze that fatal day. What remained of the structure has been preserved so that the world doesn’t forget the sufferings caused by nuclear weapons and war.

As I walked through the Hiroshima Peace Museum, I was horrified by the images of people shorn of their skin, almost indistinguishable from what remained of clothes and corpses lying around. They will be forever burned in my brain. The Hall of Remembrance is a tribute to the fallen, and has the names of every single casualty. Each one of these people had a family, a life. The casualties were innumerable. Young children and infants who never got to live a whole life, those unfortunate people who managed to survive the blast but who died years later due to ill effects of the radiation.

The Children’s Peace Monument is by far the most touching part of the museum. It was inspired by the life of a girl who battled leukemia for life because she was exposed to radiation at the age of two. The monument contains several colorful artworks done by young Japanese children and a simple message – a wish for peace. A wish to stay alive and not live a life of misery with an untreatable disease. A wish to go to school and grow up like any regular child. A wish for all those in the world who are casualties of war. A wish to protect anyone else from this terrible fate. A wish for world peace.

As I read the documents on the project displayed in the museum, I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that the bombing had beens o carefully and purposefully planned. The thought of destroying innocent lives, even in a war, was something I wasn’t able to understand. Before the real atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, 49 practice bombs were dropped on different locations killing or injuring more than 1,600 people each. It wasn’t enough to cause one-time destruction; several smaller hits were, for some reason, justified in a war. Not to mention the real atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, three days after the destruction at Hiroshima.

The thought that struck me the most was the fact that this city had been reduced to almost nothing, yet it had bounced back stronger than ever. A Japanese politician, Kazumi Matsui once said, “Humans destroyed Hiroshima, but humans also rebuilt it.” The undamaged parts of the city were back on their feet just a few days after the bombing. The entire city was rebuilt from the rubble even after a typhoon swept the city, just after the bombing. The people’s efficiency is astounding.

The city of Hiroshima doesn’t give off vibes of a once dead city. To someone with absolutely no knowledge of the bombing, it would seem the same as any other Japanese city. It is now a beautiful and surprisingly modern city.

Yet a reminder of the devastation caused by nuclear bombs remains … as well as an eternal wish for world peace.