Bell of Peace

This guide to the Bell of Peace in Hiroshima traces a bronze bell cast in 1964, nineteen years after the atomic bombing, when a group of hibakusha, survivors of the bomb, raised the money to build something people could sound rather than only mourn beside. It follows bell caster Masahiko Katori, later honored as a Living National Treasure, and what he set into the bronze surface, including a small mirror on its far side. You'll also hear about the lotus pond beside it, grown from two-thousand-year-old seeds, and the burns survivors once wrapped in its leaves.