19 Facts About Sadako Sasaki

Sadako Sasaki was a Japanese girl who became a victim of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States.

Sadako Sasaki was two years of age when the bombs were dropped and was severely irradiated.

Sadako Sasaki is remembered through the story of the more than one thousand origami cranes she folded before her death.

Sadako Sasaki died at the age of 12 on October 25,1955, at the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital.

Sadako Sasaki was blown out of the window and her mother ran out to find her, suspecting she might be dead, but instead finding her two-year-old daughter alive with no apparent injuries.

Sadako Sasaki's grandmother ran back inside and died near the house, apparently trying to escape fires by hiding in a cistern.

Sadako Sasaki grew up like her peers and became an important member of her class relay team.

In November 1954, Sadako Sasaki developed swellings on her neck and behind her ears.

Sadako Sasaki was hospitalized on February 21,1955, and given no more than a year to live.

Sadako Sasaki was admitted as a patient to the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital for treatment and given blood transfusions on February 21,1955.

Sadako Sasaki then thanked her family, those being her last words.

In 1958, a statue of Sadako Sasaki holding a golden crane was unveiled in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

Sadako Sasaki has become a leading symbol of the effects of nuclear war and has become an international symbol for peace and a peaceful world, especially during the ongoing 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Sadako Sasaki's story is told in some Japanese schools on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.

DiCicco and Sasaki's brother co-wrote a book about Sasaki, The Complete Story of Sadako Sasaki, hoping to bring her true story to English speaking countries.

Sadako Sasaki's story has become familiar to many schoolchildren around the world through the novels The Day of the Bomb by the Austrian writer Karl Bruckner.

Sadako Sasaki is briefly mentioned in Children of the Ashes, Robert Jungk's historical account of the lives of Hiroshima victims and survivors and about Japan World War II.

The death of Sadako Sasaki inspired Dagestani Russian poet Rasul Gamzatov, who had paid a visit to the city of Hiroshima, to write an Avar poem, "Zhuravli", which eventually became one of Russia's greatest war ballads.

The 2020 album Sadako Sasaki e le mille gru di carta by Italian progressive rock band LogoS is a tribute to Sadako Sasaki's legacy, and was released on the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.