President Obama made a symbolic gesture at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Friday, leaving two origami cranes behind at a memorial to a 12-year-old victim of the Hiroshima bomb who became famous for folding cranes as she died.
Sadako Sasaki, who was 2 years old when the bomb dropped and lived for 10 more years, is one of the best known survivors of Hiroshima, known in Japan as hibakusha. After being diagnosed with leukemia in 1954, Sadako's hospital roommate told her of the Japanese legend that anyone who folds 1,000 origami cranes would be granted a wish.
Her story was the basis of the book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. Different versions of the story have her folding anywhere from 644 or 1,400 cranes before she died, but the thousand cranes have become an important symbol of the devastating effects of nuclear war.
To this day, Japanese schoolchildren continue to send cranes by the thousands to Hiroshima in honor of Sadako. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, they sent 1,000 more to New York City.
The White House said Obama visited Sadako's memorial and presented paper cranes to two local school children. Then, after signing the guest book, he left two more paper cranes alongside his inscription.
The visit came before Obama's speech on the legacy of Hiroshima as he urged nations to work to eliminate nuclear weapons. He is the first president to visit Hiroshima in the 71 years since President Truman ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in an effort to end World War II.
Obama's visit to the museum was private, and the details revealed to travelling White House reporters only after Air Force One stopped in Alaska to refuel on its way back to Washington.
