Nagasaki Japan.

The Peace Park in Nagasaki near ground zero, or the hypocenter, reminds me of one of those parks in Eastern Europe, especially one outside of Budapest, where the authorities have gathered all of those monumental statues in the Socialist Realist style and parked the far away, where most people can’t see them.

Nagasaki invited countries to send their own peace monuments to the park and the “Socialist” nations were eager to show their love for peace.  So, there are monuments from the People’s Republics of Czechoslovakia, China, Cuba, Poland, Bulgaria and, of course the Soviet Union.  It was all the more depressing because of the pouring rain with rain spots on my camera lens.

But one stood out as different.  “Constellation Earth,” a gift from Nagasaki’s sister city, St. Paul, Minnesota.  The guide told us the story of the grandson of the founder of the Great Northern Railroad who honeymooned in Nagasaki before the war and proposed, in 1955, that St. Paul and Nagasaki be paired.  Suzi and I looked at each other and said “Louie?”  Louie being Louis W. Hill, who pronounced his name in the French way.

Mr. Hill had been a State Senator and a banker in St. Paul.  His proposal was picked up by the mayor, who faced opposition so close to the end of the war.  But on December 7, 1955, a date carefully chosen, the sister city agreement was signed.  St. Paul sent a “totem pole” carved by St. Paul Boy Scouts, that was a replica of “the Spirit of Peace” an onyx statue sitting in the St. Paul Courthouse of a Native American and a peace pipe.  Nagasaki sent cheery trees that now grace Como Park Conservatory in St. Paul.

Suzi and I knew Louis Hill because of Suzi’s St. Paul Connections (Her Dad was Mr. Hill’s Attorney and friend.) and because he had an abiding interest in Alaska.  He came to Sitka to contribute to Sheldon Jackson College, and while he was in Sitka we arranged for his foundation to set up an internship for Native American reporters at Raven Radio.  Later Mr. Hill’s Foundation arranged a meeting of St. Paul Foundations at which we made a presentation to other that raised a million dollars to Launch National Native News, that grew into Native Voice One, the Native American Radio Service.

It turns out that Mr. Hill also had an abiding interest in Japan.  He studied art at Oxford University, and while a banker had a great interest in Japanese wood carvings and block prints.  So, amid all of the Socialist Realist statues in the park is one truly striking one, “Constellation Earth,” by Paul Granlund, seven people, representing the 7 continents, holding hands, forming a globe.  It was erected in 1992, years after the Sister Cities agreement but three years before Mr. Hill passed away.

And what of the “totem pole” carved by the boy scouts?  It was replaced by a bronze replica doated by St. Paul’s Rotary clubs.  It was raining hard enough that I was not interested in finding it, and besides, we needed to get back to the bus.

The Peace park and Hypocenter have other statues, most not my style but representative of different views of sculpture.

The bomb did not land in central Nagasaki, but in the Christian quarter of the city.  The Catholic cathedral was near ground zero.  One pillar remained standing.  It was taken down and rebuilt because of the danger of it falling.

This is Ground Zero, or the Hypo-Center.

Water is important to the memorial because of the people’s thirst after the bombing. 

People still leave water at the memorials. This one is for Korean victims.

And this statue is the centerpiece of the park, It is Peace, eyes closed in meditation, hand pointed up towards the source of destruction and hand reaching out.