Yesterday was a somber day for many, as it was the 70th anniversary of one of the most infamous military actions in history: the day the first atomic bomb was ever used to take human lives, having been dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
Memorials and interviews with survivors can be found all across the Internet (like this one), but one unusual story in particular is garnering a lot of attention—the story of a 390-year-old bonsai tree that survived the blast in Hiroshima.
This tree, which can be found in Washington D.C.’s National Bonsai & Penjing Museum, has existed in relative obscurity for many years. Its previous owner, Japanese bonsai master Masaru Yamaki, donated the tree during America’s bicentennial as a gift of friendship, but the history of the tree wasn’t fully uncovered until his grandsons visited in 2001.
It was then that the museum became aware of the diminutive tree’s amazing story. In 1945, Yamaki and his family lived in a house with a nursery less than 2 miles from the blast site. When the bomb hit, the windows of the house blasted inwards, injuring some of the family—but the tiny tree, which had been outside, escaped entirely unscathed.
The Museum has an idea of how it survived: “Location, location, location,” said Jack Sustic, the curator of the Bonsai and Penjing Museum. “It was up against a wall. It must have been the wall that shielded it from the blast.”
Despite this amazing story, the museum did not wish to focus on it, according to USA Today.
“We really don’t play up the idea of its surviving Hiroshima,” Kathleen Emerson-Dell, assistant curator for artifact collections at the museum. “It’s just a fact of life.”
Instead, the museum chose to focus on the beauty of the tree and its symbolism of the healed friendship between the U.S. and Japan, initially leaving any mention of Hiroshima off the tree.
Many people grasp this point. “It’s a lot about forgiveness,” said William Lee, a rising junior at American University, after viewing the tree for the first time Wednesday. “About 30 years after the bombing it was donated as a sign of friendship from Japan. That’s incredible.”
However, many others caught wind of its past and recently have been making special trips to see it, prompting the staff to add a description of the tree’s history below the tree, near a placard that reads, “In training since 1625.”
A tree older than the U.S.A
Still, many maintain that Hiroshima is only a small part of what makes the tree special. For starters: The tree is nearly 400 years old, meaning that it’s lived through more major historical events than just Hiroshima. For example, it was about 150 when the Declaration of Independence was written, and 228 when Commodore Matthew Perry steamed into Tokyo harbor and demanded Japan end its isolation from the rest of the world.
But there were even smaller accumulative events that make the bonsai incredible: “One of the things that makes it so special is, if you imagine, somebody has attended to that tree every day since 1625,” said Sustic. “I always like to say bonsai is like a verb. It’s not a noun; it’s doing.”
Further, as bonsai trees are living works of art, they can be extremely expensive. Adding in a long lifespan and fascinating history only adds to the value of this tree.
“I find it amazing that Masaru Yamaki could give a priceless bonsai basically to his enemy and not say a word about it,” said Felix Laughlin, president of the nonprofit National Bonsai Foundation. “I get emotional just talking about it.”
(Image credit: Christa Burns/Flickr Creative Commons)
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