Monument to the children of the world - probably the most famous and the most touching monument of those established in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. It was built with funds raised by the Japanese school children, including the girl's classmates Sadako Sasaki, survived a nuclear explosion and died ten years later of leukemia. Monument dedicated to Sadako and thousands of children who are victims of the nuclear disaster that occurred on August 6, 1945.

Opening of the monument took place in 1958. May 5 when Japan celebrated a national holiday - Day of children. The project of the monument designed by the artist Kazuo Kikuchi and Kiyoshi Ikebe. Help to install the monument also had Hideki Yukawa, a physicist, Japan's first Nobel laureate.

The monument is made of bronze pedestal dome on top of which there are figures of girls, and it flies over the crane. Inside the pedestal is suspended a bell with a figure of a crane, and next to the monument you can always see a lot of paper figures of birds, woven in colorful garlands. At the foot of the monument installed a black marble slab, which in Japanese is written: "This is our cry. This is our prayer. For the sake of peace in the world ".

In Japan, the crane is a symbol of longevity and happiness. The history of Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese schoolgirl has become known around the world thanks to her perseverance and hope of recovery. At the time of the explosion she was two years old, and over the next ten years, Sadako was not observed any signs of radiation sickness. The first signs appeared in November 1954. Her best friend once brought to the hospital Sadako figure crane folded from a piece of paper, and said that to fulfill the cherished desire to do thousands of these birds. The girl began to fold origami from any piece of paper that fall into her hands. According to one version, she made more than a thousand cranes, on the other - only 644. But the paper birds are not able to return it to health, and October 25, 1955 Sadako died.