“This should never happen to children. Please work to create a peaceful world where children can play to their heart’s content.”

Nobuo Tetsutani, Shinichi's father

Dear Friend --

Yesterday, ICAN was honoured to be part of a powerful, emotional moment: the donation of Future Memory -Tricycle, an artwork representing the iconic tricycle found in the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima -  to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva. 

Three-year-old Shinichi Tetsutani was riding his tricycle when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Shinichi died that night from severe burns and other injuries, and his parents decided to bury him with his tricycle in their garden. 40 years later, in 1985, they  decided to move their son’s remains to the family gravesite and donated the tricycle to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, and it is now one of the best-known artefacts on display at the museum. 

Yesterday, Shinichi’s tricycle and story were brought to the heart of Geneva - and the rest of the world - through the powerful Future Memory- Tricycle, a bronze artwork created with digitally scanned data of the original tricycle and made into an actual-sized sculpture, created by artists Cannon Hersey and Akira Fujimoto, of the Future Memory Project.

The significance of this sculpture here in the international humanitarian capital of Geneva cannot be overstated at a time when we are seeing heightened tensions, and a new nuclear arms race, which imperils all the world’s children.

It was very emotional yesterday to be joined by representatives of three generations of the Tetsutani family who came to Geneva for this opening, as well as Cannon Hersey, who is the grandson of John Hersey, the first foreign journalist to report from Hiroshima in the wake of the atomic bombing of the city and author of Hiroshima.  

Shinichi’s tricycle has come to symbolise the enormous suffering of children in war, past, present and future and the ever present danger of nuclear weapons.  Shinichi’s tricycle is a reminder of those terrible events and serves to motivate us to make sure we never let such a thing happen again.

On a hot summer’s morning 79 years ago, a dear boy, one month shy of his fourth birthday, was brutally killed while doing what he loved – riding his tricycle. He was one of hundreds of thousands of children killed then and since.

Never again.

This artwork is a symbol of our hope and determination to create a world where children can play in the knowledge they are safe and loved. Thank you for all you do to create it with us. 

Sincerely,

Melissa Parke
Executive Director
ICAN

Photos:
Aude Catimel | ICAN
Zoé Aubry | MICR