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the bonsai

the bonsai

The 400-year-old bonsai that survived Hiroshima

This bonsai survived the Hiroshima bomb, and for 25 years nobody in America knew.

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The real story

The Yamaki family has been shaping this Japanese white pine since 1625. On 6 August 1945 it stood in their nursery about 3 km from the hypocentre of the atomic bomb. A tall wall around the nursery shielded it; the blast blew in the windows and the family was cut by flying glass, but no one was seriously hurt and the trees survived.

In 1976 bonsai master Masaru Yamaki donated it as one of 53 bonsai Japan gave the United States for its Bicentennial, without saying a word about Hiroshima. Only on 8 March 2001, when his grandsons Shigeru and Akira turned up at the National Arboretum in Washington, did the staff learn what the tree had lived through. It still grows there, in the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum.

What the narrator says

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The facts we checked

This Japanese white pine bonsai has been cared for by the Yamaki family since 1625
On 6 August 1945 it was in the Yamaki nursery in Hiroshima, about 3 km from the atomic blast; a wall protected it
In 1976 Masaru Yamaki gave it to the United States as a gift; its survival story only became known in 2001

Sources

We checked every number and date on screen before the video was made.

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