Like most of my classmates, I used to hate visiting museums as a school boy. I’m sure the teachers hated it as much as we did, too. Imagine trying to control 65 unruly children as they dart about the Ashmolean seeing how quickly they can walk-but-not-quite-run around the display cabinets playing - what we as ten year-olds suspected was a very discreet, but to everyone else a very obvious - game of ‘It’. I can safely say I don’t remember a single thing from those museum visits and, like everyone else, I considered the highlight the gift shop at the end and parting with my 50 pence piece for a rubber in the shape of Tutankhamun or caveman snot.

But as I matured and took a keen interest in history, I grew to love museums and when planning trips would always be sure to note those reputable enough to warrant my attention along the way, and attempt to visit as many of them as possible. Therefore, when I visited Nagasaki last year, one of my first ports of call was the Nagasaki Genbaku Kinenkan, or Atomic Bomb Museum to you and I.

A short walk from Nagasaki train station, the museum sits atop a short but steep hill where you’ll find a handmade totem pole given to the people of Nagasaki by students in America. It’s quite the eyesore and, was it not symbolic of peace and greater international understanding and harmony, I dare say it would have happily been torn down, hacked to pieces and found a much more constructive use as firewood long before now.

Outside the museum a number of more tasteful sculptures remind the visitor of the importance of peace on earth and, in dry weather, are likely to be draped with strings made of colourful paper cranes, otherwise known as senbazuru. These are to remember Sasaki Sadako, a two year-old resident of Hiroshima when the atomic bomb hit the city. She suddenly fell ill at the age of twelve and, on her hospital bed, made one thousand paper cranes – a symbol of the belief that she would make a full recovery, and that peace may prevail in the world. Sadako-san lost the battle with her illness, but to this day children all over Japan make strings of paper cranes and send them to Nagasaki and Hiroshima as a means of remembering her and celebrating the belief and hope that she carried with her until the very end of her life.

While the statues, tributes and monuments outside the museum are touching, and encourage the visitor to quietly ponder the events of 9th August 1945, nothing can quite prepare you for the museum itself.

Where other museums are fascinating, Nagasaki’s is harrowing, and where other museums have left me feeling content but not especially moved, Nagasaki’s left me feeling deeply upset. While it’s interesting to learn about the politics and events leading up to the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, where the museum excels is in its personal accounts of the tragedy. Stories recount the separation of families and friends, as well as the compassion shared by total strangers, some accompanied with graphic images of the intense suffering endured by the people of the time. Perhaps the most moving of all are the everyday objects on display that survived the bombing – a severely charred lunch box still brimming with rice, a woman’s tattered dress, burnt through with holes from the explosion’s intense heat, and perhaps most poignant of all, a broken clock with a smashed face whose hands will forever read 11:02 - the time the atomic bomb hit Nagasaki on 9th August 1945.

On exiting the museum and enjoying the pleasant walks that Nagasaki’s parks afford, it’s difficult to imagine what terrible fate befell the city sixty-odd years ago. That the rest of your stay in the city is likely to be framed by the memories of what you witnessed in the museum is no bad thing. Like the statue in the Nagasaki Peace Park - whose right hand points to the sky, remembering the tragedy of the bomb, and whose left points outward, toward the future - Nagasaki is a city caught between its tragic history and the vision of a bright and peaceful future. Though one can never hope to fully grasp the devastation, in every sense of the word, of the events and consequences of that August morning in 1945, the Atomic Bomb Museum provides at least a significant stepping stone in understanding why a nation is so obsessed with one word: peace.