Lunch Box

Lunch Box
Donor: Shigeru Watanabe, courtesy of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

Reiko Watanabe (then, 12) was a first-year student at First Municipal Girls' High School. She was exposed to the bomb while helping to demolish buildings. Her mother, Taka, searched desperately throughout the city, but was never able to find her body. The next day, in a field strewn with bodies, Taka found a charred lunchbox with the name "Watanabe" inscribed on it. The box still held Reiko's lunch of rice and peas.