A statue of Hiroshima bombing survivor Sadako Sasaki, which has stood for decades at Peace Park in Seattle’s University District, has been stolen, according to police.
The statue, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by artist Daryl Smith, was erected in 1990 on the north side of the University Bridge, after Quaker activist Floyd Schmoe funded the Peace Park project. Seattle police spokesperson Brian Pritchard said the city’s Parks and Recreation department filed a police report Friday for first-degree theft and malicious mischief.
Sasaki was a Japanese girl who survived the 1945 Hiroshima atomic bombings during World War II that killed hundreds of thousands of people. She went on to become a symbol of peace.
The statue of her is the city’s only outdoor monument honoring a woman historical figure, Axios reported last year.
Colleen Kimseylove, office manager at the nearby Quakers meeting house for the University Friends Meeting, said the statue disappeared overnight and was reported missing on Friday. The only part of the statue remaining was Sasaki’s feet.
“I was just devastated,” Kimseylove said. “I wanted to cry. Sadako is a 12-year-old girl who died of leukemia after the Hiroshima bombing. She didn’t do anything to anyone. [It makes] me feel like Floyd’s dream of peace in Seattle is a little further away than it was.”
While sick in the hospital with leukemia, Sasaki folded hundreds of paper cranes as a symbol of hope, according to an article by the National Park Service. Each year in Seattle, hundreds of people visit the Peace Park and bring paper cranes to the statue.
Cruz Valentin, facilities manager at the meeting house, said the community is “very sad” and wants to prevent this from happening again.
Kimseylove said the Quaker group’s main priority is getting the statue returned.
“We hope that this person has a dark night of the soul where the light comes to them, they realize what a mistake they’ve made, how important Sadako is to so many people, and bring her back,” she said.
