“We’re not bound by our genetic codes to repeat the mistakes of the past. We can tell our children a different story. Those who died, they are like us. Ordinary people understand this I think. They do not want more war. The world was forever changed here. But today, the children of this city will go through their day in peace. What a precious thing” said Mr. Obama.
 
The trip comes amid Japanese protests over alleged crimes committed by US troops stationed in Japan. On Friday, just as Obama was visiting the Hiroshima memorial, a US sailor pleaded guilty to raping an intoxicated Japanese woman in Okinawa’s capital Naha in March.
 
“We have a shared responsibility to look directly in the eye of history. We must ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again” President Obama said in a speech at the memorial.
 
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Obama’s visit opened a new chapter of reconciliation for the US and Japan and praised the president for his courage in coming to Hiroshima.
 
As a reminder, the U.S. is the only nation to have used nuclear weapons in warfare. The two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 killed thousands, with the death toll reaching 140.000 by the end of the year, not to add fatalities caused by long term effects of the bombs. Several analysts disagree with the American justification that it was necessary to drop the bombs in order to bring an end to the war. They argue Japan had already lost the war and history could have come down the same way, without the death toll.
 
Some survivors from the atomic attacks had expected an apology from the U.S. President, which Obama did not offer.
 
“We come to ponder the terrible force unleashed in a not-so-distant past” Mr. Obama said after laying a wreath at the memorial. “We come to mourn the dead”.
 
Reuters collected reactions by survivors before the ceremony: “I want Obama to say 'I'm sorry.' If he does, maybe my suffering will ease” Eiji Hattori, 73, who survived the bombing of Hiroshima. His parents and grandparents, rice traders, all died in the years following the attack. Hattori has three types of cancer. On hearing the speech, he said: “I think [the speech] was an apology”.
 
“If Obama were to apologize as the representative of the United States, then Japan's military needs to apologize too,” said Mieko Koike, a 67-year-old Hiroshima resident.
 
“An apology doesn’t matter. I just want [President Obama] to come and visit Hiroshima and see real things and listen to the voice of survivors,” Sunao Tsuboi, 91, a bombing survivor and anti-nuclear activist, told AFP. He suffered burns from the blast and developed cancer.