The white crane is the scared bird in Japan. It appears throughout Japanese literature and decorates everything from from the Emperor's robes to pottery and painting.
Legend has that it lives a thousand years and thus it is a symbol for long life.
Fifty years ago, at the end of World War II, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by atomic bombs initiating the dawn of the Nuclear Age. In Hiroshima, a small girl's home was destroyed but she was not injured. Years later, Sadako was twelve years old and the city's running champion. She became ill one day with leukemia or the A-bomb disease, caused by the radiation from the nuclear bomb. With her friend Chzuko she began to fold a thousand paper cranes hoping that her wish to be well would come true.