Photo/Illutration A sculpture modeled after a tricycle ridden by 3-year-old Shinichi Tetsutani is displayed at the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva. (Provided by 1Future)

A bronze sculpture modeled after the tricycle of a boy who was killed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima is on display at the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva.

Shinichi Tetsutani, 3, was riding the tricycle in front of his home on Aug. 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb exploded over the city. He died that night.

Instead of cremating Shinichi’s body, his father put an iron helmet on the boy’s head and buried him in a garden with his cherished tricycle.

When the boy’s remains were moved to a grave 40 years later, the father also dug up the tricycle and donated it to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

The sculpture was produced mainly by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which donated it to the museum in Switzerland.

Beatrice Fihn, then executive director of the nongovernmental organization, was moved when she saw the tricycle exhibited at the Hiroshima museum in 2018. She suggested it be placed in Geneva, where an ICAN office and the United Nations Office are located.

U.S. and Japanese artists worked together to digitally scan the tricycle and create the life-size sculpture.

The artwork is on permanent display near the entrance to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum.

Hitomi Hasebe, a daughter of Shinichi’s cousin, attended a news conference at the museum when the sculpture was unveiled on Sept. 19.

“Tricycles are meant for children to have fun with. I hope people will feel something from the tricycle, which looks painfully scorched,” she said.

Akira Kawasaki, an International Steering Group member of ICAN, told The Asahi Shimbun: “For many people around the world, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are too far away to feel ‘real.’ (The sculpture) can show there was a child there and make them think about the nuclear issue as a humanitarian one.”

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