According to the introduction in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum's English guide: "The Peace Memorial Museum collects and displays belongings left by the victims, photos, and other materials that convey the horror of that event, supplemented by exhibits that describe Hiroshima before and after the bombings and others that present the current status of the nuclear age.

Having now recovered from the A-bomb calamity, Hiroshima's deepest wish is the elimination of all nuclear weapons and the realization of a genuinely peaceful international community.

It had some important letters exchanged between scientists and top leaders of that era talking about atomic development and predicted result of its use.

Sections included Material Witness, which showed clothing, watches, hair, and other personal effects worn by victims of the bomb; Damage by the Heat Rays, a section that looked at what happened to wood, stone, metal, glass, and flesh from the heat; Damage by the Blast, focusing on the destruction caused by the after shocks of the blast, and Damage by the Radiation which went into detail about the health effects suffered by humans.

The East Wing reopened in April 2017, featuring more interactive displays and replacing the model of the city with a new version that uses projection mapping to demonstrate the effects of the bomb blast.