HONOLULU – A small origami crane folded by Sadako Sasaki, who died of leukemia at age 12 after the United States A-bombed her hometown of Hiroshima, will go on display Saturday in Pearl Harbor, where Japan’s surprise attack in 1941 put the two nations at war.

The family of Sasaki, who died in 1955, donated the paper crane to promote peace and overcome the tragedies of the past, including between the two countries.

“We have both been wounded and have suffered painfully. We don’t want the children of the future to go through the same experience,” Sasaki’s nephew, Yuji Sasaki, said in Hiroshima.

Starting Saturday, the crane will be part of an exhibit at the visitors’ center at Pearl Harbor near the USS Arizona, the battleship that sank during the Dec. 7 bombing raid by Imperial Japanese forces.

The tiny crane — which is about the size of a pinky fingernail — will occupy a small corner of one of the center’s two exhibit halls. The facility is operated by the U.S. National Park Service.

Sasaki folded between 1,000 and 2,000 cranes while battling leukemia in 1955 — her family never counted exactly how many — after hearing an old Japanese story that those who fold a thousand cranes are granted one wish. The sixth-grader’s wish was to get better, but she died less than three months after starting the project.

Her story has become well-known around the world, and origami cranes have turned into a potent symbol of peace.

The family has also donated one of Sasaki’s cranes to the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, next to ground zero in New York, and to the Austrian Study Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution.

Yuji Sasaki said the family wanted one crane to go to Pearl Harbor because he feels there’s still a gulf between some Americans and Japanese when it comes to how the war began, and how it ended.

For example, he said, when people from Hiroshima and Nagasaki say, “No more Hiroshima, no more Nagasaki” to protest the use of nuclear weapons, he hears Americans reply with the phrase, “Remember Pearl Harbor.”

The first time he witnessed an exchange like this in person, he recalled thinking: ” ‘I’m not going to get people to talk about the future this way.’ “

He hopes the crane will create opportunities for atom bomb and Pearl Harbor survivors to interact and think about each other’s perspectives.

“If we are going to pave the way to peace for the children of the future, we can’t pass on the grudges of the past,” said Yuji Sasaki, who helps run Sadako Legacy, a nonprofit organization promoting peace and Sasaki’s story.

Lauren Bruner, a 21-year-old sailor on the Arizona who suffered burns over 70 percent of his body and lost his best friend in the Pearl Harbor attack, welcomed the gift. “There’s always somebody that will never forgive or forget, but I think it’s a nice gesture,” he said.

Now 92, Bruner plans to speak at a ceremony to mark the opening of the new crane exhibit Saturday.