Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage

photo by Nick-D · CC BY-SA 4.0

Founded in 2002 on private donations, after the plan for a public museum was blocked

In the video room visitors listen to the survivors' testimonies, collected door to door by the journalist Saotome Katsumoto from 1970 onwards. The display cases hold objects melted by the heat of the bombing of 10 March 1945. The museum owes its existence to almost 4,000 private donors, after the project for a public peace museum was blocked by the state.

The centre grew out of the Association to Record the Tokyo Air Raids (東京空襲を記録する会), founded in 1970 by the writer and survivor Saotome Katsumoto. It opened on 9 March 2002, on the eve of the anniversary of the great raid of 10 March 1945, which in one night killed more than 100,000 people and left a million residents homeless. The building was extended in March 2007. Today the museum, directed by the historian Yoshida Yuri, holds photographs, objects burnt by the heat and the registers of the names of the civilian victims of Tokyo prefecture.

ℹ️ Open 10:30–16:00, closed on Mondays. Tickets: adults 300 yen, junior high/high school 200 yen, elementary school 100 yen, free for under-6s and for people with disabilities. Toei bus route 26 (Akihabara–Kasai), Kitasuna 1-chōme bus stop, one minute on foot.

🚉 Sumiyoshi · 16 min walk

Sources: tokyo-sensai.net · ja.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

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