December 2025: free entry to view the cenotaph. We did not go into the museum. The cenotaph incorporates the tunnel entrance used by the student corp to hide when the US troops came into okinawa.
I dare you to go here and not be moved.
The Himeyuri Peace Museum is a memorial to a commemorate a girl's high school, and it's students - girls between 15 to 18 - who were drafted into the war effort. Being on the front lines as the Americans swept south across Okinawa, and with the island being used by Tokyo as a sacrificial pawn piece, the people bore the full brunt of the American onslaught. The girls were forced to act as nurses even though they were untrained. Over 136 of them, all of them in their teenage years, along with 13 teachers, lost their lives.
The museum is one of the best I have been to. High on emotion, low on excessive detail. It showed the girls as human beings, brimming with hopes and dreams. It unveiled life in Imperial Japan, and lastly, the tragedy of war, the testament of survivors, and the futility of it all.
The Imperial Government and the Americans share responsibility for the suffering of the Okinawan people. One in four Okinawans were lost during the war, with over 90% of them civilians.
Dare to be moved.
Speechless, very nice Memorial, I did not make it through without tearing up. It is so sad that the women actually young girls of Okinawa went through. WAR is a horrible thing! The second time coming here and it still is a remarkable Cenotaph with detailed accounts of the suffering.
It was a sad place remembering when these school girls were called into the battle of Okinawa.
Reading the memorials to 15 to 17 year olds and what they did and how they died is wrenching.
It is hard not to cry.
A sad place to visit, as many innocent people died here.
