Memories of students killed in World War II live on at Tokyo museum

In 1944, as World War II drew to a close, Itaru Maruo, a gifted student at Tokyo Imperial University, aspired to become an artist. Drafted by the Imperial Japanese military for China's wartime student mobilization, Maruo contracted illness and endured hospital stays. He was likely caught in the Soviet invasion and succumbed to his wounds at an army hospital in Manchuria on August 30, 1945, just two weeks after Japan's surrender at age 25. Maruo's remains have never returned to Japan.

Recently, a relative gifted around 200 of Maruo's possessions, including his personal writings, to the "Wadatsumi no Koe" (Voices of Fallen Student Conscripts) memorial museum in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward. The museum preserves an array of letters, diaries, and personal effects from students who perished during the war, predominantly young men conscripted to fight under the student mobilization program.

Maruo's story is one among many whose lives were cut short due to the war. Born in Tokyo in 1920, he entered Tokyo Imperial University in 1942, studying aesthetics and art history. Though he captained the university's baseball team, his baseball prowess is remembered fondly in a local magazine, which hailed him as the university's finest baseball talent since its inception.