Private World War II museums in Japan struggle to survive

Eighty years after the end of World War II, privately run war museums in Japan are at a crossroads, with aging operators and financial strains threatening their survival.

Some have already decided to close, prompting experts to warn that valuable wartime documents and artifacts could be scattered or lost to the public.

At 76, Jikai Taketomi serves as director of a war museum in the town of Kotake, Fukuoka Prefecture, an institution aligned to the wishes of his father, Tomio, who died in 2002 at age 84. Opened in 1979, the museum reflects his father’s conviction that “the tragedy of the war must never be repeated.”