Peace Museum of Saitama

The Peace Museum of Saitama opened in Higashimatsuyama in August 1993 to preserve wartime experiences and explain their effects on local people. It is a postwar educational museum, bringing together evidence of military activity, service overseas and daily life across the prefecture.

Its established permanent exhibition focuses on the early Showa period through 1945. Displays connect economic hardship, settlement in Manchuria and Mongolia, militarism and wartime controls with the Pacific War. Sections examine military installations, children, residents at the front and air raids. Conscription notices, civil-defence objects and pine-root oil production illustrate the mobilization of people and resources. Recorded testimony adds individual memories to the broader historical account.

Reconstructed school and air-raid shelter settings were designed for simulated experiences of education and evacuation. They are museum installations, not wartime structures preserved on this spot. Air raids form one part of a wider account of Saitama society and war.

As checked on 3 October 2026, the museum had been closed for major repairs since 31 August 2026, with no reopening date announced. Ordinary gallery visits therefore cannot currently be planned. Outreach and some loans continue during closure. The approximate map point represents the existing museum building; future visitors should follow the museum's reopening announcement.