Kototsuta
A Map of War Testimonies
Kototsuta preserves the voices of those who lived through war — the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, air raids across Japan, wartime evacuation, and internment. These accounts were shared by survivors, their families, and the generations who inherited their stories. Free to browse.
2
Testimonies preserved
74
Related sites and locations
Air raids · Atomic bombings
Evacuation · Internment · Bereaved families
Categories covered
About this archive
The generations who lived through World War II in Japan are passing. With them go memories that no official archive was built to hold: the route a grandmother walked during evacuation in the summer of 1945; what a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing saw when they entered the city days later; the letters a family kept from a father who did not return.
Kototsuta was built to hold those memories. A location, a year, a few sentences. Placed on a map. Preserved as long as this site exists.
What we do not do
- Treat testimonies as content to be optimized for traffic or engagement.
- Promote any particular political position or historical interpretation.
- Carry advertising.
- Collect your real name, address, or contact details.
- Decline deletion requests — submitters, bereaved family members, and rights holders may ask for removal at any time.
How to use this archive
Browse testimonies
Click any pin on the map to read a testimony or learn about a related site. Filter by region, era, or category.
View the map (Japanese interface)Share a testimony
Survivors, family members, and bereaved relatives may submit a testimony. Submissions are reviewed before publication. Currently free.
Go to submission pageKototsuta is not a platform for any particular political or historical claim. It is a place to preserve testimony — as each person lived it.
Support this archive
Kototsuta is independently operated, carries no advertising, and is funded entirely out of pocket. If you would like to help keep it running, please consider submitting a testimony (currently free) or sharing the archive with educators, researchers, or communities who might contribute to it.
For partnership enquiries — peace education, academic research, museum use — please write to: mobi.0319@gmail.com
© 2026 Kototsuta — Independently operated