50. Kaikosha-affiliated Seibi School Monument
That day
You were looking forward to a special treat – sweet bean soup for lunch.
Without eating the treat you were so anxiously awaiting,
You were burned
In the hellfire.
You went to heaven.
Explanation
This school was for the children of military people and senior bureaucrats. It was run by Kaiko-sha, an organization of Japanese military officers founded in 1877 for their social and research purposes.
August 6, 1945, children were at school, as a school lunch was to be served that day. Everybody at the school was killed in the bombing – the children, school staff and military staff. The estimated victims are over 160, but nobody can accurately say. Seibi School was closed after Japan' s defeat. The monument is a statue of standing figures of a boy and a girl. Behind it on the wall, Sankichi Toge' s poem, “Gravepost,” is inscribed on a copper plate:
You are standing in a group
As if you are playing a game of push and shove.
You are pushed into a corner, getting smaller.
No one notices any more,
One small gravepost.
--For the war-victimized Seibi Elementary School children-
The gatepost inscription, “Seibi-affiliated Kindergarten,” shows its history, which stands beside the monument.
Location : YMCA, Hatchobori, Naka-ku