A Keio Student's Commuter Pass Case During the War

In March 1943, a Keio student in his second year of the Preparatory Course for the Faculty of Economics at Hiyoshi passed away suddenly from tuberculosis. His parents had placed higher expectations on their healthy second son than on their frail eldest son, and despite their poverty, they had secured help from relatives to send him from Prefectural Second Middle School (now Tachikawa High School) to the Keio University Preparatory Course. His mother, deeply grieving his death, visited the Jukukan-kyoku (Keio Corporate Administration) in Mita and asked the President to write an epitaph. Shinzo Koizumi graciously accepted, and the gravestone bearing his calligraphy was erected in Tama Cemetery.

The mother continued to cherish the memory of her second son, and when her grandson entered Keio University in 1981, she entrusted him with this commuter pass case belonging to her late son, which she had kept for a long time. Now, 80 years later, the aged pass case still contains his student ID, identification card, and timetable, in addition to his commuter pass.

The student's name was Gyo Takano, born in 1922. The student ID is from the 1942 academic year and bears the name of "Keio University President Shinzo Koizumi," with the photo featuring an embossed seal from the Office of Student Services. Student IDs are usually collected and discarded upon promotion or graduation, so very few exist today.

The commuter pass was for the route between Hiyoshi and Ogikubo. It includes notations for traveling via "Namikibashi," meaning taking the Toyoko Line to Shibuya, and via "Okubo," meaning transferring from the Yamanote Line to the Chuo Line at Shinjuku. "Namikibashi" was located between Shibuya and Daikanyama stations on the Toyoko Line, but it was damaged in the Great Yamanote Air Raid in May 1945 and subsequently closed.

The timetable card lists not only the subjects but also the start times and classroom numbers for lessons that required moving from the home classroom. "Essay" and "Story" were English classes, and the two consecutive periods of "Kyoren" on Friday afternoons refer to military drill. The back of the card features an advertisement for "TM Tailor," a uniform shop that was located in Mita.

Each of these items may be a trivial fragment of daily life during the war, but in fact, it is precisely such things that teach us details that are not easily discovered later, even if one tries to research them. They contain clues for delving deeper into that era, sometimes revealing the very essence of the times. We should value such intuition and, at the same time, always maintain the capacity to think about and feel by whom and why these items were preserved.

The student who was entrusted with this pass case went on to work for Keio University after graduation. Last autumn, he became the Administrative Director of the Fukuzawa Memorial Center, and the pass case was placed in the center's archives. (Exhibited at the Keio History Museum "Fukuzawa Memorial Center New Acquisitions Exhibition 2025" (January 10 – February 8))

(Takeyuki Tokura, Associate Professor, Keio University Fukuzawa Memorial Center for Modern Japanese Studies)