Writer Michiko Nomura was bursting with anger at what she saw during her first visit to Holocaust memorials in Poland and Czechoslovakia in 1989.

Human hair, shoes and prosthetic limbs taken from victims at Nazi concentration camps were displayed as "victims' belongings."

"Most painful was to realize their names would forever remain (unknown)," Nomura, 78, recalled of the 1989 visit. Around 11 million people died in the Holocaust.