Anne Frank's account of the two years she spent hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II, before ultimately dying in a concentration camp, is one of the most well-known books in Japan. After being translated in Japanese in 1952, it became a best-seller. Even those Japanese who haven't read the book know of it through school lessons, comic books and animated films, and approximately 30,000 Japanese tourists visit the Anne Frank House annually in the Netherlands.
The Rev. Makoto Otsuka, who runs the Holocaust Education Center in Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture, explains Anne Frank's popularity, calling her "... a powerful symbol for peace in Japan. That's why her story resonates with so many Japanese, who have suffered the horrors of war."
Thus the recent discovery that more than 300 copies of "Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" and other Holocaust-related publications had been damaged in Tokyo and Yokohama libraries has shocked the nation. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, which launched a full-scale investigation on Feb. 24, should leave no stone unturned in its effort to find those people responsible for these despicable acts of vandalism.