NEW YORK (Press Release)– AJC praised Japanese Prime Minister Abe for visiting the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam on Sunday, March 23.
“Prime Minister Abe’s visit to the place where Anne Frank and her family hid, where she wrote her diary, until their capture by the Nazis is a strong demonstration of remembrance and solidarity with the Jewish people,” said Shira Loewenberg, director of AJCs Asia Pacific Institute.
Abe’s visit came a month after the discovery of vandalized copies of Anne Frank: the Diary of a Young Girl and other Holocaust related books in Tokyo public libraries. More than 265 books were willfully damaged. At a news conference at the Anne Frank house, Abe said the extensive damage done to the books was “regrettable, quite regrettable.” A suspect has been arrested.
Following the discovery of the vandalized books last month, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga called the widespread defacement of copies of Anne Frank’s diary “a shameful act.”
For decades, Anne Frank’s diary has been extremely popular and widely read in Japan. More than 33,000 Japanese visit the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam annually.
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