Japan PM to visit Anne Frank House after vandalism
TOKYO (AP) — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam this weekend to express regret over the vandalism at Tokyo libraries of hundreds of books related to the young Holocaust victim, a Japanese official said Thursday.
Abe will visit the museum Sunday, a day before he attends the Nuclear Security Summit in the Hague, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss the appearance publicly.
More than 300 Frank-related books, including copies of "The Diary of a Young Girl," were vandalized recently at Tokyo libraries. Police last week arrested a man in the case.
Frank wrote her diary while her family hid from the Nazis during World War II. The family was betrayed and deported, and Anne died at a concentration camp in 1945, at age 15. Her father survived and published the diary, which has become the most widely read document to emerge from the Holocaust.
The building that contained their hiding place opened as a museum in 1960.
While Abe is stressing the importance of learning history, his revisionist view about his own country's wartime brutalities in Asia has strained ties with South Korea. Japan is pushing for a three-way meeting with South Korea and the U.S. during the March 24-25 summit in the Netherland, where leaders of all three countries plan to attend.
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Online: Anne Frank House http://www.annefrank.org
