For an unknown reason, vandals in Tokyo have been trashing books about Anne Frank, the young girl killed during the Holocaust whose diary has become required reading around the world. The vandalism started last month and even copies of Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl have been ruined.
Library officials in Tokyo said that at least 256 books at 31 libraries have been vandalized since January, reports the Japan Times.
“Books related to Ms. Anne Frank are clearly targeted, and it’s happening across Tokyo,” official Mitsujiro Ikeda said on Friday, reports The Associated Press. “It’s outrageous.”
At one library, entire pages of The Diary were cut out. Another said that the books damaged were all the ones that come up when visitors search “Anne Frank” on its online database. One library decided to pull all Frank-related book from its shelves, although visitors can still take them out.
“Only people imbued with bigotry and hatred would seek to destroy Anne’s historic words of courage, hope and love in the face of impending doom,” Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles said.
Frank’s diary chronicles her life in a Netherlands apartment with her family during the Holocaust. She died in a concentration camp at age 15. The book has been an inspiration to readers for decades and inspired a play and film.
Police are currently investigating the vandalism.
image courtesy of Amazon
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