Accident of Tearing Books about Holocaust in Japan: Improving or Damaging Public Diplomacy?

     From January 2014, in Japan, there has been many incidents that more than 300 books including the book The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and other related books about Holocaust were torn by someone at several public libraries and bookstores in Tokyo.

     On February 27^th, Ruth Kahanoff, Ambassador of Israel to Japan was interviewed by Asahi Shimbun (one of Japanese newspaper companies), and she mentioned that she was very surprised and shocked by the fact that a big amount of books related to Holocaust were torn.

     She also answered to interview by emphasizing that she believes specific individuals or organization committed incidents so that this does not show whole tendency and attitude of Japan toward Holocaust. Moreover, she answered that Israeli embassy in Japan had received more than a thousand of letters that told encouragements, compassions and even apology from the Japanese public. From that, she told she felt very calm, and the result of this incident was the opposite to what offenders expected.

     In the afternoon on the same day, Israeli Embassy donated 300 books including Anne Frank’s book and other related books to Suginami-district in Tokyo city that had great loss.

     This action by Israeli Embassy can be the source for the good public diplomacy between Japan and Israel because this phenomenon shows that Israel immediately took action in order to help Japan to maintain educational resources about Holocaust, which can lead to keep Japanese people knowing and understanding what was happened in the Holocaust and how Anne felt at that time. This Israel’s action also can be good for public diplomacy because it shows that Israel immediately took action for restoring the difficulty that libraries and bookstores faced. With this action, Japanese reputation from the public toward Israel can be boosted.

     On the other hand, Rabi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, stated that he felt the impact and strong anxiety about this accident. He stated that this incident dishonored the memory of Anne Frank who is the most popular person in 1.5 million Jewish children who were killed by Holocaust. From the fact that outbreak of incidents have been wide range in Tokyo, it is highly likely that this accident was committed by groups.

     Even though Israeli Embassy’s action can generate good public diplomacy between Japan and Israel, concerns about this accident from the world have still remained, and it is possible that reputation of Japan from the world would be diminished and Japan would be internationally criticized if this accident results in showing as if the disapproval of Anne Frank’s diary and Holocaust have existed as Japanese tendency.

http://www.cnn.co.jp/world/35044264.html (Written in Japanese) 

http://www.asahi.com/articles/ASG2W6K8GG2WUHBI055.html (Written in Japanese)