Libraries across Tokyo say 265 books about Anne Frank have been vandalized with pages torn out.
Some of the vandalized books were about Frank, the young girl made famous by the diary she wrote while hiding from the Nazis during World War II, and other texts were
reproductions of her "Diary of a Young Girl," The Associated Press reported.
The torn up books have been found since January at 31 municipal libraries in the city.
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Japan was an ally of Nazi Germany during the war, but there is no known motive for why the books were damaged.
The case is under investigation and the country’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga termed the act “shameful.”
“Books related to Ms. Anne Frank are clearly targeted, and it's happening across Tokyo," Suga told the AP. "It's outrageous."
Some Tokyo libraries are moving any Frank-related books behind the counter.
"
The geographic scope of these incidents strongly suggest an organized effort to denigrate the memory of the most famous of the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis in the World War II Holocaust," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish Human Rights organization, in a statement.
Cooper said he knows that many Japanese study and revere Frank. “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,” he continued in the release.
Frank wrote her diary while hiding from the Nazis in the Netherlands. Her family was discovered and deported, and Frank died in a German concentration camp at age 15. Her father survived and published the diary.
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