Ceremony in commemoration of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima
Photo: Reuters
Japan doesn’t talk about the Holocaust
Japan does not observe the Holocaust officially, but some say there is no conscious effort to repress the subject , especially as Japan saved thousands of Jews from extermination
TOKYO - Miyomi Takagi, a thirty-something academic from Tokyo, is trying to recall when she had heard the word “Holocaust” for the first time.
“It wasn’t in school or during university - a friend recommended “The diary of Anne Frank,” she says. “I read it passionately, and I was stunned; I could not believe such a thing could happen.”
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Takagi is not the only Japanese person who learned of the Holocaust from sources outside the country’s educational system, as the subject is not included in the official Japanese educational curriculum.
An Israeli official in Tokyo says the two museums that do deal with the Holocaust are privately funded, and there is not one state institution that deals with Holocaust research or studies.
A senior Foreign Ministry official told Ynet Japan does not commemorate the Holocaust on a national level.
“The Holocaust is not properly observed because the Japanese do not want to deal with it,” he says. “They are certain that – just like us - they too have experienced a horrible tragedy.”
However, not everyone agrees with the assertion that Japan is not adequately dealing with the Holocaust issue.
“I wouldn’t say there is a conscious Japanese effort to repress the Holocaust,” Former Israeli Ambassador to Japan Yitzhak Lior says. “This can be determined by the large crowds that visit the Japanese Holocaust museum.”
Professor Ben-Ami Shillony of Hebrew University says Japan is not only aware of the annihilation of European Jews, but the country was even instrumental in saving Jewish lives during the war.
The Diary of Anne Frank a huge bestseller
Within this context, Shillony mentions Chiune-Sempo Sugihara, the Japanese Consul in Kovno, Lithuania during World War II, who saved some 6,000 Polish and Lithuanian Jews by issuing visas that permitted their escape from Europe. Sugihara was frequently referred to as “The Japanese Schindler,” he says.
“Japan, despite its pact with Hitler, saved thousands of Jews,” Shillony says. “It is important to remember that no Jew was murdered under Japanese rule.”
He says Japanese institutions do not ignore the Holocaust, and that while there is no official commemoration of the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are also observed on a municipal level only.
“(The diary of) Anne Frank was and remains a huge bestseller in Japan, and knowledge of the Holocaust was adequately distributed through the book,” Shillony says. “As for the educational programs – (authorities) are considering a proposal for a text book that contains an entire page on the Holocaust.”
