Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe has visited Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House museum, weeks after 300 copies of her famous diary were vandalized in Tokyo.
Shinzo Abe said he made the visit “to encourage peace in the entire international community”.
A suspect is in custody for vandalizing the books, but his motive is not known.
Shinzo Abe was lambasted by Seoul and Beijing last December for visiting a Tokyo shrine to dead Japanese soldiers, including convicted WW2 criminals.
Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe has visited Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House museum, weeks after 300 copies of her famous diary were vandalized in Tokyo
Anne Frank’s diary was written during World War Two, while the teenager hid from the Nazis in occupied Amsterdam.
The book made her a symbol of the suffering of Jews during the war.
Shinzo Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was minister of industry for much of the war.
Nobusuke Kishi was arrested after Japan’s surrender but was never charged and went on to serve as prime minister.
Speaking at the Amsterdam museum, Shinzo Abe noted the “deep connection” between Japan and the Anne Frank diary, and the fact that many Japanese visit the museum.
“Looking ahead to the many years of the 21st Century I would like to ensure that we will never see the same things happening, and I share the responsibility of realizing this goal,” he said.
Shinzo Abe is in the Netherlands for a Nuclear Security Summit and a G7 meeting on the crisis in Ukraine.
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Justin Bieber has created controversy once again after recently coming under fire for behaving insensitively at the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam.
Justin Bieber, 19, posted a racy cartoon depicting himself in bed with a girl lying on his chest with the words “Justin – Belieber” emblazoned across the top.
As it is widely known, “Belieber” is often the name given to Justin Bieber’s legion of teenaged female fans.
In the snap, Justin Bieber lookalike is cuddling the seemingly young admirer.
The Belieber is seen lying on Justin Bieber’s chest with her eyes closed as his animated likeness looks on with wide-eyed excitement.
Justin Bieber has created controversy once again after recently coming under fire for behaving insensitively at the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam
Justin Bieber posted the artwork to his Twitter page on Tuesday without a message.
As soon as he tweeted the image, his fans went into a frenzy.
“OMG that’s meeee OMG omg omg omg I love uuuu I’m crying I can’t believe u posted it,” one fan wrote.
While another simply posted: “That should be me.”
The picture tweet comes after Justin Bieber behaved insensitively at the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam last week.
Anne Frank House museum is in memory of the young girl who came to symbolize the horror of the Nazi Holocaust.
However, pictures emerged of Justin Bieber shadowboxing with a member of his entourage during his visit on Saturday.
Also Justin Bieber’s post in the visitors’ log caused outrage across the world.
He wrote in the log: “Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a Belieber.”
Justin Bieber’s latest action has caused online anger after he wrote a “tasteless” comment in the guestbook at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.
Justin Bieber – who is currently on tour in Europe – visited the famous home where Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank and her family hid from Nazi persecution for two years during the Holocaust.
After spending an hour touring the home on Saturday, which opened as a museum in 1960, Justin Bieber wrote a message in the guestbook, which read: “Truly inspiring to be able to come here.
“Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber.”
The Anne Frank House staff-run Facebook page shared Justin Bieber’s comments.
Justin Bieber has caused online outrage after writing a tasteless comment in the guestbook at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam
Since the museum updated its page with Justin Bieber’s words, the Facebook post has garnered hundreds of comments expressing dismay over the young pop sensation’s presumptuous remarks.
Many described it as “disrespectful”, “disgusting” and an “embarrassment to Canadians”.
Hundreds of people took to Twitter to express outrage, branding Justin Bieber a “moron” and “douche”, leaving several to question whether he actually wrote such a shocking message.
Buzzfeed reports that BBC reporter Anna Holligan received confirmation from the Anne Frank House press office, saying: “He was very interested in Anne Frank.”
The office said of Justin Bieber’s odd note: “He’s 19, it’s a strange life he’s living, it wasn’t very sensible but he didn’t mean bad.”
Anne Frank wrote her now-famous diary while residing in the house, with the teenager describing it as luxurious compared to other hiding places she had heard about.
The Frank family moved to Amsterdam from German in 1933 – the same year the Nazis gained control over Germany.
By 1940 the Nazi occupied the Netherlands, leaving the family trapped in Amsterdam.
In 1942 the family went into hiding in the hidden rooms of Otto Frank’s office building, as persecution of the Jewish population increased under the Nazi regime.
After two years the group were anonymously betrayed and were sent to their deaths at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where Anne Franck died of typhus in 1945.
Otto Frank, Anne’s father, returned to Amsterdam after the war and discovered her diary had been saved. It was published in 1947, leading to her posthumous fame.
