Study tour group from Hiroshima leaves for Europe to learn about the Holocaust
Mar. 27, 2015
by Uzaemonnaotsuka Tokai, Staff Writer
A study tour group, sponsored by the Hiroshima Peace Creation Fund (chaired by Yoshinori Okatani, president of the Chugoku Shimbun) departed from Hiroshima Airport for Europe on March 22. Eight young people from the Hiroshima area will visit Poland and the Netherlands to learn about the Holocaust, the genocide of the Jewish people by Nazi Germany which symbolizes the horrors of World War II. They will also meet with local youth.
The group consists of six students from universities in Hiroshima Prefecture and two high school students who cover peace-related issues and take part in peace-related activities as junior writers for the Chugoku Shimbun. The group will first visit the former site of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Oswiecim where more than one million people were killed or died. At the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, they will see the gas chambers and buildings in which prisoners were held and where some of their personal effects are now on display. The group will also listen to an account of the experiences of an Auschwitz survivor. In the Netherlands, they will visit the house where Anne Frank (1929-1945) and her family hid from the Nazis. They will also deliver messages of peace from the mayor of Hiroshima, who serves as president of Mayors for Peace, to the mayors of both Oswiecim and Amsterdam.
Maiko Hanaoka, 16, a first-year student at Hiroshima Jogakuin High School and a junior writer for the Chugoku Shimbun, said, “I’d like to learn about the Holocaust and know how young people of the same generation feel. I’ll tell many people about what I saw and felt there after I return home.”
After returning to Japan on March 29, the group will write articles about their experience for the Chugoku Shimbun. They will also give presentations at high schools and universities, where the students will talk about ideas to hand down lessons learned from the war to coming generations.
(Originally published on March 23, 2015)
A study tour group, sponsored by the Hiroshima Peace Creation Fund (chaired by Yoshinori Okatani, president of the Chugoku Shimbun) departed from Hiroshima Airport for Europe on March 22. Eight young people from the Hiroshima area will visit Poland and the Netherlands to learn about the Holocaust, the genocide of the Jewish people by Nazi Germany which symbolizes the horrors of World War II. They will also meet with local youth.
The group consists of six students from universities in Hiroshima Prefecture and two high school students who cover peace-related issues and take part in peace-related activities as junior writers for the Chugoku Shimbun. The group will first visit the former site of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Oswiecim where more than one million people were killed or died. At the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, they will see the gas chambers and buildings in which prisoners were held and where some of their personal effects are now on display. The group will also listen to an account of the experiences of an Auschwitz survivor. In the Netherlands, they will visit the house where Anne Frank (1929-1945) and her family hid from the Nazis. They will also deliver messages of peace from the mayor of Hiroshima, who serves as president of Mayors for Peace, to the mayors of both Oswiecim and Amsterdam.
Maiko Hanaoka, 16, a first-year student at Hiroshima Jogakuin High School and a junior writer for the Chugoku Shimbun, said, “I’d like to learn about the Holocaust and know how young people of the same generation feel. I’ll tell many people about what I saw and felt there after I return home.”
After returning to Japan on March 29, the group will write articles about their experience for the Chugoku Shimbun. They will also give presentations at high schools and universities, where the students will talk about ideas to hand down lessons learned from the war to coming generations.
(Originally published on March 23, 2015)
