News

by Mio Hara, Staff Writer

Makoto Otsuka, 72, has resigned as director general of the Holocaust Education Center, located in the area of Miyuki-cho in Fukuyama City, Hiroshima Prefecture. Mr. Otsuka stepped down from his post this year, which marks 50 years since he first met Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank, who wrote “The Diary of a Young Girl.” Mr. Otsuka worked hard to establish the center with the aim of passing down the reality concerning the extermination of Jewish people by the German Nazi regime during World War II. “My passion for peace education continues to grow. From here on out, I’ll concentrate my energies into the fostering and training of young people,” said the determined Mr. Otsuka.

The center was built with donations from members of Seiiesukai, a Christian group based in Ukyo Ward, Kyoto City, which responded to Mr. Otsuka’s appeal for support. The center opened in 1995 as the first facility in Japan dedicated to Holocaust education. The facility archives a collection of about 1,500 personal effects of victims and related materials donated from 60 countries. Among the donated items are the clothing worn by one person held prisoner at a Nazi concentration camp and the shoes of a child who perished in the gas chambers.

Mr. Otsuka met Otto by chance in 1971, when the choir he was a member of visited Israel on a concert tour. “Do you know the diary written by my daughter?” Otto inquired of Mr. Otsuka at the time. Otto was the only person in his family to have survived the Holocaust. Mr. Otsuka was moved by Otto’s gentle gaze and modest bearing and began to think he wanted to help in some way.

Mr. Otsuka met Otto twice in Switzerland after that and was encouraged to not sympathize only with child victims but become someone who works actively to achieve peace. Looking back on that time, Mr. Otsuka said, “I felt like I had received a baton from Otto when we shook hands at our last meeting.”

Mr. Otsuka began to study Hebrew, the national language of Israel and the Jewish people, when he was 22 years old. He continued sending letters to, and visiting, concentration camp memorial centers and museums in Europe and the United States to request contributions of materials and personal effects. He held an Anne Frank exhibit at the Miyuki Church (Miyuki-cho, Fukuyama City), where he became a pastor in 1990. Receiving a positive response to the exhibit, he resolved to open the Holocaust Education Center. The facility has to this point attracted more than 180,000 visitors.

He started feeling the necessity of fostering and training younger people after reaching the age of 70 and retiring from his position in May this year. Akio Yoshida, 52, who at that time was the center’s associate director, succeeded Mr. Otsuka as director general. Mr. Otsuka, now the center’s chief executive, continues to speak about meeting Otto at times of facility visits by elementary school students. He said, “I want even more children in Hiroshima who study about the A-bombing tragedy to visit this center and become empowered to send out messages of peace to the world.” Mr. Otsuka’s goal is to have 1.5 million people, equal to the number of children who died in the Holocaust, visit the facility.

(Originally published on November 28, 2021)