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High student reports on Holocaust study tour to Europe at Hiroshima Jogakuin High School

by Yuji Yamamoto, Staff Writer

On June 8, Maiko Hanaoka, 16, a second-year student at Hiroshima Jogakuin Senior High School and a junior writer from the Chugoku Shimbun, reported on her participation in the Holocaust study tour to Europe. The study tour was sponsored by the Hiroshima Peace Creation Fund.

Ms. Hanaoka gave a presentation to schoolmates. Speaking about the former Auschwitz concentration camp, she showed the audience photos of cattle cars, which were used to transport Jewish people to the concentration camp, and a gas chamber where the victims died in heaps, fighting for breath. “So that the Holocaust is never repeated, these sad facts must be conveyed to as many people as possible,” she said.

To offer clear explanation about the house in the Netherlands where Anne Frank lived in hiding, a site that Ms. Hanaoka visited during the tour, she used a model in her presentation. Showing the stairs at the entrance of the secret annex, which was concealed by a rotating bookcase, she reflected on the life Anne Frank and her family were forced to live, holding their breath for fear of being discovered.

Natsuki Arakawa, 16, a second-year student at the school, listened closely to the presentation and said, “To realize a peaceful world, we need to learn about the history of the war both in Japan and overseas.” The study tour to Europe took place in late March with participants that included two junior writers and six university students from Hiroshima Prefecture.

(Originally published on June 9, 2015)

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