Japan: Vandals Deface Copies of Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl

Hundreds of copies of Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl have been defaced in public libraries in Tokyo since earlier this year.

Librarians at 31 municipal libraries in the Japanese capital have found pages torn out in at least 265 books related to the young Holocaust victim, including her famous diary.

"Books related to Ms Anne Frank are clearly targeted, and it's happening across Tokyo," city official Mitsujiro Ikeda said. "It's outrageous."

Diary of a Young Girl was written by the young Jewish girl during World War II, when Frank and her family were forced into hiding in Amsterdam to escape persecution by the Nazi regime.

The book has been registered in UNESCO's Memory of the World. Japan and Nazi Germany were allies in the conflict.

"The geographic scope of these incidents strongly suggest an organised effort to denigrate the memory of the most famous of the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis in the World War II Holocaust," Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said.

Cooper urged authorities to step up efforts to identify those responsible.

"Only people imbued with bigotry and hatred would seek to destroy Anne's historic words of courage, hope and love in the face of impending doom," he said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said japan would not tolerate such "shameful" acts of vandalism.

Frank died in a German concentration camp at age 15 in 1945. Her diary was published by her father who survived the Holocaust.