Tuesday in Hiroshima and Fukuyama

On Tuesday morning, we looked out the window of our 26th floor room of the Rihga Royal Hotel in Hiroshima to see a city blanketed in snow. Not a lot of snow but enough to tell us that this was to be a cold and grey day, and we were pleased that we had made the decision on Monday to do all our outdoor touring. Tuesday would be a day to remain indoors as much as possible. The main employer in Hiroshima is Mazda and when planning for this trip, I noticed that they have factory tours in English every day. You have to book in advance, which we did and so we headed out by train to the main office of Mazda, not far from the Zoom Zoom Baseball Stadium, which is named for Mazda's nickname and the Costco store.

There were about 20 of us on the tour and it consisted of a drive by bus through Mazda's enormous facility, a visit to the Mazda museum where you can view its cars dating back to the 1920s, a close up look at clay models of cars under development and the final product and the most exciting part of the tour, a walk through the assembly plant. 

We were on an overhead walkway and we had a bird's eye view of the assembly line where we had a close up look at how precise everything has to be to fit together at exactly the right time so that every minute there are 6 cars rolling off the three assembly lines in the Horishima area.  It was a short hour and a half tour and it was very interesting to see. We returned to the hotel, packed up and headed to the Hiroshima Station for our trip to nearby Fukuyama.  As an aside, the names of cities in Japan sometimes tells you things about the city. We are learning a few words in Japanese that assist in our understanding of names of places. For example; Yama (as in Fukuyama) means mountain. Shima (as in Hiroshima) means island. Saki (as in Nagasaki) means peninsula.  Our purpose in going to Fukuyama was to visit the Holocaust Education Center. The centre was established by a Japanese Christian group founded by Reverend Otsuki Takeji and his ministry. Father Otsuki had a vision in 1939 which taught him that he must pray for the establishment of an independent Jewish State in Israel, that he must pray for the welfare of Jews and that he must work towards the coming of Mashiach Ben David. When the first part of his vision came true in 1948, he began preaching the rest of his vision and since then, about 8000 members have joined his mission and have established 100 churches in Japan, a country where the vast majority of people follow Bhuddism and Shintoism.  The group, known as Beit Shalom, with their headquarters in Kyoto, take groups to Israel, have hosted many Israeli groups and visitors, including Israeli Presidents, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, Moshe Dayan and many others, and Rev. Otsuki, who died in 2004, received honourary doctorates and awards from Hebrew University, Bar Ilan, and many others.  As part of their love of Israel and Jews, they felt that they must establish a Holocaust Centre so that young Japanese will be aware of what happened and they host thousands of Japanese children each year. Following a meeting between Otto Frank and Rev. Otsuki, the Center was dedicated to Anne Frank. When we emailed the Center and told them that we wanted to visit and when I casually mentioned that Fran was born in Bergen Belsen, we received a reply saying that they were looking forward to our visit. We took the train from Kyoto to Fukuyama and then took a local train to the station on the directions supplied by the Center. We found ourselves in the middle of nowhere and were not sure how to get from the station to the center. After a number of helpful locals steered us in the right direction we arrived at the Center and its director, Akio Yoshida was standing outside awaiting our arrival. After the customary bowing and handshakes, he said to us, please come with me to the auditorium, there are some people waiting to meet you. I have to stress that that there were no other visitors to the Center that day, just us! When we walked into the auditorium, there were about 40 Japanese members of his group who were all waving Israeli flags and to the accompaniment of a piano, they were singing Heveinu Shalom Aleichem.  Heveinu Shalom Aleichem
http://youtu.be/7aCQ7G1-UrI We were ushered to places of honour at the front and Akio welcomed us in English and Hebrew. He explained the founding of the Center and then introduced the choir who sang three songs including an amazing rendition of Avinu Shebashamayim; the prayer for the safety of the State of Israel. You must watch this video. http://youtu.be/nnpPxMA0CcI They then took us on a tour of the museum. There is a recreation of the Warsaw Ghetto wall, and a recreation of Anne Frank's hiding place in Amsterdam where she wrote her diary. There is a scaled model of Auschwitz, under an Arbeit Macht Frei Banner and infamous train tracks.   

There is a room dedicated to Sugihara who saved 6000 Lithuanian Jews including the entire Mir Yeshiva. It is really quite an impressive museum and we are sure that it is doing a good job in educating the future generation of Japanese to the horrors of the Shoah.  We finally arrived at the memorial room which has one shoe from the Shoah below a beautiful stained glass display leading heavenward.   

 

We were asked here to light two Memorial candles and to say Kaddish on behalf of those murdered in the Shoah. And then the choir led everyone in an amazing rendition of Ani Maamin. http://youtu.be/RGHS8aqij4Q We now went downstairs to the auditorium where Akio interviewed Fran about her parents and their experiences; how they met, their wedding in Bergen Belsen and Fran expressed her gratitude to the members of the Center for their efforts in spreading the message to Japanese people.   

I also spoke and made special mention of the fact that Fran's parents had their ultimate revenge to Hitler by building a large, beautiful family and that now two of their great grandchildren have served with the IDF in Israel.  The final song by the group was Hatikvah. http://youtu.be/QxjGxAFzwyk Akio drove us back to the train station and we continued on our journey to Kyoto which we will post next.  This was a very moving and emotional day. Here were Japanese people who took time out of their day to spend two hours with two visitors to their Center, paying the highest respect and honour to Jews and to the State of Israel. The entire event was conducted with the greatest sensitivity and respect and we believe that their sentiments and actions are based on a true and heartfelt love of everything we stand for.  All the best Fran and David