On 14th August 1941, a Polish priest named Maximilian Kolbe was murdered in Auschwitz.

Kolbe had spent six years in Nagasaki before the war.  A Polish nationalist and influential religious leader, he ran Poland’s largest publishing operation, drawing the wrath of the Nazis. After Germany invaded Poland, he gave sanctuary to fleeing refugees and was arrested by the Gestapo. In Auschwitz, he volunteered to die, saving the life of a fellow prisoner.

This act transformed the lives of two Japanese men. Tōmei Ozaki became an orphan when the US dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Masatoshi Asari worked on a farm in Hokkaido during the war and was haunted by the inhumane acts of the Japanese military.

Both men drew inspiration from Kolbe’s sacrifice, dedicating their lives to humanity and justice. Ozaki became a friar and visited Auschwitz ten times. Asari became the world’s leading cherry-tree creator and sent thousands of cherries to the UK, China, Korea and Poland as peace offerings.

In The Martyr and the Red Kimono, award-winning author Naoko Abe weaves together a deeply moving and uplifting true story of resistance, sacrifice, guilt and atonement.

About the contributors

Naoko Abe

Naoko Abe is a London-based journalist and non-fiction writer. Her first English-language book ‘Cherry’ Ingram, The Englishman who Saved Japan’s Blossoms was published in March 2019 to critical acclaim. The book, which was called The Sakura Obsession in the U.S., was chosen as Book of the Week by BBC Radio 4 and was listed as one of the best books of the year by the Sunday Times, Daily Mirror, NPR and the Woodland Trust. The original book in Japanese won the prestigious Nihon Essayist Club Award in Japan in 2016. The book has now been published in 8 languages.

Naoko Abe worked for the Mainichi Newspaper, one of Japan’s most influential newspapers, for many years. As the paper’s first female political reporter, she covered the Prime Minister’s office and travelled extensively.

Naoko moved to London with her family in 2001 and has worked since then as a freelance journalist and non-fiction writer. She has written five books in Japanese. ‘The Martyr and the Red Kimono’ is her second English language book.

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