Jill K Willis
During our recent vacation, my husband and I visited the town of Terezin, the former WWII Theresienstadt Ghetto, located 30 miles north of Prague, Czech Republic. It served as a waystation from 1941-1945 for more than 88,000 Czech, German, and Danish Jews on their way to extermination camps. Another 33,000 Jews died within its fortress-like walls from malnutrition and disease. Now a Holocaust museum, Terezin remains relatively unchanged since the war. Eerie.
After the tour, I learned from our guide that in Europe, Hana’s Suitcase is as popular as The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. After reading it, I agree; this is a powerful book about a pre-teen’s life in a Jewish Ghetto. I recommend that all middle grade and high school students add it to their summer reading lists because of its amazing present-day story and learning resources.
In 2000, Fumiko Ishioka, the curator of the Children’s Holocaust Education Center in Tokyo, Japan, received a suitcase in the mail after writing her counterparts in leading holocaust museums asking for loans of children’s WWII artifacts. The suitcase bore the name Hanna Brady and her birthdate, May 16, 1931. The contributing museum had no other information about the suitcase.
Ishioka formed a student group, Small Wings, to help research Hana’s background. After encountering many dead ends, this group finally brought Hana’s story to light. They also discovered she had an older brother and a grandmother who spent time in the notorious ghetto.
Once Ishioka and Small Wings stitched together the full history of Hana’s short life, complete with photos and drawings, they handed over their findings to Karen Levine, who did an award-winning job telling Hana’s tragic story.
Two days before her eleventh birthday, Nazis removed Hana from her upper middle-class home in Nové Město na Moravě, a winter sports resort town in what was then called Czechoslovakia to live in a squalid and overcrowded youth barrack in Theresienstadt Ghetto. The children were allowed crayons and colored pencils, so Hana was able to express her fears through line drawings. Her poignant artwork, found hidden under floorboards, is now on display in the Terezin Holocaust Museum. She survived the ghetto for two-and-a-half years before being deported to Auschwitz.
Levine recreates Hana’s early family life through words and photos, then provides a credible imagined story of her imprisoned life. At the end of the book, the author challenges students to learn more about the Holocaust by packing a suitcase for living in a ghetto, writing a letter to loved ones from a ghetto, and banding together to fight racism. Learn more at the Brady family’s website.
The photo above of Hana’s suitcase shows the German spelling of her name with two n’s. Waisenkind means orphan. Nazis forced Hana’s parents from their home months before coming back for Hana.
Have you ever visited a Holocaust Museum, concentration camp, or Jewish ghetto? If so, how did this experience impact you?
Check out my website for book reviews for middle graders and young adults.
Gretchen Carlson
Michelle Kaderly Welsh
Kristen Gwen
I’ve also not heard of this title but will check it out. We visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. The stories are heartbreaking but need to be told. Racism is evil.
I’ve also visited the Washington DC Holocaust Museum. The shoe display broke my heart.
My husband and I visited Auschwitz many years ago. As I walked the road to the museum there I actually felt the earth beneath me tremble. I felt even the earth shook as we remembered the terrible, terrible events there.
Your story sent chills up my spine. Thanks for sharing.
Diary of Anne Frank continues to be a well loved book in my library. I still have my well-read copy from my teen years. Sounds like I need to check this one out, as well.
This sounds like a powerful story. If I still had children in homeschool, I’d include it in our school reading list too.