Common menu bar links

English Titles

		HANA'S SUITCASE: A TRUE STORY KAREN LEVINE TORONTO: SECOND STORY PRESS, 2002. 111 P. (A HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE BOOK FOR YOUNG READERS) ISBN 189676455X ISBN 1896764614 (BOOK AND CD) AGES 9 TO 12 Available in French under the title: La valise d'Hana (Montréal: Hurtubise HMH, 2003)
Hana's Suitcase: A True Story Source

This is the true story of a search for the owner of a suitcase  --  a suitcase that arrived at the Tokyo Holocaust Center in Japan in 2000. The only clues were the words painted on the outside of the suitcase: the name of a girl, Hana Brady; a date, May 31, 1931; and the word Waisenkind  --  the German name for orphan. Armed only with the knowledge that the suitcase had come from Auschwitz, a Second World War concentration camp, the centre's director, Fumiko Ishioka, sets out to discover who Hana Brady was and what happened to her.

This poignant story simultaneously traces Fumiko's journey to Europe and Canada, and the life of Hana Brady, who was killed in Auschwitz at age 13. Told with honesty and sensitivity, the book gives readers an understanding of the horrors of the Holocaust, tempered with a lesson of hope. Black-and-white photographs, documents and sketches give an intimate view of this remarkable story.

-DS