Hana's Suitcase (2 page)

Mother was a warm and generous hostess with a good sense of humor and a very loud laugh. She, too, worked six days a week in the store and people often came in just to hear her jokes and banter. She paid special attention to poor people in Nové Město na Moravě who lived on the outskirts of town. Once a week, she would prepare a bundle of food and clothing that Hana would deliver to needy neighbors. Hana was very proud of her mission and she nagged her mother to make care packages more often.

Hana was a helper in the store, too. From the time they were very small, Hana and George had the job of keeping the shelves stocked, clean and tidy. They learned how to slice yeast, chisel small lumps off the sugar loaf, weigh spices and seasonings, and twist paper into the shape of hollow cones to be filled with candy and sold as treats. Once in a while, Mother noticed that some of those candy cones were missing. Hana never told on George. And he never told on Hana.

There were always cats around the store, who worked full-time as mouse catchers. But once, as a special treat, Mother and Father ordered fluffy white angora kittens as pets for the children. Two soft little bundles arrived through the mail in a box with breathing holes. At first, Sylva, the family wolfhound, a huge grey furry creature, sniffed around them suspiciously. But soon the kittens, who Hana named Micki and Mourek, became accepted members of the family.

Hana and George went to the public school. They were average kids, who got into regular mischief and had the usual problems and triumphs. There was just one thing that was different about them.

The Bradys were Jewish. They weren’t a religious family. But Mother and Father wanted the children to know about their heritage. Once a week, while their playmates were at church, Hana and George sat with a special teacher who taught them about Jewish holidays and Jewish history.

There were a few other Jewish families in Nové Město na Moravě. But Hana and George were the only Jewish children in the town. In their early years no one really noticed or cared that they were different. Soon, though, the fact that they were Jews would become the most important thing about them.

Tokyo,
Winter 2000

BACK IN HER OFFICE,
half a world away in Japan and more than half a century later, Fumiko Ishioka remembered how the suitcase had come to her.

In 1998, she had begun her job as coordinator of a small museum, called the Tokyo Holocaust Center. It was dedicated to teaching Japanese children about the Holocaust. At a conference in Israel, Fumiko had met a few Holocaust survivors, people who had lived through the horrors of the concentration camps. She was astonished by their optimism and their joy in living, despite everything they had been through. When Fumiko felt sad about things in her own life, she often thought about these survivors. They were so strong-willed and wise. They had so much to teach her.

Fumiko wanted young people in Japan to learn from the Holocaust as well. It was her job to make it happen. And it wasn’t an easy one. How, she wondered, could she help Japanese children understand the terrible story of what happened to millions of Jewish children on a faraway continent over fifty years ago?

She decided the best way to start would be through physical objects that the children could see and touch. She wrote to Jewish and Holocaust museums all over the world — in Poland, Germany, the United States and Israel — asking for a loan of artifacts that had belonged to children. She posted her request on the Internet. She wrote to individuals she thought might be able to help. Fumiko was looking for a pair of shoes and for a suitcase.

Everyone turned her down, telling her that the objects they had so carefully preserved were too precious to send to such a small museum, so far away. Fumiko wasn’t sure what to do next. But she wasn’t the kind of person who gave up easily. Just the opposite. The more rejections she got, the more dedicated she became.

That fall, Fumiko travelled to Poland where many Nazi concentration camps had been located. There, on the site of the most well-known camp, she visited the Auschwitz Museum. Fumiko begged for a short meeting with the Museum’s assistant director. She was given five minutes to explain what she wanted. When she left the assistant director’s office, she had a promise that her request would be considered.

A few months later, a package from the Auschwitz Museum arrived: a child’s sock and shoe, a child’s sweater, a can of Zyklon B poisonous gas and one suitcase — Hana’s suitcase.

Nové Město na Moravě, 1938

HANA HAD BLONDE HAIR
, blue eyes and a very pretty round face. She was a strong girl. Once in a while, Hana would provoke a battle with George, just to show off her muscles. Even though her brother was three years older, Hana would sometimes emerge the winner. But most of the time, Hana and George played well together.

In the summer, in the creek behind their house, they pretended to be in the navy. Climbing into an old wooden washtub, the children sailed along until one or the other pulled the plug in the middle and they sank, laughing and splashing. There were three different kinds of swings in the backyard meadow — one for a small child, a two-seater, and one that swung from a giant tree out over the creek. Sometimes, the neighborhood children would gather there for swinging contests. Who could swing the highest? Who could jump the farthest? Often it was Hana.

In the long halls of their apartment over the store, Hana raced on her red scooter, George on his blue one. In the winter, Hana and George built snow forts and skied. But Hana’s greatest love was skating, and she worked hard perfecting her pirouettes on Nové Město na Moravě’s frozen pond. Sometimes, when she wore her special red skating outfit — the one with the white fur on the ends of the sleeves — she imagined herself a dancing princess. Her parents, her friends and her brother applauded both the performance and the dream.

Because her parents worked six days a week, Sunday mornings were special for the family. When they woke up, George and Hana would snuggle up in their parents’ bed under the fluffy feather comforter. On Sunday afternoons in the summer, they would all pile into the car and head off to the nearest fort or castle for a picnic, sometimes with Uncle Ludvik and Aunt Hedda who also lived in Nové Město na Moravě. In the winter, there were sleigh rides and long cross-country skiing adventures. Hana was a very strong skier. On the eight-kilometer run between Nové Město na Moravě and a nearby village (which had a wonderful tearoom with delicious creamy pastries), Hana always led the big family pack of cousins, even though she was the youngest.