Hana´s Suitcase

This award-winning true Holocaust story, newly updated, connects generations through one woman's quest to find the truth behind a mysterious suitcase. In March 2000, Fumiko Ishioka, the curator of a small Holocaust education center in Tokyo, received an empty suitcase from the museum at Auschwitz. On the outside, in white paint, were the words -Hana Brady, May 16, 1931, Orphan.- Fumiko and the children at the center were determined to find out who Hana was and what happened to her all those years ago, leading them to a startling and emotional discovery. The dual narrative intertwines Fumiko's international journey to find the truth about Hana Brady's fate with Hana's own compelling story of her life in a quiet Czech town, which is shattered by the arrival of the Nazis, tearing apart the family she loves. This suspense-filled work of investigative nonfiction draws in young readers and makes them active participants in the search for Hana's identity. Praise for Hana's Suitcase - -Hana wanted to become a teacher, and surely through this little book her dream is being realized.- --Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from his new foreword to Hana's Suitcase - -The account . . . is part history, part suspenseful mystery . . . with an incredible climactic revelation.-