Hana's Suitcase

Fumiko Ishioka runs the Holocaust education center in Tokyo. She wants Japanese children to learn about the Holocaust. The book recounts the story of how she searched for items for the center, then centered around one particular briefcase and the girl it had belong to, Hana.

Hana came from a family of four living in Czechoslovakia. The father ran a general store, and the mother was a driving force in aiding the poor.

Fumiko got some items from the Auschwitz camp museum, the only place willing to let her have anything for the center she wanted to set up in Tokyo.

The book goes back and forth, a chapter talking about Hana's life, and then one or two about Fumiko's hunt for more information to make the center even better. It's an exceptional book. It brings the story of the Holocaust down from that of a story of numbers to a personal story about a certain girl and what happened to her and her family.

It's not an easy, pleasant type of read, but it's an important one. A very important one, particularly in this time of growing hatred against particular groups of people in this country.

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