Hana Brady
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hana Brady (Hana "Hanička" Bradová, Germanized in the tag in her suitcase as "Hanna Brady") (May 16, 1931 in Nové Město na Moravě – 1944) was a Jewish girl and Holocaust victim. She is the subject of the 2002 non-fiction children's book Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine.
Along with her brother George, Hana was imprisoned by the Nazis as a Jew, and sent to the Theresienstadt (Terezin) prison camp. In 1944 she was transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp. While her brother survived inprisonment by working as a laborer, Hana was killed.
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[edit] Hana's Suitcase
The story of Hana Brady first became public when Fumiko Ishioka of the Japanese non-profit Tokyo Holocaust Educational Resource Center exhibited Hana's suitcase in 2000 as a relic of the concentration camp. Wanting to learn more about the relic, Fumiko began researching Hana's life and eventually sought out her surviving family in Canada. The story of Hana Brady and how her suitcase led Fumiko to Toronto was the subject of a CBC radio documentary. The documentary was then adapted to a children's book in 2002 by the reporter, Karen Levine. The book became a best-seller and received the Bank Street College of Education Flora Stieglitz Straus Award for non-fiction, the National Jewish Book Award, and several other Canadian awards for children's literature. The book has received a nomination for the Governor General's Award and was selected as a final award candidate for the Norma Fleck award. It has been translated into numerous languages and published around the world.
[edit] The Replica of Hana's Suitcase
In February 2004, Lara Brady, Hana's niece, discovered inconsistencies between the suitcase on display and the suitcase pictured with Hana's friend after the war in the 1960's. Not only did the physical suitcase appear newer than in the photographs, but the location of the handle was also reversed. In March, Fumiko and George Brady inquired about the suitcase with the director of the Auschwitz museum, who explained that a replica had been created based on the pictures after the original suitcase was destroyed in a fire in 1984. This fire was likely caused by arson (according to the director and police at the time) while on loan to an English exhibit. As the museum personnel omitted this fact when they loaned it to the Tokyo Holocaust Education Resource Center, the fact that the suitcase was a replica had gone unnoticed for several years. The family and the Center assert that even as such, the replica's contribution to the cause of human rights and peace education is not lessened by its lack of authenticity, and the destruction of the original also demonstrates that anti-semitism and intolerance still pervade society.
[edit] Resources
- Karen Levine, Hana's Suitcase. (2002/2003) ISBN 0-8075-3148-0.
