Hana Brady

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Hana Brady

Hana Brady (Hana "Hanička" Bradová, Germanized in the tag in her suitcase as "Hanna Brady") (May 16, 1931 in Nové Město – 1944) was a Jewish girl and Holocaust victim.

Along with her brother George, Hana was imprisoned by the Nazis as a Jew (although Christians were predominant in the town of Nove Mesto, and her family had earlier converted to Christianity) and sent to the Theresienstadt (Terezin) prison camp. In 1944 she was transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Though her brother survived as a laborer, Hana was killed.

Fumiko Ishioka of the Japanese NPO, the Tokyo Holocaust Educational Resource Center, exhibited Hana's trunk in 2000 as a relic of the concentration camp. She later became known for teaching materials based on the process of tracing Hana's life and seeking out her surviving family in Canada. Hana's story became known through children's radio programs and written material in both Canada and Japan, as Hana's Suitcase, and with the help of Ms. Ishioka and Hana's brother George, it was published as Hana's Suitcase: A True Story, 2002) by Karen Levine. The book became a bestseller and received the Bank Street College of Education Flora Stieglitz Straus Award for non-fiction, the 2002 Governor General's Award for Literary Merit, and was selected as a final award candidate for the Norma Fleck award. It has since been translated and published around the world, and occupies a place similar to the Diary of Anne Frank.

[edit] The Replica of Hana's Suitcase

In February 2004, Lara, the daughter of Hana's brother, looked over Hana's suitcase and determined that it was not the original suitcase as it did not look old enough, and the location of the handle varied from the photographs of the original. In March, Fumiko and George Brady questioned the director of the Auschwitz museum, and they confirmed and explained that they had created a replica 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 at an English exhibition. As the museum personnel mistakenly did not include this fact when lending it to the Japanese Holocaust Center, they and Hana's family had been sharing Hana's story and displaying the suitcase without knowing it was a replica. The family and the Center affirms that even as such, its contribution to the cause of "human rights and peace education" is not lessened and it is an incredible testimony to the importance of the story that such hatred still exists and would destroy historical artifacts so recently.