Holocaust is a black spot in world history. It is impossible to forget those times and people’s deaths. Holocaust should be remembered as till people remember the terrors and horrors which occurred at that time, and there is a chance that there will never appear the same situation. No one Jewish survived. Neither adults nor children were spared. Remembering those terrible times, people are terrified as it is impossible to understand that savageness against Jewish people, as they are the same as we are; they are human beings.
The story “Hana’s Suitcase” by Karen Levine is not fiction, where heroes and the plot are the imagination of the author; it is a documentary story where the situation and named people are real, they lived their lives, and in one moment their destinies have deeply intertwined. The plot concentrates on the suitcase which remained after the war and was left in Tokyo Holocaust Educational Resource Centre. The director of this center Fumiko Ishioka taught children about the horrors of the Holocaust, and the suitcase touched her attention. She began to search for some facts which could lighten the life and the situation of how Hana had died.
Fumiko Ishioka’s researches were successful; she managed to find some information about Auschwitz, where Hama was killed. The life description that she presents makes people think over the circumstances which brought a girl, Hana, to death. (Levine 2007)
The book is not only about Hana. Hana’s life is shown as an example of the lives of all Jewish children during the Nazis’ occupation. The book’s main idea is the terror which Jewish people had to come through and the result of which was still death. The book is about people’s lives which ran calmly till Nazism did not appear in the world, and people were killed without any reason. The destinies of Jewish people were similar. There is no family in the region, which was occupied by Nazis, where the family does not remember and grieve about the relative who was killed during the German occupation.
This book is a good teacher, especially for children. The history is told through the example of a child. Unfortunately, history is very sad, but it must be remembered. People, who do not know their history, do not deserve for future. Hana’s brother said that Hana wanted to be a teacher. And her dream came true. Hana became a teacher. Considering her life story and looking at her suitcase, people learn lots of facts about the Holocaust and the life of a simple girl who used to be free and happy and whose life came abruptly to an end without even being started.
Holocaust should always live in people’s minds, and children should be taught about this terrible period in people’s history to give them an understanding that taking people’s life is forbidden. Such stories should be told to show people that we are all people, and it is not for us to decide which nation should live and which has to die.
Works Cited
Levine, Karen. Hana’s Suitcase. Albert Whitman & Company, 2007.