Hana's Suitcase (4 page)

Tokyo, March 2000

THERESIENSTADT
. Now Fumiko and the children knew that Hana had come to Auschwitz from Theresienstadt. Fumiko was excited. This was the first solid piece of information she had found about Hana. The first clue.

Theresienstadt was the name that the Nazis gave to the Czech town of Terezin. It was a pretty little town, with two imposing fortresses, first built in the 1800s to hold military and political prisoners. After the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, they turned Terezin into the Theresienstadt ghetto — a walled, guarded, overcrowded prison town to hold Jews who had been forced to leave their homes. Over the course of World War Two, more than 140,000 Jews were sent here — 15,000 of them were children.

Fumiko stayed up late at night, her office a glow of light in the darkened Center, reading everything she could find about Theresienstadt.

She learned that terrible things had happened in Theresienstadt, and that over the course of a few years almost everyone in the ghetto was deported again, put on trains and sent off to the more terrible concentration camps in the east which were known to be death camps.

But Fumiko also learned that brave and inspiring things happened in Theresienstadt. Among the adults were some very special people — great artists, famous musicians, historians, philosophers, fashion designers, social workers. They were all in Theresienstadt because they were Jews. An astonishing amount of talent, training and knowledge was crowded inside the walls of the ghetto. Under the noses of the Nazis and at great risk, the inmates secretly plotted and established an elaborate schedule of teaching, learning, producing and performing for both adults and children. They were determined to remind their students that — despite the war, despite the drab, cramped surroundings, despite everything — the world was a place of beauty and every individual person could add to it.

Fumiko also discovered that children in Theresienstadt were taught to paint and draw. And, miraculously, 4,500 drawings created by these children had survived the war. Fumiko’s heart began to beat more quickly. Could it be that among those drawings there might be one or more by Hana Brady?

Nové Město na Moravě,
Autumn 1940–Spring 1941

AUTUMN BROUGHT WITH IT A CHILL IN THE AIR
, as well as more restrictions, and hardship.

Hana was about to begin grade three, when the Nazis announced that Jewish children would no longer be allowed to go to school. “Now, I will never see my friends!” Hana wailed, when her parents told her the bad news. “Now, I’ll never become a teacher when I grow up!” She always dreamed of standing up at the front of the classroom and having everyone listen carefully to whatever she had to say.

Mother and Father were determined that both Hana and her brother would continue their education. Luckily, they had enough money to hire a young woman from the next village to be Hana’s tutor, and an old refugee professor to teach George.

Mother tried to be cheerful. “Good morning, Hana,” she would sing out when the sun rose. “It’s time for breakfast. You don’t want to be late for ‘school.’” Every morning, Hana would meet her new tutor at the dining room table. She was a kind young woman and she did her best to encourage Hana with reading, writing and arithmetic. She brought a small blackboard that she leaned up against a chair. Once in a while, she allowed Hana to draw with the chalk and bang out chalk dust in the brushes. But at this school, there were no playmates, no practical jokes, no recess. Hana found it harder to pay attention or stay focused on her lessons. In the darkness of the winter, the world seemed to be closing in on the Brady family.

Indeed, when spring came, disaster struck. In March 1941, Mother was arrested by the Gestapo, Hitler’s feared secret state police.

A letter came to the house ordering Mother to appear at nine o’clock in the morning at Gestapo headquarters in the nearby town of Iglau. In order to be there on time, she would have to leave in the middle of the night. She had one day to organize everything and say goodbye to her family.

She called Hana and George into the living room, sat on the couch, and pulled the children close to her. She told them that she would be going away for a while. Hana snuggled a little closer. “You must be good while I am gone,” she said. “Listen carefully to Father and obey him. I will write,” she promised. “Will you write back to me?”

George looked away. Hana trembled. The children were too shocked to reply. Their mother had never left them before.

When Mother tucked Hana into bed that night, she held her tightly. Mother ran her soothing fingers through Hana’s hair, just the way she had when Hana was very little. She sang Hana’s favorite lullaby, over and over again. Hana fell asleep with her arms around her mother’s neck. In the morning when Hana woke up, Mother was gone.

Tokyo, April 2000

FUMIKO COULD HARDLY BELIEVE IT
when a flat package arrived at her office in Tokyo. Just a few weeks earlier, she had written to the Terezin Ghetto Museum in what is now called the Czech Republic. Fumiko had explained in her letter how anxious she and the children were to find anything that would connect them more closely to Hana. People there said they knew nothing about Hana’s personal story. But they did know about the huge collection of children’s drawings that had been hidden in the camp. Many of the drawings were now displayed at the Jewish Museum in Prague.

Fumiko opened the package. She was so excited that her hands were shaking. There were photographs of five drawings. One was a colored drawing of a garden and a park bench. Another showed people having a picnic beside a river. The rest were in pencil and charcoal, one of a tree, another of farmhands drying hay in a field, and another of stick people carrying suitcases, getting off a train. In the top right hand corner of each of the drawings was the name “Hana Brady.”

Nové Město na Moravě,
Autumn 1941

SINCE SHE HAD MADE A PROMISE TO HER MOTHER
, Hana did her best to behave well. She helped her father when she could and did her lessons. Boshka, their much-loved housekeeper, tried to cook Hana’s favorite meals and give her extra helpings of dessert. But Hana missed her mother terribly, especially at night. No one else could smooth her hair with quite the same touch. No one else could sing her lullaby. And that big booming laugh of her mother’s — everyone missed that.

The children learned that their mother was in a place called Ravensbruck, a women’s concentration camp in Germany. “Is it far away?” Hana asked her father.

“When is she coming home?” George wanted to know. Father assured the children that he was doing everything he could to get her out.

One day Hana was reading in her room when she heard Boshka calling for her. She decided to ignore her. Hana didn’t feel like doing any chores. And what else was there to look forward to? But Boshka kept calling. “Hana, Hana? Where are you? Come quickly! There is something very special waiting for you at the post office.”

When she heard that, Hana dropped her book. Could it be what she hoped for most? She burst out of the house and ran down the street to the post office. Hana approached the wicket. “Do you have something for me?” she asked. The woman behind the counter slid a small brown package through the hole. Hana’s heart leapt when she recognized her mother’s writing. Her fingers trembled as she opened it. Inside was a little brown heart. It was made of bread and had the initials “HB” carved into it. Attached was a letter.

My dearest one, I wish you all the best on your birthday. I am sorry that I can’t help you blow out the candles this year. But the heart is a charm I made for your bracelet. Are your clothes getting too small for you? Ask Daddy and Georgie to speak to your aunts about having some new ones made for my big girl. I think about you and your brother all the time. I am well. Are you being a good girl? Will you write me a letter? I hope you and George are keeping up your studies. I am well. I miss you so much, dearest Hanichka. I am kissing you now.

Love,
Mother. May 1941. Ravensbruck.

Hana closed her eyes and clutched the little brown bread heart. She tried to imagine that her mother was standing beside her.

That fall brought another blow. One day Father arrived home carrying three squares of cloth. On each was a yellow star of David and in the middle of the star one word: “
Jude
” — Jew.

“Come children,” said Father, as he took a pair of scissors from a kitchen drawer. “We need to cut out these stars and pin them on our coats. We must wear them whenever we leave the house.”

“Why?” asked Hana. “People already know we are Jews.”

“It’s what we must do,” replied Father. He looked so dejected, sad and tired that Hana and George didn’t argue.

From that day on, Hana went outside less often. She would do almost anything to avoid wearing the yellow badge in public. She hated the star. It was so humiliating. It was so embarrassing. Wasn’t it enough, the children wondered, that they’d lost their park, their pond, their school and their friends? But now, when they left the house, the star was pinned to their clothing.

One Jewish man in town was not willing to obey. He’d had enough of all the rules and restrictions. So on a late September day in 1941, he left his house feeling a little brazen. He did not cut out the star and pinned the entire cloth to his coat. This tiny act of rebellion was immediately noticed by the Nazi officer in charge in Nové Město na Moravě. He was furious. He declared that Nové Město na Moravě must be made
judenfrei,
free of Jews, immediately.

The very next morning, a big black car driven by a Nazi officer drew up in front of the Bradys’ house. Four frightened Jewish men were already huddled inside it. There was a knock on the door. Father opened it. Hana and George hung behind him. The Gestapo officer barked at Father to come out immediately. Hana and George couldn’t believe their ears. They stood there, stunned, terrified and silent. Father hugged the children, implored them to be brave. And then he, too, was gone.