Hana's Suitcase (9 page)

“Can we send something with it?” asked Maiko. The older kids scattered to quiet spots around the Center to compose poems. “What can I do?” Akira asked Maiko.

“Draw a picture of Hana,” she replied.

“But I don’t know what she looks like,” he said.

“Just draw her as you imagine her,” Maiko said. And Akira did.

Fumiko wrote her own letter very carefully. She knew that receiving it would come as a shock to George. She knew that some Holocaust survivors refused to ever speak about their experiences. She worried that his memories might be so bitter and painful that he wouldn’t want to hear anything about Hana’s suitcase and the Holocaust Center in Japan.

Fumiko had copies made of Hana’s drawings and packaged them carefully, along with the children’s writings and artwork. Then she took the parcel down to the post office, crossed her fingers, and sent it off to Canada.

Toronto, Canada
August 2000

IT WAS A WARM AND SUNNY AUGUST AFTERNOON
. Seventy-two-year-old George Brady had come home from work early and had planned to spend a quiet afternoon in the empty house, clearing up some bills. He was sitting at his dining room table when he heard the footsteps of the mailman, the whoosh of envelopes being shoved through the slot, and the thunk of them landing on the floor. I’ll get them later, he thought. Then the doorbell rang.

When he opened the door, the mailman was standing there. “This wouldn’t fit through,” he said, handing a package to George. The package was postmarked Japan. What could this be? George wondered. He didn’t know anyone in Japan.

When he opened the package and began to read the letter, George’s heart began to pound. He closed his eyes. He opened them, blinking hard, making sure that what he was reading was real. Was this a daytime dream he was having?

The loss of his sister Hana was George’s most private and deepest sorrow. He had lived with it for over half a century and had never been able to get over the feeling that he should have been able to protect his little sister.

Now, somehow, halfway around the world, her story was being told and her life was being honored. George was stunned. He sat down and let his mind wander back fifty-five years.

When Auschwitz was liberated in January 1945, George Brady was seventeen years old. He had survived the horrors of the camp by starting out young and strong, by good luck, and by using the trade he had learned at Theresienstadt — plumbing. When he was freed, he was very weak and painfully thin. But George was determined to make his way back to Nové Město na Moravě — to his parents and his little sister Hana. He desperately wanted his family to be together again.

By foot, by train and by hitchhiking, George made it back to the home he loved in May 1945. He went straight for Uncle Ludvik and Aunt Hedda’s house. It was the last place where he had known family, love and safety. When they opened the door and found their nephew standing there, aunt and uncle fell on him — hugging, kissing, touching, crying — barely able to believe that George was alive.

But the unbridled happiness of the reunion was short-lived. “Where are Mother and Father?” George asked. Ludvik and Hedda were forced to tell him the terrible truth. Marketa had been sent from Ravensbruck to Auschwitz and murdered there in 1942. Karel was killed there the same year. “And Hana?” George whispered. All his aunt and uncle knew was that she had been sent to Auschwitz.

For months, George nursed the faint hope that somehow, somewhere, Hana would appear. He searched for her in every young girl’s face he saw, in every ponytail that swished by, in every jaunty step of a healthy child on the street. One day, George encountered a teenaged girl on the main street in Prague. She stopped in front of him.

“George?” she asked. “Are you not George Brady, Hana’s brother? My name is Marta. I knew Hana. All of us older girls at Theresienstadt loved her.” George searched Marta’s eyes for information, for hope. She realized that George didn’t yet know the final truth about his sister. “George,” she told him quietly, plainly, taking hold of his hands. “Hana was sent to be killed in the gas chamber at Auschwitz, the same day she arrived there. I’m sorry, George. Hana is dead.” George’s knees turned to jelly and the world went black.

Toronto, August 2000

IN THE MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY
since George learned the terrible fates of his parents and sister, much had happened. At seventeen, George had left Nové Město na Moravě. He moved from city to city in Europe, carrying his only treasured possession — the box of family photographs that Uncle Ludvik and Aunt Hedda had hidden for him. Then, in early 1951, he moved to Toronto and set up a plumbing business with another Holocaust survivor. It was very successful. George married, became the father of three sons and, much later, of a daughter.

George was proud that — despite his suffering during the Holocaust and the fact that his mother, father and sister had been murdered by the Nazis — he had moved on with his life. He was a successful businessman, a proud father. He thought of himself as a healthy person who, for the most part, put his wartime experiences behind him. But whatever he accomplished, whatever joy he felt, it was always tinged with the memory of his beautiful little sister and the horror of her fate.

And now, here he was, with a letter from halfway around the world, telling him how his sister’s suitcase was helping a new generation of Japanese children learn about the Holocaust. The letter from Fumiko also asked, very gently, for his help.

Please forgive me, if my letter hurts you by reminding you of your difficult experiences. But I would very much appreciate if you would kindly be able to tell us about your and Hana’s story. We would like to know about the time you spent with Hana before you were sent to the camp, the things that you talked with her about, your and her dreams. We are interested in anything that would help children here in Japan feel close to you and Hana. We want to understand what prejudice, intolerance, and hatred did to young Jewish children.

If possible, I would also be grateful if you could lend us any family photos. I know that most Holocaust survivors lost their family photographs, along with their families. But if you do have any pictures, it would greatly help us with our goal to give every child in Japan a chance to learn about the Holocaust. We at the Tokyo Holocaust Center and the children of Small Wings are all so excited to know that Hana had a brother and that he survived.

It was signed “Fumiko Ishioka.”

George could hardly believe it. Such amazing connections and strange coincidences had brought three worlds together: the world of children in Japan, George in Canada, and the lost world of a Jewish girl from Czechoslovakia who died so long ago. George wiped the tears from his cheek and then smiled to himself. Hana’s young face was so clear to him. He could almost hear her laugh, and feel her soft hand in his. George went to the large wooden dresser and pulled out a photograph album. He wanted to get in touch with Fumiko Ishioka as soon as possible.

Tokyo, September 2000

EVER SINCE SHE HAD SENT THE LETTER TO TORONTO
, Fumiko had been a bundle of nerves. Would George Brady write back? Will he help us to know Hana? Even the letter carrier who delivered the mail to the Center knew how anxious Fumiko was. “Anything from Canada today?” she would ask the minute she saw him walking up the path to the front door. He hated to see her disappointment when, day after day, the answer was no.

Then on the last day of the month, Fumiko was in the middle of welcoming forty guests at the Center. They were teachers and students who had come to learn about the Holocaust and to see the suitcase. Out of the corner of her eye, through a window, she saw the letter carrier walking very quickly toward the building with a huge smile on his face. Fumiko excused herself and ran to meet him. “Here it is,” he said, beaming. And he handed her a thick envelope from Toronto.

“Oh thank you,” Fumiko cried. “Thank you for making my day!”

She took the letter to her office and opened it. As she unfolded the pages, photos spilled out. Four photographs of Hana, her blonde hair shining around her smiling face.

Fumiko screamed. She couldn’t help it. Some of the visiting teachers and students rushed to her office door. “What’s wrong? What’s the matter?” they asked.

“Nothing is wrong,” she told them, stumbling over her words. “I’m just so happy, so excited. Here, look, this is a picture of Hana. This is the beautiful little girl whose story we have worked so hard to find.”

Along with the photographs, there was a long letter from George. In it, Fumiko learned about Hana’s happy early days in Nové Město na Moravě, about her family, and how she loved to ski and skate. It was comforting to know that Hana had had a good life before the war ruined everything.

And Fumiko learned about George, too. As she read about his life in Canada, his children and his grandchildren, Fumiko was bursting with happiness. She began to cry. He survived, she repeated over and over to herself. He survived. More than that, he has a beautiful family. She couldn’t wait to tell the children of Small Wings.

Tokyo, March 2001

“CALM DOWN,” FUMIKO SAID WITH A SMILE.
“They’ll be here soon, I promise.”

But nothing she said could tame the excitement of the children that morning. They buzzed around the Center, checked their poems, straightened their clothes for the umpteenth time, told silly jokes just to make the time move faster. Even Maiko, whose job it was to calm everyone else down, was jumpy.

Then, finally, the waiting was over. George Brady had arrived. And he had brought with him his seventeen-year-old daughter, Lara Hana.

Now the children became very quiet. At the Center’s front entrance, they crowded around George. They bowed to him, as is the custom in Japan. George bowed back. Akira presented George with a beautiful multi-colored origami garland. All the children jostled gently for the chance to be nearest to him. After so many months of hearing about George from Fumiko, they were thrilled to finally meet him in person.