DOXA 2009: Inside Hana's Suitcase

i recently watched one of the most incredible stories ever on netflix. the name of the documentary is inside hana's suitcase.  this film begins as the story of a japanese woman named fumiko ishioka  who is an educator at the japanese holocaust education center in japan. ms ishioka taught  children about the holocaust and in 1999 she requested artifacts from the holocaust museum in auschwitz . she especially requested artifacts from children so she would be able to help the children she was teaching be able to relate to it better. one of the artifacts she recieved was a suitcase of  a little girl name hana brady. ms ishioka and the children wondered what hana's fate had been as well as what her life had been like before the war.
after much research ms ishioka found out that hana spent time in terezin and died in auchwitz. she also found out that hana had a brother george who did survive the war. ms ishioka also managed to find pictures that hana had drawn in auchsiwitz that acutally had her name on them. she also managed to locate george brady who was livning in toronto at the time.
george was very happy to tell ms ishioka about his sister. he felt such deep survivor's guilt. he wanted to share his sister's life with others so she would not be forgotten. he sent ms ishioka pictures of his sister. he eventually went to japan and spoke to children about his sister and about his life. his sister always wanted to be a teacher and now through her so many learned about the holocaust. all because of a suitcase that had her name on it.
a childhood friend of hanna's had gone to the holocaust memorial in auschwitz in 1962 and took a picture of herself with hann'as suitcase. she did this with much sadness as this was all she had to remember her friend. at some point it was realized when george saw this photo that the suitcase that he saw was not the same suitcase as the one he saw in the photo. hanna's real suitcase had gone to a holocaust museum in birmingham  , england to be displayed there and in 1984 neo - nazis burned the facility where the suitcase was kept. the museum in poland wanted to replicate hana's suitcase  because there were so few children's suitcases that survived. they replicated the suitcase from hanna's friend's photo. through this replica so many lives were touched by this little girl.
george brady saw his sister's artwork from terezin and was able to remember why she would have drawn these pictures. this helped other children learn about his sister's life , not just her demise.
this film intersperses commentary on hanna's life from children in japan and toronto who have learned about her life.
karen levine was inspired by this story to write a children's book called hanna's suitcase that has been translated into many languages.
this film is such an amazing journey about how teaching about the holocaust and tolerance for others that has  brought so many people from  around the world together. i highly recommend it.