Hana's Suitcase

One of the Nazis' most infamous strategies for genocide against the Jews was deporting all Jewish people to concentration camps. In concentration camps, described in Levine’s Introduction as “prison camps” and “death camps,” Jews were forced to work and live in horrible conditions. Additionally, many Jews were murdered in these camps, often through systematic measures like gas chambers. As referenced in Hana’s Suitcase, many concentration camps are now open as historic sites in the present day, like Auschwitz, the concentration camp where Hana Brady died. 

Nazis were the politicized soldiers who followed Adolf Hitler’s rule. They believed in eugenics and the creation of one perfect race of people and systematically murdered millions across Europe to eliminate the Jews. Nazis are described as terrifying in the text: They are “thugs” who call Jews “evil, a bad influence” (22). The Bradys’ lives, as Jews, are impacted by Nazi rule, and George Brady is the only named survivor of the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in the book.

Jews and other people who survived the Holocaust are known as survivors. George Brady is the only survivor named in Hana’s Suitcase, though