UNRAVELLING MEMORIES

A review by Shlomit Cohen Assif

For the MARMALADE Magazine

Translated from the Hebrew

My amazing nursery school teacher has a tattoo on her arm. She is a survival of that “Hell”. Today Bat Sheva is eighty six years old ! She is a psychologist that has developed a special method in teaching the Holocaust. Bat Sheva sat next to me at the Nephesh Theatre’s exceptional production of “Hana’s Suitcase”. 

This true story is a fascinating journey that unravels from an empty suitcase which arrived at the Holocaust Centre in Tokyo. It was sent from the Auschwitz Museum with only the words “Hana Brady 1931 orphan” written on it. The head of the Holocaust Centre in Tokyo, an educater by profession, set out on a search to find out more about then name that was written on the suitcase.

Slowly we learn moving details about Hana’s life throughout its fascinating plot, Director Howard Rypp like playwright Emil Sher know that the best way to present the essence of the Holocaust is through the personal story, and the direction keeps just the right balance through his cast of seven amazing actors. Through each of them we learn that what happens to them in another time and place is inseperable from the present. And today we need to be reminded of the past. This time we receive an artistic reminder that is as precious as a pearl ! Unravelling, releasing tears but within them are circles of hope.

At the end of the play I asked my nursery school teacher how old she was then? Sixteen years old. Hana was only nine years old.!!