A Review of “Hana’s Suitcase”
By Miriam Kotch for the Yediot Achronot- Israel’s largest daily newspaper
Translation from the Hebrew
If there is an enemy of the Holocaust Remembrance Ceremonies it is the banal. It is especially dangerous to an audience of children who have these ceremonies organized for them every year. In order to challenge the collective memory and to create a feeling of cooperation and continuity new ways must be searched and found each and every year.
The production of “Hana’s Suitcase” (Nephesh Theatre) is a creation with entirely new components. The play (by Emil Sher) is based upon a true story by Karen Levine recounting how the curater of the Holocaust Museum in Tokyo receives a suitcase for her display from the Auschwitz Museum. On the suitcase was written the name Hana Brady which sent her on a search throughout the world to find more details about her short life which ended in the gas chambers. She found her brother, the sole family survivor, living in Toronto.
The decision to focus a high resolution on six million through the suitcase of a young girl makes a strong emotional impact. For children 12 years old it is hard to grasp the Holocaust in numbers. Six million is like sixty million or sixty thousand.
Pain can not be grasped in numbers. But the death of one girl their age, pierces their heart like an arrow, clarifying facism, swastikas, Gestapo, concentration camp, Holocaust and memory.
I watched the play with grade six children. From the moment the lights went down and until it ended, they sat riveted, tense and involved. There is no doubt that they will never forget this story.
The production high level of professionalism is very impressive. Well worth seeing !
FIVE STARS !!!