Inside Hana’s Suitcase
The delivery of a battered suitcase to Fumiko Ishioka at the Tokyo Holocaust Museum begins the true-life mystery that became the subject of Karen Levine’s best-selling book Hana’s Suitcase. The suitcase came from the Auschwitz Museum and had Hana Brandy’s name painted on it. Larry Weinstein’s masterful film follows Fumiko’s search to discover the details of Hana’s life, which leads to the discovery of her brother George in Toronto. As small children they had been sent to Thereisenstadt for being Jewish after the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939. A superb musical score by Alexina Louie and Alex Pauk, coupled with dramatic reenactments stunningly shot by Horst Zeidler, catches us by the heart to invoke the tragedy of the times. The voices of children from Japan, Canada, and the Czech Republic telling Hana’s story are woven around the drama, along with George’s memories and Fumiko’s quest, to create a film of astonishing power and hope.
Product Features
- Factory sealed DVD
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amazing story I’m a 5th grade teacher and absolutely love using this book in my classroom. We read Number the Stars as a class and I use this particular book in a reading group that needs to be challenged. This year we ordered the dvd and the entire grade watched it (we all read Number the Stars, but only a small group of kids read Hana’s Suitcase). So the movie brought everyone together to learn about this incredible story.In 5th grade, we are careful to limit our Holocaust materials to those…
I purchased this DVD to use in my Language Arts classroom. The students read the book as part of our Injustice Unit. I LOVE the documentary itself. The problem is the SECOND time I showed the DVD (to my second class of the day), it went crazy, and scenes from some other movie/video was playing (absolutely NOT related to Hana’s Suitcase). I played it a THIRD time during my plan time, and it was “normal” like the first time I showed it. It makes me very hesitant to use the DVD since I do…