Hana’s Suitcase: Character Development

Hana’s Suitcase by Karen Levine is the book that focuses on Holocaust that is the background of Hana’s and Fumiko Ishioka’s stories. Thus, all events in Hana’s Suitcase are related to two main characters: a young Jewish girl Hana and a Japanese woman Fumiko Ishioka. It is obvious that Hana is the symbol of the past while Fumiko symbolizes the present that goes deep into the past to make the future better. Fumiko Ishioka deserves special attention because she is the reason for the entire story as she begins the investigation and brings it to the world. Since Holocaust happened far away from Japan, it was a majorly unknown phenomenon to the Japanese. The woman’s role is to teach Japanese children about it and evoke the feelings of sympathy, tolerance, and other moral qualities. Without the teacher, the story of Hana’s suitcase would remain the Museum artifact, and Japanese people would have stayed ignorant of the tragedy of Holocaust.

Fumiko Ishioka is a dynamic character, and the development of her personality and professional competence as a teacher can be observed in this book. She is responsible for the Tokyo Holocaust Center, takes care of the growth of her students, devotes time to the self-development, dives into the history of Holocaust, and travels far away for the sake of revealing the truth. She lives in the present but studies the past; therefore, her interest in the life of Hana is reinforced by work as the director of the Tokyo Holocaust Center and her endless potential, curiosity, and hunger for knowledge that encourage her to open new pages of the history.

Fumiko Ishioka is a good specialist that believes that a teacher should be curious and satisfy this curiosity with new knowledge. Thus, she becomes a teacher for Japanese children who are ignorant of the sufferings and pains of the Jewish children during the WWII; she inspires them to explore the history of Holocaust not to allow for the same mistake in the future. Fumiko does not want to repeat bare facts about concentration camps but brings children to museums and demonstrate all the pain of the Jewish people. Levine asserts, “The story of the Holocaust was new to many of the people who came to the Museum”. Moreover, Fumiko Ishioka underlines the importance of learning and teaching at any time by explaining how “teaching, learning, producing and performing” took place in concentration camps “despite the war, despite the drab, cramped surrounding, despite everything…”. It is obvious that Fumiko’s mission in this book is to use all possible ways to uncover the truth of Holocaust to the Japanese community.

Fumiko Ishioka looks at the theme of Holocaust from the global perspective. She is interested in the Jewish history and emphasizes its importance to other nations as the lesson that cruelty and violence are not acceptable and cannot be tolerated anywhere and at any time. Thus, this Japanese woman shows that the life story of every Jewish child mattered and was the reflection of the tragedy and horror of Holocaust that resulted in suffering and deaths of millions of humans. However, the knowledge, tolerance, and sympathy to Jewish people are obligatory to everybody who supports peace, friendship, tolerance, and humanism.

In conclusion, Fumiko Ishioka plays the most important and particular role in the book as she teaches every Japanese child how to become a good person. She focuses on the self-development and growth of her students. Without the teacher, the story of Hana’s suitcase would have remained unknown. Fumiko Ishioka shows that the past cannot be forgotten for the sake of the peaceful and happy future.

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