World War II was the second international war that involved multiple nations on each continent. Primarily, World War II is attributed to the actions of the Nazi Party in 1930s Germany under the leadership of dictator Adolf Hitler. The Nazi Party held eugenicist beliefs and aimed to exterminate all people not considered part of the so-called Aryan race; the Nazis systemically invaded countries and murdered over 10 million people, including six million Jews. Hana’s Suitcase is a book that describes one family’s experiences in the Holocaust, though many of the details and events included in the text are reflected in other narratives about the Holocaust.

One of the complexities of how the Nazi regime ruled was their commitment to careful and explicit documentation of their activities, followed by their subsequent attempts to destroy all records of the Holocaust completely. Lists, referenced in Hana’s Suitcase, were a prominent way the Nazis tracked who they were moving, where they were moving them to, and who had been killed. When World War II neared its end, Nazis took great pains to burn all possible evidence of their wrongdoing, and many fled to other countries, where they remained hidden for years.