Joan Salter's suitcase

A small red suitcase that belonged to Holocaust survivor Joan Salter. Joan was born Fanny Zimetbaum in February 1940 in Belgium. When Nazi Germany occupied Belgium, Joan and her family fled to Paris and were hidden by the French resistance. This small suitcase symbolises the link between Joan's two lives. Stamped with her initials 'J.F.' (Farrell was her American surname), it came to symbolise a happy childhood with her adopted family in America. When seven-year-old Joan discovered that her birth parents had survived, the reunification came as a shock.