From the Golden City to Atlantic City—Claire’s life story began with her parents’ marriage in the “Golden City,” Prague in Czechoslovakia. Traveling from different countries with their own suitcases, her parents, Ester and Eugen, had met in Prague and fallen in love.

In July 1939, before the war began, at only five years old, Claire Perskie had to flee Prague. Her mother had secured fake passports that she, Claire, and her brother, Harry, used to join her father who had escaped earlier to England. While in London, Claire was fostered for a time by a wealthy English family. Her parents, although they had fled from tyranny and almost certain death, were viewed as aliens and were forced to register if they went more than five miles from their residence. Thus began Eugen’s mission—to have his Cousin Katie in Florida send him and his family U.S. visas. Many letters went back and forth across the Atlantic, and many were the heartbreaking delays because of WWII when the family was trapped in London during the Battle of Britain. Eugen wrote to Katie of his fears for his mother and sister still in Prague where the Nazis were burning synagogues and transporting Jews to death camps; he felt helpless not being able to save them.

After the war, the family immigrated to the U.S., staying briefly with Katie, but mostly looking for work in various states, Florida, North Carolina, Maryland, and finally in Atlantic City where they settled, running bed and breakfasts. As for most immigrants, life was not easy. But through hard work and perseverance the family prospered.

For many years Claire researched her family’s history wanting to write a memoir. Then in 2009, an old leather suitcase was found curbside in Milton, Florida. Rescued by a preservationist, who found letters from England inside the suitcase, the letters were sent to Claire who then told the story inside The Forsaken Suitcase. Claire’s memoir is a tragic story of loss and desperation but also of hope and resilience.

Her memoir is sui generis in that this aspect of the Holocaust has seldom been told. Readers will be inspired by the family’s triumph over the many overwhelming obstacles to immigration that were faced in Czechoslovakia and England as well as in the U.S.