nypoet2226 May 2007

whoops, deleted my reply by accident. the satchel was historically used by everybody, but especially frequently by Jews ever since the middle-ages. Since the middle-ages, Jews in Europe always had to be ready to grab their satchels at a moment's notice. You never knew when some peasant uprising or the whims of some nobility or church official would suddenly expel them from their homes with nothing but a couple books, some clothes, and what few valuables they might be able to carry.

Thus, in spite of the extraordinary circumstances of the holocaust, it was completely natural afterwards to pick yourself up if you could, grab a satchel and start walking. In their case, mostly away from central Europe, to the West, the USSR, South America or Israel.