Sondheimer Hanni
Sondheimer Hanni received transit visa no. 1320 at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas on 6 August 1940. Aged 16 in 1940.
Documents
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What the register records
- Nationality as recorded
- German
- Age in 1940
- 16
- Family, per the Kitade-Bluman list
- daughter of #1319
The journey
Reached Japan; reached Shanghai; registered in Kobe for USA.
What is known
Hanni Sondheimer, born in Berlin in 1923, fled Nazi Germany with her family in 1934 to Kaunas, Lithuania, where her father Moritz ran a small plastics factory. After the Soviet takeover in 1940, the family obtained German passports, a Curacao visa from Dutch Consul Zwartendijk, and Japanese transit visas from Sugihara—one of the few non-Polish families to receive them. They traveled via Moscow and the Trans-Siberian railroad to Vladivostok, then to Japan (Yokohama), and were deported to Shanghai in late summer 1941. After the war Hanni married a U.S. Army lieutenant and immigrated to Iowa in 1946, with her family following to Los Angeles the next year.
Japanese transit visa issued to Hanni Sondheimer. Hanni Lori Sondheimer is the daughter of Moritz and Setty Sondheimer. She was born on October 5, 1923 in Berlin, Germany and has a younger brother, Karl. In 1934, the family fled Nazi Germany and moved to Kaunas, Lithuania. Moritz had owned a leather goods store in Berlin, and in Kaunas he opened a small plastics factory which manufactured combs and buttons. He helped many Polish refugees by employing them in his factory. Hanni first attended a German school in Kaunas but after it became increasingly antisemitic, she transferred to an ORT school to learn millinery skills. After the Soviet take-over of Lithuanian in the summer 1940, the gov…
Transit visa issued to Hanni Sondheimer by Sugihara. The Sondheimers were among the few recipients of Sugihara visas who were not Polish citizens. Hanni was sent first to the Dutch Consul, Zwartendijk to get a final visa to Curacao and then to the Japanese consulate to apply for Japanese transit visas for the family. The family went to Moscow and traveled on the Trans-Siberian railroad in relative luxury. However, all their possessions were confiscated in Vladivostok.
Where this comes from
- Oral history interview with Hanni Vogelweid (née Sondheimer) — USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, interview 36950. Catalogue: born Oct 5 1923, Berlin (Prussia, Germany); born Berlin 5 Oct 1923; p… — the interviewee may be living
USC Shoah Foundation VHA interview 36950: Hanni Vogelweid (née Sondheimer) — the interviewee herself — gave a testimony (catalogue: born Oct 5 1923, Berlin (Prussia, Germany)); born Berlin 5 Oct 1923; parents Moritz and Malchen (Setty) Sondheimer, Nos.1319/1317 - Collections Search - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- USHMM: Japanese transit visa issued to Hanni Sondheimer.
- USHMM: German passport issued to Hanni Sondheimer (donor) by the German Consulate in Kaunas.
- USHMM: German passport issued to Hanni Sondheimer by the German Consulate in Kovno.
- USHMM: German passport issued to Hanni Sondheimer by the German Consulate in Kaunas.
- USHMM: Vocational training certificate for Hanni Sondheimer.
- Oral history interview with Hanni Vogelweid (née Sondheimer) — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Flight and Rescue collection (RG-50.494.0013)
- Oral history interview with Hanni Vogelweid (née Sondheimer) — USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, interview 36950. Catalogue: born Oct 5 1923, Berlin (Prussia, Germany); born Berlin 5 Oct 1923; p… — the interviewee may be living
- Catalogue still for the oral history of Hanni Vogelweid (née Sondheimer) — USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, interview 36950 (the archive's public catalogue frame, 352x240); links to the testimony at vha.usc.edu/testimony/36950