us-005578-irn523505-irn518997
type: RecordSet
physical characterisitics and technical requirements: Small, rectangular, black plastic comb, with 2 sets of teeth, one set on each side. There is a small hole on each end. It is stamped ni the center with product information. side, stamped, gold ink : GARANTIE GUMMIKAMM [WARRANTY RUBBER COMB]
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
date: 1941 February
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: deu
has record set type: Item
history: Hanni Lori Sondheimer was born on October 5, 1923, in Berlin, Germany. Her father, Moritz, was born on August 27, 1894 in Schluchtern, Germany, to Malchen Bergman Sondheimer, born in the 1860s. He had two sisters, Liesl and Herta. Her mother, Setty Polver, was born on October 28, 1897, in Hassfurt, Germany, and she had four sisters, Selma, Paula, Greta, and Sofie and two brothers, Hugo and Justin. Hanni had a younger brother, Karl, born on January 17, 1926. They were an observant Jewish family. Moritz owned a leather goods store. After Hitler came to power in 1933, the Nazi government sanctioned anti-Jewish boycotts and enacted anti-Jewish legislation that led Moritz decide to move his family to Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania, in 1934. He opened a small factory, Kasufa, which manufactured plastic combs and buttons as well as shoes and socks. He offered work to many Polish Jewish refugees who fled Poland due to anti-Semitism and the encroaching Nazi Reich. Hanni attended a German school, until her German classmates became openly anti-Semitic and many began wearing swastikas. She transferred to an ORT school, a Jewish vocational school, to learn millinery skills and had tutors to learn Hebrew. The family studied English, but they spoke German at home. Many of Moritz’s relatives fled Germany for Estonia in the 1930s; Setty’s siblings emigrated to the United States. After the Soviets occupied Lithuania in the summer of 1940, they nationalized Moritz's business and the family’s bank accounts. Moritz was fired because one of his secretary’s told the Russians that he tried to steal money. He later was able to get a job as a worker at his former factory. Two Russian soldiers were boarded with the family. Moritz went to the consulate to renew the family’s German passports in July 1940. He hoped their German citizenship would allow them some protection as they prepared to leave the country. Setty wrote to her sister and brothers in the United States for affidavits of support for U…
history: The comb was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2007 by Lloyd Vogelweid, the widower of Hanni Vogelweid, on behalf of the Estate of Hanni Vogelweid.
identifier: irn518997
is or was included in: us-005578-irn523505
record resource extent: overall: Height: 1.880 inches (4.775 cm) | Width: 3.120 inches (7.925 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Lice comb kept by 17 year old Hanni Sondheimer when she and her family fled in February 1941. The comb was made at the plastics factory owned by her father in Kaunas. Hanni, her parents, Moritz and Setty, and her 14 year old brother, Karl, fled Kaunas, Lithuania, due to the Soviet occupation in 1940. They planned to emigrate to the United States, but visa restrictions made them take a difficult route through Russia to Japan. Classified as stateless refugees when they reached Japan in March 1941, they were deported to Shanghai where they survived the war in the Hongkew ghetto. Hanni married a US soldier and emigrated to the United States in 1946. Her family emigrated the next year.
title: Stamped black plastic dust comb owned by a German Jewish refugee