Hanni Vogelweid

Hanni [Sondheimer] Vogelweid (Oct. 5, 1923 - Jan. 27, 2006) was born in Berlin. Her family fled Germany when she was eleven, moving to Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania. When the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in 1940, Hanni's father decided they had to leave. Hanni, at 16 years old, stood in line outside Japanese Vice-Consul Chiune Sugihara's consulate for several days, finally obtaining transit visas from him, allowing her family to escape. The family traveled on the Trans-Siberian railway to Vladivostok, where they then boarded a ship for Japan. They remained stranded in Japan for many weeks until Japanese authorities forced them to relocate to Shanghai in Japanese-occupied China, in late 1941. Hanni and her family remained in Shanghai for the rest of the war. After the war, Hanni found a job working on the American Army base in Shanghai. She met and married an American officer stationed there. She returned with him to the United States in 1946.