Hannes family letters and postcards

The collection documents the Holocaust-era experiences of the Hannes family, originally of Hamburg, Germany. Included are five German Red Cross letters, dated from March 1943 to October 1944 from Luise Eugenie Hannes to her daughters Ruth (later Ruth Hannes Doswald) and Lieselotte (later Lieselotte E. Rosenmeyer), both of whom fled Hamburg to England. Her daughters’ responses are on the reverse of each letter. Also included are seven postcards addressed to Luise’s husband Dr. Berthold Hannes from former patients imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The postcards date from December 1943 to September 1944. Berthold Hannes (b. 1882) married Luise Eugenie Meyer (b. 1896) in 1919 in Hamburg, Germany. They had two daughters: Lieselotte (later Lieselotte “Lilo” Rosenmeyer, 1920-2006) and Ruth (later Ruth Hannes Doswald, b. 1928). Berthold was a doctor practicing in Hamburg. During the Holocaust, Lieselotte and Ruth were refugees in England while their parents remained in Hamburg. Lieselotte immigrated to the United States in 1947 and married Thomas Gustav Rosenmeyer in 1951. Ruth immigrated to the United States in 1953 and married Herman K. Doswald.