Charlotte Sonnenberg papers

Charlotte Alexander (1910-1999?, née Lichtendorf) was born on 22 January 1910 in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany to Regina and Emmanuel Lichtendorf. She had one brother. Her parents owned a store in in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler. She married Herbert Alexander (1902-1946) in 1937 in Germany and they lived in Leipzig. During Kristallnacht Herbert was arrested and imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp. After his release, the Alexanders fled Germany and immigrated to Shanghai, China. Herbert was a doctor and practiced medicine at a hospital run by the American Presbyterian Mission during the war. Herbert died of natural causes in 1946 and Charlotte immigrated to the United States in 1947. She settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and later remarried. The collection documents the Holocaust-era experiences of Charlotte Alexander (later Charlotte Sonnenberg) and her husband Herbert Alexander, and consists of a postcard written by Herbert to Charlotte during his imprisonment in the Buchenwald concentration camp following Kristallnacht, identification cards of Charlotte’s from Leipzig, Germany and Shanghai, China, and a photograph of Herbert’ tombstone in Shanghai.