White armband with a blue embroidered Star of David worn in the Drzewica ghetto

Sven Sonnenberg was forced to wear this armband in the ghetto in Drzewica, Poland. Sven Sonnenberg was born in Grudziadz, Poland, on 17 Oct. 1931 to a Jewish father, Martin Sonnenberg, and a non-Jewish, German mother, Louise Theophil. In Nov. 1939, Sven, his parents, and his younger sister, Sylvia, were deported from Jablonowo, Poland, to the Płock ghetto. When the Płock ghetto was liquidated in 1941, the family was transferred to the Drzewica ghetto. During the liquidation of the Drzewica ghetto in 1942, Louise, Sven, and Sylvia escaped to a nearby forest where Martin was supposed to join them, but he never came. Louise found jobs as a cook first in a Polish conscript camp and then at the Helenówek orphanage. She died in 1949 of tuberculosis, and Sven and his sister were raised at the orphanage. Sven emigrated to the United States in 1968.