Hanna Ben-Yami collection

Hanna Ben-Yami (born Hanna Glaser) was born on September 20, 1930 in Berlin, Germany to Dov-Ber Glaser and Berta Morgenbesser Glaser. Her father was a merchant. She had three siblings: Jeti (b. 1923) Shlomo (Sali) (b. 1925) and Tsvi (Heini) (b. 1927). Hanna attended the primary Jewish girl’s school in Berlin until 1941. Her father was deported to the Dachau concentration camp where he died on August 15, 1942, and her mother was deported to Auschwitz where she perished in February 1943. Hanna was deported from the Jewish hospital of Berlin to Theresienstadt on June 17, 1943. All her time at Theresienstadt she was ill from tuberculosis. She was liberated from Theresienstadt by the Soviet Army in May 1945. After being hospitalized at the Deggendorf DP camp in Bavaria, Hanna was sent to a tuberculosis sanatorium in Bavaria for a year. She recuperated, joined Kibbutz Alia at Meinkoffen. In 1947 she moved to Italy and joined a hachshara in Grottaferrata. The following year she immigrated to Israel where she married Menakhem Ben-Yami in August 1956. Her two brothers Shlomo and Tsvi also survived, but her sister Jeti perished in 1943.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The collection was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2004 by Hanna Ben-Yami.