Bertha Elisabeth Sonnenberg was a daughter of Adolph Sonnenberg from Hamburg (1855) and Carolina Wolff from Steenwijkerwold (1864). This couple married in Haarlem on 15 August 1894 and had five children in total, of whom a stillborn son in 1895 in Rotterdam.
A sister of Bertha was Helena Dorothea, born in Den Haag on 24 July 1899. She lived however at 2nd Helmersstraat in Amsterdam where she passed away on 17 April 1920, only 20 years old. She was interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Diemen on 23 April 1920.
Then she had a brother Max Joseph Sonnenberg, who survived the war. He worked as proxy in the men’s fashion sector and was married in 1925 to Louisa Johanna Boeker, who passed away on 18 January 1934 in Amsterdam, and afterwards, he remarried Elisabeth Hendrika Jacoba van Leeuwen. Before the war, Max Joseph Sonnenberg lived in Bussum, during the war in Amsterdam but returned to their former address Willem Bilderdijklaan 5 in Bussum after 1945, where he passed away on 6 January 1959, 63 years of age.
Bertha’s other sib was Siegmund Ferdinand Sonnenberg, born in Den Haag on 17 June 1903. He was unmarried and worked as office clerk. At some point Siegmund stayed in Buenos Aires but in July 1938 he returned to Bussum to the parental address Willem Bilderdijklaan 5, but from 24 August 1939 he lived and worked in Amsterdam. Since then, untill 31 December 1941, Siegmund certainly moved twelve times to other addresses; according his registration card from the Jewish Council, he lived at O.Z. Voorburgwal 139a in Amsterdam, which must have been his last known address. Siegmund Sonnenberg was deported from Camp Westerbork to Auschwitz on 19 October 1942 where he has lost his life after about four weeks, on 13 November 1942.
Bertha was unmarried to and she worked as maid and as home seamstress. She was born in Den Haag on 24 November 1897 and lived in succession in Bussum, Amsterdam, Brussels, back in Bussum, again in Amsterdam at the address Van Baerlestraat 92 upstairs, then at Haarlemmermeerstraat 100 2nd Floor and since 21 April 1941 again at Van Baerlestraat 92 down floor.
From Amsterdam Police reports of the Bureau Van Baerlestraat 13, dated 13 August 1942, the following about her is known: Bertha Sonnenberg, home seamstress, received a call from the nazis to go to Germany, to which she decided not to respond. As a result of that, she contacted someone, who she paid 350 guilders to find her a safe place to hide. Later she changed her mind and did not want to hide and wanted her money back but the person she gave it, refused to give it back. Therefore she wished to submit a declaration of scam for money at the police. A detective found still 25 guilders in the home of that person, the Amsterdam portrait painter Abram Abraham. Sonnenberg and Abraham were both transferred to the Bureau of Jewish Affairs and also the German Sicherheits Dienst (SD) was informed about this.
Bertha (Els) was immediately taken via the Hollandsche Schouwburg to Westerbork, where she was registered on 15 August 1942. Two days later already, she was put on transport to Auschwitz, where she arrived the 19th of 20th of August. It is not known whether Bertha has been killed immediately on arrival, or that she still has been selected for forced labor. As it is not known on which date exactly Bertha lost her life there, the Dutch Mininstry of Justice after the war ordered the municipality of Amsterdam to draw up a certificate of death for Bertha Elisabeth Sonnenberg, in which has been established that she has died in Auschwitz on 30 September 1942.
Sources: City Archive of Amsterdam, Digital Familytree of Den Haag; Digital Familytree of Rotterdam; website www.wiewaswie.nl; Newspaper NRC Handelsblad of 5 May 2019 with a publication from the Amsterdam Police Reports 1940-1945 regarding the "hiding" of Bertha Sonnenberg; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Bertha Sonnenberg and Siegmund Ferdinand Sonnenberg; the certificate of death for Bertha Elisabeth Sonnenbert, made out in Amsterdam on 25 August 1950, nr. 508 in register A47, folio 86-verso and an addition of a visitor of the website.