Collection of documents from the estate of Irma Rothstern (nee Bernstein), born in Hamburg, 1886, who lived during the 1920s in Vienna, fled the Nazis in 1939 to Shanghai together with her son Heinz, and lived there until the early 1950s.
Items include: * Nazi passport in which Rothstern is called "Irma Sarah", stamped with a large red letter J. The passport, issued in 1939, includes stamps that attest to her departure from Germany, through Italy, to Hong Kong. * Four postcards sent to Rothstern in the years 1915-1917 (while she was living in Vienna), two of them sent by her husband and brother, who served in the army during World War I. * Letters of recommendation from her places of employment during the years 1928-1929 (in Vienna and Hamburg) and another letter from 1937. * Three documents from Shanghai, from the early 1950s, and three documents from Hamburg and Vienna from the first half of the 1950s. * Documents related to Irma's son, Heinz Rothstern, born in Vienna in 1915: seven report cards from his school in Vienna (1926-1930), two undated postcards sent to him during that period, a recommendation from a place of employment in Vienna in 1938, three documents from Shanghai from the 1940s-1950s, and two letters of recommendation from Hamburg from the early 1960s.
Irma Rothstern's husband, Isidor, was born in Moravia and lived in Vienna. Apparently, he died before the Nazi rise to power, and did not flee with his wife and son to Shanghai. Enclosed is a photograph of him and a birth certificate from Vienna, 1901, and a certificate from Moravia from 1920.
Total of about 30 items. Size and condition vary.